Bigotry is Bad for Business - Jan Brewer and the Arizona Business Community

It seems that most bigots in politics are largely opportunists who often place personal advancement and/or media exposure ahead of the true best interests of their state or country. It's all about them and pandering to the lowest common denominator for short term political gain. It seems Arizona Governor Jan Brewer - a far right Missouri Synod Lutheran Christianist who is against LGBT equality - is a case in point. She jumped headlong into immigrant bashing and has seen an uptick in popularity in some circles, but the Arizona business community is none to happy with her because what's good for Brewer's ego satisfying celebrity is not so good for business. Newsweek has an article on the growing schism between Brewer - who seems to think she's the president of Concerned Women for America rather than the governor of a state where she is supposed to represent the needs of all citizens and residents - and the business community. Here are some highlights:
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Back before they grew distant, Barry Broome, head of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, would talk to Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer every few weeks. . . . he never imagined what was to come: that she would sign into law one of the nation’s most draconian illegal-immigration bills; pick a costly, high-profile fight with the federal government to defend it; and create a public-relations fiasco for the state.
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Strains between Brewer and the state’s business community are starting to show. Though her championing of the immigration measure has proved politically popular and catapulted her to national prominence, that success has come at a price. . . . Several companies have packed up and left. At least 40 groups have canceled conventions and conferences, says Debbie Johnson, CEO of the Arizona Hotel and Lodging Association. And the Phoenix area alone is projected to lose $92 million in business, according to Mayor Phil Gordon. “Anyone who says our image has not been hurt is living in a bubble,” he says.
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Many business leaders are reluctant to criticize Brewer publicly. . . . The state is perilously close to sealing a reputation as a bastion of intolerance. Phoenix “risks becoming the next Birmingham,” says Robert Lang of Brookings Mountain West, a think tank based in Las Vegas. Noting that Arizona is trying to diversify into the solar-energy and biotech industries, he adds, the state is “playing with fire…Who is in solar? Not the kind of people who are listening to Rush [Limbaugh].” It makes Gordon cringe.
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Many Latino organizations, both local and national, are leading the charge to punish the state economically. In many ways, the effort is shaping up as a de-fining civil-rights struggle for Hispanics. They’re pressuring baseball teams to boycott the state. They’re petitioning cities and states to cut off business ties (many have done so, including Los Angeles and St. Paul, Minn.). They’re urging artists to forswear performing there (among those who have agreed are Kanye West and Rage Against the Machine). And they’re warning other jurisdictions considering similar legislation that an equally potent backlash would await them.
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“We will make clear that the damage to Arizona can happen anywhere else that tries to pass a law like this,” says Alfredo Gutierrez, a former Arizona state senator . . . . He’s modeling his approach on the anti-apartheid campaigns against South Africa and has been reaching out to Latin American countries to discuss the possibility of sanctions. “We even have a committee in Rwanda,” he says. “I just discovered it while Googling.”
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Brewer’s likely Democratic opponent, state Attorney General Terry Goddard, may yet prove to be a tough adversary. He has fought crime linked to illegal immigration for years—credentials that give him legitimacy to attack her and the GOP for their handling of the issue. “This is the worst thing that ever happened for business in Arizona,” he says.
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One can only hope that Brewer and the forces of hate and intolerance lose in November. Arizona is certainly a state that the boyfriend and I won't be planning to visit anytime soon even though I have a family connection to the state that reaches back to the early 1920's. Meanwhile, Virginia's clinically insane Attorney General Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli is encouraging police to stop and question those in Virginia who look like they may be immigrants and ask for their documentation.