Headlines
MD: Bill would let Maryland seek out private partners for public projects
AZ: Arizona lawmakers push to take over federal land
UT: Public-Lands bill giving Utah control to become law
WA: State weighs more private contracts for services
ME: Federal judge says Gov’s decision to remove mural was ‘government speech’
Lobbyists, guns and money – Paul Krugman

MD: Bill would let Maryland seek out private partners for public projects
Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley has joined a little-noticed wave of Democratic governors gravitating toward the privatization of government facilities — a practice once anathema to blue states and their often-powerful public employee unions. A bill proposed by O’Malley and being shepherded through the legislature by Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown (D) follows laws approved recently in California and Illinois and under consideration in a half-dozen other Democratic-controlled states. In the name of job creation, it would make it Maryland’s policy to seek out private partners to build, operate and maintain roads, bridges, schools, government buildings and most any other public asset…But Maryland’s methods would make the process ripe for corruption, critics say, and even upend an existing lawsuit challenging one of the state’s biggest plans.  To appease labor, the shift would come in a distinctly Democratic mold. Under legislation expected to come to a vote Monday in the House of Delegates, any jobs generated as the state hands off public assets would carry requirements that private enterprises pay living wages, ensure minority business involvement and put in place other labor-friendly protections.  With that, the legislation has gained unlikely allies. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and nearly every other major public employee union in Maryland has lined up in support of the bill. The Washington Post

AZ: Arizona lawmakers push to take over federal land
Another “sagebrush rebellion” is spreading through legislatures in Arizona and other Western states with a series of formal demands that the federal government hand over title to tens of millions of acres of forests, ranges and other public lands. Arizona could claim as much as 25 million acres — all federal land in the state except military bases, Indian reservations, national parks and some wilderness areas. If the federal government fails to comply by the end of 2014, the states say they will begin sending property-tax bills to Washington, D.C. While the original sagebrush rebellion grew out of conflicts over management of federal lands, often as specific as keeping a forest road open, the new takeover movement owes more to “tea party” politics, with a strong focus on reducing the scope of federal influence and opening land to more users…Legal experts say the movement is based on a misreading of federal law and the U.S. Constitution and will almost certainly fail to survive court challenges. Conservation groups and other critics say the takeover would threaten iconic landscapes now protected by federal rules. States, those critics say, are ill-prepared to oversee so much land, with the roads, recreation areas and management needs that go along with it.  “In an era of apparent fiscal responsibility, why would the state seek billions of dollars of liability and management responsibility to assume ownership over the (25 million) acres or so of parks, forests and public lands in Arizona?” said Matt Skroch, executive director of the Arizona Wilderness Coalition. “It is ill-conceived, it is irresponsible and it makes absolutely no sense.”  Arizona Republic

UT: Public-Lands bill giving Utah control to become law
Gov. Gary Herbert will sign a bill Friday that demands the federal government relinquish control of public lands in Utah by 2014, setting the table for a potential legal battle over millions of acres in the state.
House Bill 148, which easily passed the Legislature, is saddled with a warning from legislative attorneys that there is a high probability it will be found unconstitutional. But Republican lawmakers and Herbert are optimistic about their chances in court…Opponents, including Utah Democrats and the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said the bill is not only unconstitutional but bad public policy. If implemented, they said it could eliminate important protections from development and vehicle use for wildlife refuges, forests and other sensitive areas. At the core of the issue is limited access to about 28 million acres of federal land, which hurts energy development, recreation and grazing. State lawmakers claim the federal lands cost the state millions of dollars every year, although no comprehensive studies have been done to quantify those losses. The bill exempts national parks, military installations, Native American reservations and congressionally approved wilderness areas and monuments. It primarily focuses on lands controlled by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. The Associated Press.

WA: State weighs more private contracts for services
A decision is due by October on whether to roughly double the amount of central state-government printing that is farmed out to private companies. That will follow other potential boons to the private sector this summer, when state officials are to decide if companies should be tapped to replace public employees as Web designers and as couriers for state mail. It’s all part of the authority lawmakers gave the governor last year to put back-office work out to bid in search of cost savings. The targeted work at the state printer alone accounts for more than $8 million in spending on bulk printing of forms, business cards, stationery and other big orders, plus storage and delivery of printed materials…A decision on whether it makes sense to contract out each of those services will come from Gov. Chris Gregoire’s budget office, as long as the process wraps up as scheduled before she leaves office. The Olympian

ME: Federal judge says Gov’s decision to remove mural was ‘government speech’
A federal judge on Friday ruled in favor of Gov. Paul LePage in a lawsuit concerning the governor’s controversial removal of a Department of Labor mural, saying LePage’s action amounted to “government speech.” …LePage’s decision to remove the mural, which contains 11 panels depicting the history of Maine’s labor movement, gained national attention, including a disapproving editorial in The New York Times and sendups by political comedians such as Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. LePage initially stated that the mural displayed a one-sided view of Maine’s labor history, but said later during an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams that his objection stemmed from where the money used to pay for the mural was obtained. “Regardless of Judge Woodcock’s opinion, while we may not have yet prevailed in the court of law, we already have prevailed in the court of public opinion,” the plaintiffs’ attorney, Jeffrey Neil Young, said in a statement. “Mainers recognize what the court has failed to appreciate, that the removal of the mural is nothing less than government censorship of artistic speech in violation of the First Amendment.” Bangor Daily News

Lobbyists, guns and money – Paul Krugman
Florida’s now-infamous Stand Your Ground law, which lets you shoot someone you consider threatening without facing arrest, let alone prosecution, sounds crazy — and it is. And it’s tempting to dismiss this law as the work of ignorant yahoos. But similar laws have been pushed across the nation, not by ignorant yahoos but by big corporations. Specifically, language virtually identical to Florida’s law is featured in a template supplied to legislators in other states by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate-backed organization that has managed to keep a low profile even as it exerts vast influence (only recently, thanks to yeoman work by the Center for Media and Democracy, has a clear picture of ALEC’s activities emerged). And if there is any silver lining to Trayvon Martin’s killing, it is that it might finally place a spotlight on what ALEC is doing to our society — and our democracy….ALEC seems, however, to have a special interest in privatization — that is, on turning the provision of public services, from schools to prisons, over to for-profit corporations. And some of the most prominent beneficiaries of privatization, such as the online education company K12 Inc. and the prison operator Corrections Corporation of America, are, not surprisingly, very much involved with the organization. What this tells us, in turn, is that ALEC’s claim to stand for limited government and free markets is deeply misleading. To a large extent the organization seeks not limited government but privatized government, in which corporations get their profits from taxpayer dollars, dollars steered their way by friendly politicians. In short, ALEC isn’t so much about promoting free markets as it is about expanding crony capitalism. And in case you were wondering, no, the kind of privatization ALEC promotes isn’t in the public interest; instead of success stories, what we’re getting is a series of scandals. Private charter schools, for example, appear to deliver a lot of profits but little in the way of educational achievement…Now, ALEC isn’t single-handedly responsible for the corporatization of our political life; its influence is as much a symptom as a cause. But shining a light on ALEC and its supporters — a roster that includes many companies, from AT&T and Coca-Cola to UPS, that have so far managed to avoid being publicly associated with the hard-right agenda — is one good way to highlight what’s going on. And that kind of knowledge is what we need to start taking our country back. The New York Times