There are a huge number of ballot measures on the ballot this year. So, between sleeping among the redwoods and white water rafting with my dog, I figured it would be fun to do my semi-annual summary of all of them.

Yep. This is what I call “fun.”

The handy way to think of them is that 11 of the 13 were referred from the legislature in an effort to get around a duly elected Democratic governor. As such, you can easily write most of them off as an ideological power play from the MAGA legislature. But, read below for the details before you do that. There are a couple from the legislature that you might like.

Here’s my take on them. I’ll be rolling out short videos on each, which you can follow my YouTube Channel and my Facebook Page. Ballotpedia.org has a list of all 13 ballot measures in Arizona, along with some basic comments from proponents and opponents. For a list with some editorial perspective, see this list of the 13 ballot measures from the New Times. The Copper Courier, a left-leaning independent publication that focuses mostly on capitol issues, shared their list here.

Reminder: Those measures numbered in the hundreds seek to amend the constitution and those numbered in the 300s seek to amend simple statute. All measures, once passed by the voters, are very difficult to amend.

Prop. 133: Partisan primaries for partisan offices

If you consider yourself an independent voter then this is terrible for you. Arizona has one of the largest percentages of independent voters in the country. This is a sneaky, attempt to shut down independent voters, and things like rank choice voting.

The proposition originates from the Republican legislature, which we’ve seen over recent years take more steps to not only entrench themselves, but favor the two-party system over registered Independents.

For example, back in 2015, they passed a law that dramatically increased the number of signatures needed for Independents, Green Party, Libertarians or other third parties to get on the ballot. None of the Democrats voted in favor, just in case you are thinking that both parties are “just as bad as the other.”

Anyway, this piece of cat poop proposition would enshrine partisan primaries into our constitution. This is a constitutional amendment. Let’s also remember that it is very difficult and very expensive to amend our constitution. In addition, it would outlaw open primaries and ranked choice voting.

I worked on a ranked choice voting (RCV) election in Australia in 2006 and the difference was clear — RCV helps pull people away from the tribal identities fostered by the two-party system and allows people to communicate better.

You don’t have to like RCV to know that this proposal is a cynical attempt to hold on to power.

Vote NO on Prop 133

Prop. 134: Changing voter initiative signature requirements

Jeeze! Nothing has changed since the days that I served on the elections committee in the state legislature. Back in those days Republicans made it easier to challenge your signature on a petition for a ballot measure, among other anti-democracy efforts.

This is more of the same. They’re just trying to make it harder for the people to be a check on the power of their radical legislature.

Here’s what this legislative referral would do. Currently if you want to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot, you have to get a number equaling 15% of the people who voted in the last governor’s election. If you want to get a statutory initiative on the ballot, you have to get 10%. Those signatures can come from anywhere in the state. This referral from the legislature would require you to get those same percentages from every single one of the 15 counties in Arizona.

(Can you name them all without looking?)

Sounds fair, right? But think about it. It would mean that, even if you reach those numbers in 14 of the 15 counties, but in only one county you don’t reach those signature requirements, that one county could hold up progress for the whole state. It’s an effective veto, or a kind of county filabuster.

A minority of voters could dictate policy for the majority of citizens of the state. If you don’t like the electoral college, you should not like this for the same reason.

Republicans and MAGA conservatives see the writing on the wall and they know that the state is changing. They know that people want better schools, they want clean energy, and they want smart elections reform. These guys are happy to rig the system to stay in power.

Vote No on Prop 134.

Prop: 135: Declaring emergencies

This proposal from the legislature really originates from the radical Free Enterprise Club –because they have a huge influence there. The Free Enterprise Club is a bunch of right wing ideologues who spent way too much time reading Ian Rand books under their covers with a flashlight when they were teenagers, thinking it was good literature and smart philosophy.

Hint: It is neither.

This ballot measure is in response to Republican governor Doug Ducey‘s emergency declarations during the Covid response. It requires the Arizona legislature to re-approve every emergency declaration after 30 days, other than war, fire, and flood declarations.

But when you talk to people with experience around emergency declarations and emergencies, they will tell you this is unworkable.

First, such a requirement would put a halt to a lot of federal emergency funding. Most emergency responses last for more than 30 days. Be assured that the federal government will not allow their funding to be left to the whims of our infamously backward legislature.

Second, how could you depend on the legislature to re-approve an emergency decoration when they can barely agree on what time to break for lunch?

In addition, what do you do when the legislature is not in session? They don’t all have to come back to vote if they don’t want to. It makes emergency preparedness fundamentally weaker.

Vote No on Prop 135.

Prop: 136: Challenging initiatives’ constitutionality

This one falls into the category I described before in which the republican legislature just can’t get their sunbaked brains around the idea that the public has a say and how their constitutional democracy should work. You know, they way it was designed 112 years ago.

Just as they did back when I was in the legislature, they are looking for ways to stop any initiative that they don’t like.

