Laurie Roberts

The Republic | azcentral.com

The little girl's brown eyes reach out to you from the mailbox as the caption beside her asks: Will you please HELP ME?

The way to spare this child a beating, we are told, is to pass the latest 19th Century idea from the Arizona Legislature: nullification. Or in this case, nullification lite.

For several years, our leaders have been trying to give themselves the power to ignore the federal government.

Two years ago, it was with a proposed constitutional amendment declaring that Arizona has dominion over the air, water, wildlife and most of its land. The state that had trouble keeping its highway rest stops open wanted to seize control of all national parks, forests and monuments within Arizona. Naturally, voters stoned that idea.

Earlier this year, the state Senate actually resolved to nullify the Environmental Protection Agency, only no one noticed.

Now comes Proposition 122. Basically, it would allow either the Legislature or Arizona voters to declare unconstitutional any federal laws or mandates they don't like, then block any state or local resources from being used to enforce or administer those laws.

And so we come to this rather astonishing mailer featuring the little brown-eyed girl and another a bruised child, urging us to "Vote Yes on 122 to protect our children from abuse."

"You've seen the headlines – an unconstitutional federal law that forces Child Protective Services to hide botched investigations of abused kids," the mailer says. "Voting Yes on Prop. 122 allows voters to help CPS protect kids – not bureaucrats."

I called Jack Biltis, the Phoenix businessman who is funding the campaign, hoping he'd explain how Prop. 122 would protect abused children. Alas, he didn't seem to want to talk about it as he never got back to me.

Had he done so, I would have asked him what part of the federal Child Abuse Protection and Treatment Act is unconstitutional. And I would have asked him whether the problem truly lies with federal law – which actually requires the release of information when a child is beaten to death or nearly so – or with state attorneys who interpret that law as strictly as possible in order to shield themselves.

If there are botched investigations, I would bet the Legislature could mandate disclosure without declaring war on the federal government and risking the loss of millions of federal tax dollars that fund our child-welfare system.

But then, Prop. 122 isn't really about protecting children.

More likely, it's about protecting certain interests in the state from federal regulations that mandate clean air and safe workplaces and such.

The proposition has been endorsed by a who's who of Republicans, including Doug Ducey, Mark Brnovich, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and recalled Sen. Russell Pearce. Funny, I don't recall any of them being particularly vocal in the past about the need to better protect children from CPS.

Prop. 122 also has been endorsed by the dark-money Arizona Free Enterprise Club and Americans for Prosperity, the major political arm of Charles and David Koch. As in Koch Industries, which ranks as the 13th worst air polluter in the country, according to the Political Economy Research Institute.

And who, I am quite sure, are just oh so concerned about Arizona's abused kids.

As for our Legislature, I can see our leaders getting far more exercised about restrictions on the Second Amendment than on restrictions on release of information about abused children. If this passes, they might happily declare that every Arizonan has right to carry a fully-automatic Uzi around town and forbid any state or local police officer from doing a thing about it.

Or order that no longer will we adhere to inconvenient restrictions aimed at giving us clean air and water or protecting wildlife or the land.

None of which, strangely, is mentioned in the mailer with the little brown-eyed girl.

Will you please HELP ME? she asks.

As for the rest of us we should be pondering a different question:

Is Prop. 122 really about protecting children or hiding behind them?