On Thursday, Arizona State Representative Dr. Randy Friese [D-Tucson] made yet another baseless claim on the floor of the House. This time, Friese claimed that Arizona’s absence from Amazon headquarters finalist list is due to the impression that the state’s “commitment to education, healthcare, public safety and equality is lacking as evidenced in the policies passed in the recent years.”
Friese stated that the absence is “our wake-up call, so let’s wake up.”
Friese claimed that the following policies prevented Amazon from choosing Arizona:
- Policies that inadequately fund our public schools
- Policies that divert public money/tax revenue from our public schools to religious and private schools
- Policies that disrespect a women’s right to make her own healthcare decisions
- Policies that restrict participation in our democratic process by making it harder to vote rather than easier
- Policies that disregard those families in need by making it harder to receive services
- Policies that restrict access to quality healthcare for Arizona children and childless adults
- Policies that favor the shareholder over the job holder
Friese’s fellow representatives are calling on him to wake up to the fact that virtually none of the policies he cited had anything to do with Amazon’s choice. On Thursday, Amazon listed 20 cities as finalist to house its newest headquarters. The company referred to the criteria outlined on the RFP sent out to cities that wanted to be considered as a host for the headquarters. The RFP reads in part:
In choosing the location for HQ2, Amazon has a preference for:
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- Metropolitan areas with more than one million people
- A stable and business-friendly environment
- Urban or suburban locations with the potential to attract and retain strong technical talent
- Communities that think big and creatively when considering locations and real estate options
HQ2 could be, but does not have to be:
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- An urban or downtown campus
- A similar layout to Amazon’s Seattle campus
- A development-prepped site. We want to encourage states/provinces and communities to think creatively for viable real estate options, while not negatively affecting our preferred timeline
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Only the Phoenix area would have qualified under these criteria.
Amazon selected:
| Montgomery County, MD Nashville, TN Newark, NJ New York City, NY Northern Virginia, VA Philadelphia, PA Pittsburgh, PA Raleigh, NC Toronto, ON Washington D.C. |
Atlanta, GA Austin, TX Boston, MA Chicago, IL Columbus, OH Dallas, TX Denver, CO Indianapolis, IN Los Angeles, CA Miami, FL |
Although Friese claimed that schools were a factor, according to USNews’ Ranking of Best Schools, among Amazon’s selected states, Florida is ranked #29, Pennsylvania, which has two cities among the finalists, ranked at #33, Georgia schools ranked #37, Ohio is ranked #38, and Texas is ranked #41. Arizona at #43 beat out West Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, New Mexico, Nevada, and South Carolina.
Last session, Friese stunned fellow southern Arizona colleagues when he introduced the former superintendent of the Tucson Unified School District, H.T. Sanchez, on the floor of the House. Although Sanchez’s forced resignation made headlines the day before, Friese introduced Sanchez as the “recently retired superintendent of the Tucson Unified School District.”
In the statement he delivered on Thursday he argued that “we have a crisis of leadership and a discordance of vision between Arizonans and their leaders.” One Republican lawmaker said after Friese’s speech, “Friese is the only leader facing a crisis; a crisis of confidence in his ability to separate fact from fiction.”
Rep. Bob Thorpe [R-Flagstaff] stated, “I was shocked to learn that Rep. Friese seems to have fabricated the facts within his statement on the House floor. When you read Amazon’s criteria for choosing HQ2, nowhere does it mention ‘state policies’ including education, it instead speaks to the qualities found within ‘cities’. I‘m confident that Amazon chose to go elsewhere because of the repressive liberal Democrat policies found within, for example, the cities of Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff, not the business-friendly policies of the state. As Friese should well know, a corporation’s decision where to locate typically rests on a number of criteria, but most importantly, the impact to its operating costs, such as cities and counties that provide the lowest taxes and the highest economic concessions. The progressive Democrat party has a long demonstrated history of penalizing businesses and corporations with job-killing high taxes, high minimum wages and required employee benefits. After vilifying them for years, it’s truly ironic that Arizona Democrats are now complaining when a corporation simply ignores Phoenix, due in no small part to the stated draconian liberal policies of their party.”
In September 2017, Tucson made national headlines when it sent a cactus to the head of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, as an incentive to locate the headquarters to southern Arizona. Tucson became a national joke and the move was described by Arizona Republic columnist Linda Valdez as “proof of the stupidity of Tucson’s corporate cheerleaders and a clear demonstration that my hometown is a bad pick for your new Amazon headquarters.”
“It pains me to say this, but don’t come here. Tucson is too dumb for you,” wrote Valdez. “Heaven knows we need the jobs. And the people of this community are great. But even the best Mexican food this side of the border can’t make up for this act of botanical cruelty.”
“Apparently, the brain trust in charge of Tucson’s economic development wanted to stand out from the crowd of cities salivating at the idea of being the new location for Amazon’s second corporate headquarters,” continued Valdez. “Who can blame them for wanting a prize that’s supposed to involve up to 50,000 full-time jobs and an investment of more than $5 billion over the next 10 to 15 years?”
To read more — Valdez: Tucson tortures a cactus to get Amazon’s attention — click here