It allows voter-organized constitutional amendments to be challenged in court after the measure is filed with the secretary of state’s office but before ballots are printed. This is designed to give opponents of any measure more opportunities to torpedo the effort before voters have a chance to vote on them

The voters have spoken many times on things that they care about. Everything from legalizing marijuana, to raising teacher pay and making a more fair tax code.

Time and again, this ideological legislature has been able to thwart the public’s effort. This will make that even easier.

Vote No on Prop 136.

Prop. 137: End term limits for state Supreme Court justices

It’s like somebody told the Arizona legislature that the US Supreme Court is the most corrupt that it’s ever been. So the Arizona legislature responded, “here, hold my beer.”

If you think that, maybe the US Supreme Court should move toward term limits of some sort, then you should hate this. This is taking a system that has worked well for decades and creates lifetime appointments for Arizona Supreme Court justices.

Not only that, but it does so retroactively in order to protect two particular Arizona Supreme Court justices who are coming up for term renewal. They voted in favor of the 1864 abortion ban. One of those Supreme Court justices is the husband of a legislator who voted in favor of that ban. 

Let’s back up and set some context.

In some states, judges are elected. They campaign, raise money and show up on the ballot. That is a terrible idea. It means judges are out raising money sometimes from questionable people and special interests. Further, it means they less likely to stand up to the public when they have taken on a mob mentality.

Other states have only appointments. 

The Arizona system for appointing and retaining judges is a really nice hybrid. The judges are appointed for life, but in for four-year terms. Every time their term ends, the voters have a chance to say if they think that Justice should not be retained. Typically, this only occurs when there is some kind of behavioral issues or corruption. It very seldom happens that a judge is removed from the bench. But the option is there. The process of responding to complaints against judges is handled by the Arizona Commission on Judicial Conduct.

On the other end of the spectrum, you have something like the US Supreme Court, with their life appointements they have become seemingly immune to any form of accountability for their behavior.

This ballot measure would make the Arizona court just like the US Supreme Court, which we all know is very problematic.

If you ever wanted evidence that we are living in a George Orwellian dystopian world, be aware that the legislature named this the Judicial Accountability Act of 2024. Creating lifetime appointments for judges, which by definition reduces accountability.

Vote No on Prop 137.

Prop: 138: Reducing wages for tipped workers

Before I comment on this, I just have to say that this country needs to finally give up this whole tipping system. I love the Australian model the most. In the Land Down Under workers are paid a livable wage, but you can tip them if you want. There is no heavy-handed obligation to tip them so that they can make a living because the restaurant franchise they work for wants to save more money for their shareholders.

In fact, there are moves across the US to force restaurants to skip the tip and pay workers a livable wage. Have a look at this summary video of how we got here, how folks are reforming it and how some in even the restaurant associations are seeing that a flat wage is better for employee retention.

When you understand that tipping in America has its origins in post Civil War attempts to under-pay Black folks, and that it grew in popularity during the Great Depression, and that we are the only country that does it, you can see why we need to change it.

In short, this measure allows the restaurant to pay a worker up to 25% less if their tips reach minimum wage. Here’s a crazy thought. Just pay them a livable wage!

It is particularly cynical that the legislature titled this one, “The Tipped Worker Protection Act.“ When would it actually does is reduce a tip workers income.

Vote No on Prop 138.

Prop. 139: Expanding abortion access and freedom

Of all of the ballot measures, you’ve probably known about this one for a while. They collected over 800,000 signatures to get on the ballot. I think that might be a new record.

It protects abortions up to fetal viability, which is usually about 23 or 24 weeks. And it prevents the state from enforcing laws that prohibit abortion if the mother’s life is at risk.

This last part of the ballot measure is where the other side pulls a magic rabbit out of their behinds and try to say that people abort children up until they are born.

This is a tall, stinky pile of fear, mongering crap.

The reality is that it is exceedingly rare that a pregnancy has gone so terribly at such a late point in the pregnancy that an abortion has to occur. By then, the baby is often already dead.

What is not rare is the huge number of preventable deaths across the country, post Dobbs decision. These are women who could not gain access for reasonable healthcare services because the government in certain states, including Arizona for now, is involving itself in decisions that they have no justifiable government interest in.

Let’s consider the counter-narrative on this one. If this does not pass, then you can be certain this legislature will pass another draconian, anti-woman, anti-abortion bill, which will probably not even allow for abortions in the cases of rape or incest.

Vote Yes on Prop 139.

Prop. 140: Eliminating partisan primaries

I am a little torn on this one, although I will vote in favor because at least it’s moving things forward. And I believe that voting against it will set back much-needed reforms in Arizona by 10 years. Let me explain what I mean.

There are many of us who have been working on ranked choice voting (RCV) for years. Ranked choice voting is when you get to rank the candidates in the order you would like to see them win. The votes are counted in such a way that the person with the greatest number of votes wins, but you don’t have to have a primary and general election.

