Arizona Rethinking Open Range Laws? One Word for the New York Times: Bull

Arizona's not really "Rethinking Open Range Laws," despite a New York Times article published on Monday with that headline. The article by Marc Lacey offers only one source to back up that headline, Democratic State Representative Daniel Patterson of Tucson, who Lacey says has introduced a bill "pushing for an end to Arizona's open range law..." Patterson's proposed change of law died in the last Legislative session without so much as a hearing. In fact, Patterson -- who, like other State Representatives, is fighting to get re-elected in November -- refused to stand by the statements attributed to him in the article when we called him today. We don't think the NY Times writer misquoted Patterson -- rather, it seems Patterson doesn't want to draw any more attention to his statements, even though he proudly posted the article on his own blog site. The catchy headline drew us into the online article today. But we had to chuckle at the Lacey's outsider take, even before we talked to Patterson. Patterson would not agree or admit he's "pushing for an end to Arizona's open range law." When we asked if the quote about "getting rid" of the open range law was correct, we got a 20-second pause. "Hello?" we asked, thinking the call had been dropped. Patterson was still there. But he refused to answer the question. "We want to change the law," he repeated a couple of times, implying that he no longer wanted to "get rid of" the law -- if he ever did...more