Tucson, AZ
Joined April 2013
- Tweets64.3K
- Following1.2K
- Followers2.2K
- Likes315K
Andy Flach 🌵 retweeted
Outgoing Senate President Warren Petersen isn't going far. He'll stay at the Capitol as minority chief of staff for the Senate Republicans.
Breaking @JohnKavanagh_AZ confirms @votewarren is the new Senate minority chief of staff
Andy Flach 🌵 retweeted
They’ve called all the AZ House races and here’s how it looks in AZ. #Elections2026
Andy Flach 🌵 retweeted
Democrats won the popular vote in the North Carolina State Senate races by 16 points, 58 - 42.
By all metrics, North Carolina is the most gerrymandered state in the country, and as a result, Republicans will keep their majority in the chamber by a few hundred votes.
🚨CHAMBER CALL🚨
Republicans have held NC SD-24, and thus have held their majority in the North Carolina State Senate. Republicans have prevented a Democratic trifecta in the state by just a few hundred votes.
projects.statenavigate.com/2…
Andy Flach 🌵 retweeted
Got this text unprompted from a friend who's a liberal influencer.
Anti-BAAJA groups are offering tens of thousands of dollars to moderately-sized accounts to spread anti-BAAJA talking points. I've almost never seen anything like this.
Andy Flach 🌵 retweeted
After losing AG race, former Republican Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen is hired as chief of staff for new Republican Senate minority leader, per @CamrynSanchezAZ. Could be a $125K-$150K or more pay raise from $24K legislative salary.
Breaking @JohnKavanagh_AZ confirms @votewarren is the new Senate minority chief of staff
Andy Flach 🌵 retweeted
a certain kind of environmentalist will tell you we have ten years to decarbonize and then defend a review process that uses seven of them. the planet is on fire, please submit written comments before the close of the 90 day window
Andy Flach 🌵 retweeted
BAAJA doesn’t run anything through national parks. It speeds up permitting for energy infrastructure outside of them. Just absurd messaging here.
A plan that puts historic preservation and endangered species at risk, all while sidestepping public and Tribal input, is not the clean energy solution that parks need. ❌
Tell Congress to reject BAAJA and protect our parks: bit.ly/4enskZm
Andy Flach 🌵 retweeted
Any project that’s illegal today will also be illegal after passage. BAAJA just makes it faster to come to that decision (not to mention requiring data centers to pay much higher costs).
This is a strong deal that’s been made even better after the managers amendment.
Andy Flach 🌵 retweeted
The people who build the things that will actually decarbonize our energy supply are supporting BAAJA.
The people whose bread and butter is lawsuits are opposed to BAAJA.
I know which side I’d rather be on when history asks.
Several permitting scoops in @PunchbowlNews AM: Dozens of clean energy company CEOs, buyers and investors are urging senators to support cloture on BAAJA, arguing in a letter organized by AMPED that delay “means projects not built, jobs not created, and capital sent overseas.”
Nuke the filibuster now, when the stakes are low and when the next election is two years away
The best time to scrap the filibuster is when there’s divided government and the only thing that changes is random message bills get vetoed instead of dying — it makes the change less scary and dramatic and just sets up clean legislating for the future rather than as a crisis.
85
Andy Flach 🌵 retweeted
The morning after the WI primary two journalists at the NYT reached out to me the day after to ask about why polls missed, for a *primary*
We just witnessed the *largest average polling error in a general election* in my lifetime and there's not a single article by them on this.
Anyone notice how there isn't widespread frustration about the polling misses this year despite them being as large as 2020's? There were tons, *tons* of articles saying "polling is broken" etc. right after 2020, when the miss was driven by COVID.
This miss was just as large as 2020's but ~2/3 was driven by weighting decisions, yet I don't think I've seen a single article talking about it since the election. This is journalistic malpractice so far; we had a tidal wave of articles claiming "polls are just bad" by this time in 2020 despite, again, a very valid reason for a miss (pandemic). Media needs to step up to the plate.
Andy Flach 🌵 retweeted
Percentage of Republican voters who voted for Democratic candidates (Party ID)
US Senate
🟦Kansas: Adam Hamilton 12%
🟦South Carolina: Annie Andrews 11%
🟦Texas: James Talarico 11%
🟦North Carolina: Roy Cooper 10%
🟦Louisiana: Jamie Davis 9%
🟦Georgia: Jon Ossoff 8%
🟦Florida: Angie Nixon 7%
🟦Iowa: Josh Turek 7%
🟦Maine: Troy Jackson 7%
🟦Mississippi: Scott Colom 6%
🟦Alaska: Mary Peltola 5%
🟦Michigan: Abdul El-Sayed 5%
🟦Minnesota: Peggy Flanagan 4%
Source: CNN exit poll
Andy Flach 🌵 retweeted
NEWS: Former Biden Energy @SecGranholm has drafted a statement shared w/me urging Dems to back BAAJA, saying changes "respond directly to concerns" the bill "could weaken env enforcement, undermine Tribal consultation, and constrain state authority to protect water quality."
Andy Flach 🌵 retweeted
Seems good
The bipartisan permitting bill, BAAJA, has underappreciated implications for public health.
SEIA estimates the permitting deal could save *6,700 lives* by reducing air pollution.
Air pollution doesn't just kill; it's also linked to a wide variety of diseases like alzehimers and dementia.
And a growing research literature shows surprisingly widespread cognitive impacts from air pollution as well:
- Chess players make more mistakes on more polluted days;
- Baseball umpires make worse decisions on more polluted days;
Politicians use less complex speech on more polluted days.
By making it easier to build clean energy, permitting reform can not only lower energy costs but also save lives and improve public health.
Andy Flach 🌵 retweeted
Congratulations to @priya4az for being elected as Senate President, @RepODLS for being elected as House Speaker and to @KevinVolkAZ for his selection as House majority whip here in Arizona.
With good people like these at the helm, the next few years look to be very promising and uplifting for the people of Arizona.
Andy Flach 🌵 retweeted
The average federal environmental review process for public transit takes 5.7 years. To build something that's good for the environment!
Time to pass BAAJA now so we can build the infrastructure we need for both the climate crisis and for affordability
The big sleeper story here is its impact on transit, I'd even go so far as to say it may be more important than energy for affordability b/c transit is far more integral to housing.
Trains are the linear infrastructure that have been ground to a halt. Talk to the folks who had to do the NEPA with ARRA funds back in the day. So many decade+ processes that ultimately get choked out by that last single point of failure.
I remember @wang_seaver at Duke fought an admirable campaign to save the light rail, which would have connected a great rivalry by rail, enabling non-car access between Durham and Chapel Hill. Do you have any idea how amazing that would have been?
What's forgotten (beyond the truly vile behavior of President Price and Duke) is that process took 4 extra years thanks to NEPA. I'll never forgive Price, but those 4 years mattered and ultimately this was a project that ran out of time.