It’s very handy because you can have two or three or seven or nine candidates on the ballot for a particular position and still figure out the winner in one vote.

I got to work on a rain choice voting election in Australia in 2006 where they’ve been doing it for decades. It is amazing to see that when you can rank the candidates in the order you like them all this room for conversation. People become less tied to their party identity.

This particular ballot measure eliminates the party primary and creates an open primary system where everybody runs regardless of party.

I’m not a fan of open primaries. Basically they promise to make a more congenial electoral atmosphere, but we already have partisan primaries at the city level and people still know what party their candidates are in. 

The drafters of this initiative included rank choice voting in some instances. But what really gets me is that in those instances they leave it to the legislature to decide how many candidates will be listed on that rank choice voting ballot.

After six years in the legislature and many more years working around that dysfunctional temple of egoism, I wouldn’t trust the legislature to choose something as important as this. I know that the Republicans would come up with some genius scheme to undermine the vote. And I know the Democrats would fight amongst themselves in some unnecessary and embarrassing way.

Groups on the far right are opposing this because they think RCV is a scam, and will cause them to lose power. Groups on the left oppose this because of this problem with the legislature. They have justifiable concerns that the legislature can’t be trusted, as do I.

Here’s my thread on Twitter about why I disagree with them. In short, I think they are not accounting for how the legislature will moderate in just a few cycles with open primaries, such that we can pass true RCV.

But I do believe that the open primary system, despite its flaws, will make our very extreme legislature more moderate. Over only two or three election cycles, I believe the legislature will moderate enough that we can either trust them on how they allow for ranked choice voting and/or they will propose a ballot measure to eliminate their role.

In other words, I think the opponents of Prop 140 are thinking two dimensionally, and are not accounting for how time will advance the desire for more voting options, not fewer.

If I had Jeff Bezos money, I would’ve introduced rank choice voting to cities first so people get comfortable with it. I have always said that rank choice voting is “better when experienced than when explained.”

But I don’t have Jeff Bezos money. Hell, I don’t have 1/10th of Jeff Goldblume’s money. So, I’ll take some amount of progress is better than none. Furthermore, I fear that if this loses, it will take the wind out of the sales of elections reform for many years to come.

The system we have now in trenches and ass backward way of governing, it in rewards extremism. And it excludes a third of the population from participating. 

This measure does something else that, if you are a registered Independent, you definitely want. If you look up at my description of Prop 133, you’ll see how I described how the Republican legislature in 2015 dramatically increased the number of signatures needed for Independents, Green Party, Libertarians and others to put their names on the ballot.

This measure removes that and equalizes the signatures needed to get on the ballot.

That may be worth the risk of the problematic parts of the measure.

I’ll be voting Yes on Prop 140.

Prop. 311: Conviction fee

This is one which was referred to the ballot from the legislature, and it amends statute.

I don’t have a problem with this measure in terms of structure. It does not seem to be a “gotcha” measure, infused with MAGA juice.

It adds a $20 fine to all criminal offenses to fund a public life insurance fund for first responders, police officers, and corrections workers who are killed by a criminal act while on the job. 

A “yes” vote shall have the effect of requiring the State of Arizona to pay $250,000, which would be referred to as the State Death Benefit, to the surviving spouse or children of a first responder killed in the line of duty; creating a State Supplemental Benefit Fund to pay the State Death Benefit; broadening the definition of aggravated assault; and require a $20 penalty fee be imposed on every fine, penalty and forfeiture for any criminal offense.

My former seat mate and wonderful person, Senator Lela Alston did say “I do have a problem with this bill, and that is that it creates another fine that is disproportionate to certain members of our population. And it would be a preferable option to me if we were to pay that the death benefit directly out of the general fund to the family of the firefighter or police officer who was killed and not do any more fines in our legal system.”

I’ll probably vote against, since I do respect Lela’s opinion on topics such as these.

Prop. 312: Property tax refunds for public nuisance

This one seems to be another MAGA brainchild. It would allow property owners to apply for a tax refund on their city taxes if they feel the city has not upheld public nuisance laws. Read “moved the homeless along.” 

The property owner can seek return of taxes up to the amount that they’ve had to spend to try to deal with homelessness issues on their property. 

Here’s my problem with this. Rather than fully funding cities to deal with homelessness –a decades-long problem thanks to this legislature– this measure will drain cities of the very resources they need to deal with homelessness. I predict that, not only will people abuse this ability to get a tax refund, but also that we will see the unintended consequences pretty quickly. I think there will be a move to repeal this sometime in the next ten years.

Vote no on Prop 312. There are a myriad of better ways to address homelessness.

Prop. 313: Life imprisonment for child sex trafficking

Nobody wants to come down on the side of sex traffickers. These folks are the scum of the earth, and they deserve to sit inside a cinder block suite for decades. 

Here’s the problem, which we’ve seen with many “tough on crime” laws like this. It forces judges hands. They can only put somebody away for life.

But what this measure does not contemplate is that sometimes the victims of sex trafficking are also brought up on sex trafficking charges. Those folks would have a mandatory life sentence, even if the judge sees the reality of what’s happened and would like to find a better remedy. 

I can’t say for sure, but this also feels like a measure that is designed to move a certain kind of voter to the polls. 

I’ll probably vote no on this one.

Prop. 314: The “Secure the Border Act”

It’s the Prop1070 call-back that you never wanted or asked for!

If the last one might have been designed to drive some voters to the polls, this one does, for sure. 

It creates a list of new crimes for undocumented persons regarding (1)  applying for a public benefit by submitting a false document; (2) submitting false information to an employer regarding the person’s authorization; (3) entering Arizona from a foreign country at any location other than a lawful port of entry; (4) remaining in the country if the person has been convicted of certain crimes and a court has ordered them to return to their country of origin or entry. Also creates a new crime of selling fentanyl that causes the death of another person. Requires state courts to issue deportation orders against any person convicted of these crimes and authorizes state and local law enforcement to enforce the deportation orders.

This measure does not provide funding for cities, towns and counties to cover the cost of their newly-deputized local police. 

The Copper Courier reports that this creates new warrantless searches, would cost localities $325M more per year, and an additional cost of $50M per year to our prison system.

There are a lot of things that the legislature could do to deal with illegal immigration, even though this is a federal issue. But this one will be challenged in court and much of it probably thrown out. 

For me, it is not a serious effort to deal with a very complex problem. 

Vote No on Prop 314

Prop. 315: Preventing regulations that cost more than $500,000

This is another MAGA mind-fart. It would prohibit any state agency from implementing a rule that is estimated to cost more than $500,000 in regulatory costs over 5 years without first going to the legislature for approval. This would not apply to emergency declarations.

Let’s set aside that $100,000 per year becomes amazingly restrictive in just a few years with natural inflation. This referral to the ballot is insanely short-sighted and is designed to throw more sand in the workings of government, just for the sake of it.

There are a whole number of actions that state agencies take, most often after a public rule-making process, which would be interrupted. It could happen at the Department of Veterans Affairs, or the Department of Environmental Quality. The departments would be tied up and gagged when it comes to issuing reasonable rules, with public input, that protect the public. 

Remember, once something is passed by the public, it is really hard to change. If passed, this will certainly become problematic very quickly. 

You can not like local government and still see how this will lead to disaster. 

Vote No on Prop 315

An unexpected thing has been happening in the Pacific Northwest in the last decade. People have been removing earth and dams and hydroelectric dams along major waterways.

As my tour looped around, past Portland and as I began to head south along the Oregon and California coasts, I reached out to a group I had learned has successfully removed dams along the Klamath River.

I interviewed Craig Tucker, one of the catalysts of a plan started over 15 years ago, which seemed like a crazy idea at the time.

I imagined Craig and others siting around like the cast of Scooby Doo saying, “It’s so crazy, it just might work!”

When we met in Craig’s office in Arcata California, we discussed why the dams were removed, how the region makes up the difference in hydro power that is lost with the dams are removed and how he learned to be a good ally to local first nations.

For me, this was particularly related to my current van tour and thinking about what is next in my career. Craig and his allies demonstrated patience in the face of massive odds and Craig in particular spoke about how he became a better ally to Tribal advocates over time.

You can see images of the dam removal on the Reconnect Klamath website and learn more. We could only get to so much in 10 minutes. As we know, that’s already like publishing a full length novel in the world of YouTube.

Craig also spoke about the coming massive investments in wind energy from RWE and Vineyard Offshore Wind coming soon off the coast of California, and what that means for the region.

Consider this recent YouTube post from Portland to be a video version of my 2019 blog post on the unknown way to stop the spreading influence of lobbyists.

Or, as they say on all those social media videos when they try to get you to click, “Lobbyists are fuming at this secret method to stop their influence!”

Only in this video, you also get to watch Ellie catch frisbees. It’s glorious! And I’m not at all biased.

I know this issue will not get anywhere near center stage in this presidential election. But I sure wish we could take this opportunity to demand both candidates use this clever and constitutional tactic to restrict the power of lobbyists.

You can’t “drain the swamp” without removing the power of lobbyists, after all.

You can’t really take on corporations unless you defang their paid brokers.

Lobbyists make a 76,000% return on investment for their clients.

What do you think?

In the Duck Curve video I explained how this very solvable problem is being used by utilities to slow the growth of renewables and batteries on homes and businesses.

And through this example of how a dam can be a mind bogglingly huge battery, once you learn about the innovation of pumped hydro, I show that the utilities could be doing more to access more renewables, solve issues around intermittence and lower costs.

This and other innovations are proving why your Arizona utility and Corporation Commission would rather raise rates on you, and saddle all of us with higher bills for 30 years than support clean energy plus batteries and energy efficiency

In short, Arizona utilities are raising your rates and polluting our skies with new methane gas plants because they don’t want to give up profit –you know, “public service.”

I tell you how in this video.

As I’ve been driving around the west, I’ve still been paying my electric bill back in Phoenix. The folks watching my house are doing a great job conserving energy, but we’ve all been shocked by just how insanely fast the power bill has increased over last year.

This terrible dynamic is even worse for people less privileged than myself. In some parts of the state, people are literally paying the utilities to install more methane gas power plants and, in turn to be provided dirtier air for them and their children to breath.

Once you understand how the key decisions from our utilities are making the air dirtier and saddling us with volatile methane gas prices for the next 30 years, you can’t unsee it.

Watch at your own risk.

When utilities want to tell you how bad renewables are –particularly solar and batteries on homes an businesses– they turn to the duck curve.

The duck curve demonstrates how demand on the energy grid drops off significantly during the middle of the day, due to all the solar panels on houses, and then rockets back up in the evening as soon as the sun begins to set and people come home to turn on all of their heating, cooling and energy hog appliances.

The system, they say, can’t handle the variability.

You still with me? Or did I lose you at “energy grid?”

Well, stick with me because in this video I describe the real reason that utilities don’t want you to have more solar on your home. Spoiler alert, its money. But there is more to it than that, and there is something we can do about it.

The core of the problem is based in a century-old design feature of public utility commissions that regulate monopolies. In Arizona we have the Arizona Corporation Commission, or the ACC, which does this. In our case, our ACC is dominated by people who roll over for the utilities when it comes to clean energy, batteries and energy efficiency. 

Those commissioners and utilities try to scare people with untrue tales of “reduced reliability” due to renewables on your home. Balderdash!

This video is designed to be an intro to the concepts of the duck curve and why renewables + batteries + energy efficiency can solve the problem –and why utilities don’t want that to happen.

We’ve known for some time that this “trifecta of clean energy” is the solution to the problem of the duck curve, but entrenched interests continue to push back. Cries that California has higher energy costs due to renewables are either misinformed or a lie, and you will see why in the video.

Plus, there is more of Ellie.

I know. You are here for Ellie. I’m cool with that.

Thanks, one last time, to our friends at the Cromford Report. Their in-depth analysis over the last 18 years has given me an edge as a realtor. I hope you’ve gained from them as well.

To highlight…

Here are the basics – the ARMLS numbers for September 1, 2024 compared with September 1, 2023 for all areas & types:

• Active Listings (excluding UCB & CCBS): 18,430 versus 11,969 last year – up 54% – and up 5.5% from 17,474 last month
• Active Listings (including UCB & CCBS): 21,047 versus 14,476 last year – up 45% – and up 3.6% compared with 20,320 last month
• Pending Listings: 4,041 versus 4,604 last year – down 12.2% – and down 9.0% from 4,441 last month
• Under Contract Listings (including Pending, CCBS & UCB): 6,658 versus 7,111 last year – down 6.4% – and down 8.6% from 7,287 last month
• Monthly Sales: 5,683 versus 6,267 last year – down 9.3% – and down 8.5% from 6,208 last month
• Monthly Average Sales Price per Sq. Ft.: $290.60 versus $282.14 last year – up 3.0% – and up 1.3% from $286.74 last month
• Monthly Median Sales Price: $440,000 versus $435,000 last year – up 1.1% – but unchanged from $440,000 last month

The re-sale market continues in the doldrums and has reacted very little so far to the lower mortgage rates that have emerged since July. Under contract listings went down a further 8.6% during August rather than staging a recovery. Demand appears to be stronger in the new home sector but that has a relatively modest effect on the MLS statistics because the bulk of new homes are not listed on the MLS. However one look at the stock price charts for the major homebuilders will tell you they are in a good mood.

Re-sale supply usually rises between August and November, but this year the trend got off to an early start and we have 5.5% more listings active and without a contract than a month ago. With demand weak and supply rising, sellers are not getting the break they were probably hoping for. Concession to buyers and price cuts continue to be common and widespread.

The Cromford® Market Index slipped below 100 at the end of July and spent all of August hovering between 99 and 100. We rarely see such little movement in the CMI. The contract ratio is somewhat less stable, falling from 42 to 36 and this represents a further cooling in the market. It seems many potential buyers want to see rates drop below 6% before they make a move.

The only bright spot for sellers is that pricing improved during August with the average $/SF rising 1.3% from July. However the median sales price was unchanged and is up only 1.1% from a year ago. This is less than inflation so in real terms homes are cheaper than this time last year. This statement does not apply to the very top end of the market which has significantly risen in price over the last 12 months. In fact we saw a new record of almost $32.4 million paid for a new home just completed in Paradise Valley’s Mummy Mountain Estates. Unusually, this was a spec home and it sold for more than $2,000 per sq. ft. The market over $5 million is not seeing the same conditions as the regular market.

In August I found myself in Bozeman and Missoula. Only a couple weeks after Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race.

Coming on the heels of my conversations about nihilism, I met people who were finding purpose and meaning in the everyday, repetitive and often frustrating activities which accumulate to real success over time.

On the same day that Donald Trump brought his circus to the town of Bozeman, I interviewed Alecia Jongeward in a park down the street from the pop-up market of absurd campaign nicknacks. Just a mile separated us, but we might as well have been living in different time lines.

Alecia is a former teacher who guided students at her high school over many years as they took on increasingly challenging projects. They started with recycling in school, then created their own state-wide climate summit, raised over $100,000 to install solar panels on their school and most recently secured an EPA grant for all-electric school buses.

It was an amazing juxtaposition. In one corner was an old showman trying to convince Americans that the future is bleak in order to coalesce power; a one-trick pony in the center ring trying desperately to keep the show alive by weaving stories of better days and imaginary enemies hidden among our friends and neighbors.

In the other corner were students, pushing their teacher to let them move faster with all of their plans to make their future better than our dystopian present. They see existing in balance on our planet as the the most important and meaningful future to work toward. To them, renewable energy represents clean air, jobs, energy independence, innovation and hope. This is not an academic argument for them. They flatly reject the (easily proven) false claims from the circus ringmaster that clean energy and sustainable practices are bad for our country.

In some ways, their resolute drive ignores the circus master. They know with every action they take that his time in this world is short. And while the damage he has done will drain us for a generation, we can survive and we can find a thousand better ways to live in balance with the very environment that sustains our existence.

In Missoula, I met much older people who were fighting just as hard against astounding odds. The volunteers with 350 Montana probably averaged in their 60s. They certainly know that they will not see the fruits of their labor. They are the truly selfless.

They could have chosen the nihilistic route. They could have found some active retirement community somewhere, martini in hand, to watch the world slip in to further despair. They could have said, “I’m only going to help my family.” They could have allowed the ringmaster to convince them that they should blame whatever boogyman he served up for them that day.

But they chose to help all of our families.

Alecia’s students described their motivation as enraged optimism. For me, trying to exorcise nihilism from my life, enraged optimism provides new fuel for the fight.

It’s tough to talk about this particular topic.

I don’t want it to sound as if I don’t take responsibility for allowing nihilism to infect my life. Because I do. Although it might come across that way in the video I shot from Yellowstone.

This starts back when Trump was first elected in 2016. When we first saw that he was employing the same tried and true techniques of similar authoritarian figures: sewing mistrust in the media in order to get people to throw their hands up and only believe him, rejecting objective scientific truth, embracing conspiracy theories to confuse issues and dividing the country in to “us and them”.

Around that time I also saw just how destructive many of the “Bernie Bros” were, as they seemed to enjoy making political discourse angrier and less compassionate. This was a candidate I supported, but I saw over the campaign year how some of his followers turned toward litmus test politics as a means to gain power, having little experience and little understanding of how much that approach only served to fracture a party that dearly needed to be unified.

Some of the infection of nihilism, to be sure, had its roots going back two decades as I fought seemingly fruitlessly to express to people how we needed to live more in balance with our environment. Whether that meant addressing climate change, finding healthier agricultural practices, reducing over-fishing or conserving precious water in the desert, I saw time and time again that the public vacillated between expressing concern but also rejecting any meaningful efforts to do anything about it.

It seemed that people were unwilling or unable to restrain their rabid desire to consume and expand outward, damning all evidence from the environment around which shows us that populations that don’t live in balance soon collapse.

As we moved in to the latter half of the 2010s, the often-ignored predictions of environmentalists from decades prior became more real: water depletions in the desert, heat islands, mountains of plastic waste, carbon emissions and increasingly larger and larger vehicles, each carrying only one passenger on a degrading long commute, were depleting air quality.

I looked around at my fellow Democratic legislators. Some of whom were happy to pound their desks sanctimoniously about the need to protect the environment. But then they would toddle off at the end of their days to their gas guzzling trucks, with pristine, never used truck liners; oblivious to their own contributions to the problem.

I have no objection to trucks, by the way. But the majority of people who have them use them less than 1% of the time to haul anything, let to make a living with their use.

But my growing pessimism about humans and the growth of myopic Christian nationalism served as the rich soil for the seeds of nihilism that came next.

Looking back, I can’t find a good reason that I found myself in a relationship with a proud nihilist. I was most certainly afraid of being alone and probably felt that this person, who was pursuing me enthusiastically, was as good as it would ever get. While I believed I was strong enough to help this person evolve in to a more optimistic and productive contributor to society, I had no idea just how toxic nihilism is, or how it would eat away at my resolve.

I found myself thinking, even as I fought hard to defeat the malicious legislation being run in the Arizona Legislature, that none of our efforts mattered. And by that, I don’t mean in the sense that we should not take things so seriously. Rather that all of our political efforts are for naught. After all, I can still hear the infectious thoughts now, humans are incapable by design of controlling themselves, or that Americans are doomed to lose their democracy to authoritarians. All populations in the natural world, where humans exists, will expand until they collapse. All democracies eventually contort in to dictatorships, I too often thought.

I became miserable, despite my efforts. I escaped in to my weekends and took all the wrong steps to avoid the reality around me. As I progressed down the hole of nihilism, I disliked myself more and more. I was a failure and a fraud because I could not stand up strong and fight. I am, after all, from Arizona, the state of luminaries like Gabby Giffords and John McCain, who endured thousands of times more hardship than simple nagging nihilism.

And, it is not lost on me that giving in to nihilism is a very privileged act. So many people do not have the luxury to become paralyzed by pessimism. This fact also added to my deepening self-loathing.

This, I’ve come to believe, is probably why I lost my 2018 election. I stopped thinking creatively and enthusiastically, as I had back in the days when I spearheaded efforts to reform redistricting or when I managed a campaign (with an all-star cast of leaders) to defeat payday lenders in Arizona.

I endorsed a running mate more out of just “doing things they way they’ve always been done” rather than listening to my inner voice that had always sought fairness and progress.

After my loss, I was devastated. And unlike my loss in 2010, I did not get back on the horse. I checked out. I felt that I needed to re-assess everything. My relationship with the nihilist ended, not surprisingly because she was not honest about who she was, and I was bitter. Very bitter.

I resolve to find my way out of the pit I was in, but that did not mean that I new how to defeat the cancer of nihilism.

Over 2019 I got a Kundalini Yoga teaching certificate, despite being a healthy skeptic of all of that. I went to Burning Man. To be fair, I did it in the most “Ken Clark” way. I produced a 6-part video series on whether the event lived up to its principles.

I also rafted the Colorado River for the second time.

But the nihilism stuck with me and gnawed at me, though. I continued to escape reality through parties and ill-advised relationships. While I liked being a realtor and loved helping clients, I saw a market increasingly dominated by venture capitol firms buying up hundreds of thousands of homes, driving up prices, driving first time home buyers out of the market and adding to homelessness.

I turned a corner in 2020, oddly enough while the rest of the world crumbled under Covid and a tense election.

I found myself consulting for a whole list of groups working on various elements of the energy transition: electric vehicles, renewable energy, energy efficiency, coal transition and the energy/water nexus. These were all brilliant and dedicated people who on a daily basis fought and most often lost battles against fossil fuel-sponsored politicians and companies. Yet they came back to the fight every day.

Rather than hating myself for not being strong enough to rebound after 2018, in working with these people I came to see that I was part of a community that always had been and may always be fighting a fight that can only ever be won incrementally.

I came to realize that there are two things that most effectively fight noxious nihilism: community and scope.

When we work in a community of people, we can see progress. Even if that progress is slow and halting, if we have a community that we trust and admire, when we believe in the cause, we can keep pessimism at bay.

It may seem like such an obvious thing to some. I know some great activists and politicians to report that they regain their strength after every battle through their significant others, through their families. That was lacking for me. I loved my parents while they were alive, and extended family. But they are all conservative and we just didn’t have the type of relationship that allowed me to unwind and recharge.

And, of course, my romantic relationship at the time drained me at the end of the day, rather than nourished me. I can only blame myself for getting myself in to that, of course.

The other crucial part of fighting nihilism is scope. It took me longer to realize this. None of us, not even the most effective public servant can solve every problem alone. As I railed against people for failing to strive to live in balance with our environment, for supporting news organizations that were obviously lying to them about climate change, or for putting immediate wants over the needs of the next generations, I failed to see were we were advancing.

While it feels like we will not decarbonize in time to avoid the worst damage and human loss, for instance, perhaps my scope now is to fight just as hard to minimize it. After all, the price of renewables and batteries have been dropping like a rock, and the pace of innovation is inspiring.

That just leaves us the task of convincing lawmakers to do the right that. Well, that’s my wheel house. I can pick up an oar and row with others in that boat.

So, it may seem like an obvious thing to some that nobody can do it alone, or that you need community.

They are old tropes, right? But that is the very nature of an affliction such as nihilism. It is blinding.

So, here I sit in my van on this remote work van live adventure. I still struggle with nihilism, as any person with a chronic disease might. But it is not what it is.

I’m on this adventure with the specific goal of finding where I want to plug in again. Not if.

Where can I find the community and scope that will keep me nourished and keep me fighting.

It may be in Arizona. It may not. I’m still thinking of the factors that will define that next step.

Where is your community and what is your scope?

The end of this week will mark almost one month on the road of my remote work van life tour. It stops me in my tracks to remember how I was counting down the days, impatiently in 110 degree heat, to leave Phoenix, frustrated by how behind schedule Tommy Camper Vans was. But here I am, almost 30 sleeps and 3,000 miles later.

Life, even when you are anticipating a big event, speeds on faster every year.

To review, my mission has been to reflect on whether it may be time to leave Arizona, or at least Phoenix.

I have no conclusions yet. But I’ve had some amazing conversations that have given me time to reflect on coincidence, on privilege and on nihilism.

On Coincidence

Two days in to the trip, in Durango, I had a most amazing experience, which gave me the feeling that the universe was talking to me. See this video about that.

I spent the first two days of the week struggling to get a good Internet signal so I could be on my work calls, Ellie got diarrhea, I had to find a veterinarian, I was trying to fix little things in the van and I was getting used to the new reality of living in this small space. I was deeply frustrated and despondent, despite knowing that this too would pass.

Yet, as if a message from a higher power, on my second evening in Durango I ran in to two comfortably familiar people that I know from the Phoenix political and sustainability communities. Not only did I see friendly faces, but they invited me to come visit their 22-acre property the next day, just outside of town. There I used the office they had built in the attic of their old barn to host my calls for the day, to catch up on work with full Internet signal and to just get a breath. I had a chance to visit with their sheep and llamas, to see the Animas River along their property and to give Ellie a break from the van.

This couple had moved to Durango part time a few years ago. Currently, they are renting out the larger home on the property to tourists and they are living in their Airstream while they build a smaller, downsized home for themselves. Meanwhile, their son and his partner built a tiny home on the property, and they are all working busily to create a shared vision for a place to live.

The husband had run for the Corporation Commission some years prior, and the wife used to own a business in Phoenix. I could not have asked for a better connection, not only at a time when I was in need of friendly faces, but also to fit so perfectly in to the theme of this entire series.

They both considered the same questions I had: Is it wise to stay in Phoenix? How can one contribute to one’s community without all of the hubbub of the political scene? Are they trading one set of climate change problems for another?

After we all finished our work for the day, we enjoyed salmon, a mixed green salad and dinner in front of the airstream, surrounded by the detritus of construction and the red-green mesas staring in to the setting sun across the Animas River from us.

I’m a naturally skeptical person, both of religion and vague spiritualism, both of which too often are about selling something.

Yet I’ve seldom in my life had such a strong feeling that I was meant to run in to these folks. They gave me a break, gave me insight and sent me off on my journey feeling renewed.

You couldn’t write a better script.

As I was in Durango, my video editor and I published an installment that I shot prior to leaving Phoenix. It was a reflection on my own privilege and where it came from. In making the video, I dug in to learn how the red-lining in Long Beach and Paramount California trickled down through three generations to give me the privilege I have, while depriving so many others of my age. You can see that video here.

Red-lining is not new. But I don’t know that many of us who have benefited generations later from it’s misguided and racist aims have taken the time to see how real it is; that it is not just an academic historical footnote. This project made it feel so much more real to me.

In the video, I scanned over red-lining maps from the Los Angeles area and found were my maternal and paternal grandparents bought homes in the 1950s. They became very real as I could see how the home purchased by both sets of grandparents gained value, which was passed down to my parents, and which was then compounded and passed down to me.

Less than a few miles from these homes were nearly identical neighborhoods where families could not get a loan to invest in a home, the wealth of which could then never be passed down to their children and grandchildren.

It is not lost on me that I am able to afford this little van live novelty because my parents, who both passed away unfairly young last year, left me the modest but meaningful wealth they accumulated, in part, because of these racist policies.

And, before we veer wildly off in to political tit-for-tats, I want to say that two things can be true at once. Yes, my grandparents and my parents made wise and frugal choices in order to leave me this humble nest egg. But also, they gained a boost that allowed their wealth to be compounded in ways that were crucially deprived other equally deserving non-white people.

Had it been explained to them, I am certain that at least one of those sets of grandparents would have argued for the end of the practice.

And here I sat, driving away from the very expensive Durango, toward Gunnison and then Crested Butte. While the rural spaces between them still suffer their own economic disparities, it felt that these more populous tourist towns –filled with far too many empty homes of part-time residents, short term rentals or investment properties backed by hedge funds– were in their own way depriving a whole new generation of their ability to create and pass down wealth to their children and grandchildren.

The stories whispered from the forests lining the winding roads as thick as curtains as I past old mining towns like Silverton or Ouray Colorado told of similar disparities between the laws written for the haves and the burdens carried by the have nots.

We are in a never-ending struggle to balance the power for justice. As I drove this little van excursion, I was aware that there was certainly more I could have done in my life. As much as I thought I was dedicating my career to this, I certainly had blind spots.

But what would I be doing if I were to stop trying. What would any of us be doing?