Arizona GOPers Move to Reconsider "Birther Bill." Give it Up Already

By James King Tue., Mar. 22 2011 at 10:01 AM

Categories: I'm Only a Bill

If at first you don't succeed, try, try (and try) again -- no matter how absurd what you're trying to accomplish may be.

A little over a month after the "Birther Bill" failed in the Senate Judiciary Committee, GOP legislators are pushing to send the proposal back to both houses for consideration.

According to the Associated Press, "as House and Senate committees near a deadline to consider legislation originated by the other chamber, proponents want to attach proposals onto unrelated bills Tuesday in the House and Wednesday in the Senate."

The "Birther Bill," apparently, is one of those proposals.

For anyone unfamiliar with the ~~conspiracy theory~~ bill, it would require anyone who wants to run for president or vice-president to prove their U.S. citizenship before their name's allowed on the ballot in Arizona -- even though it happens to already be a federal requirement to land either job.

The bill is in direct response to the repeatedly debunked controversy over President Barack Obama's citizenship and the right-wing conspiracy theorist "birther" movement. Birthers, as you know, are tin-foil-helmet-wearing whack-jobs, so the move doesn't do much to help the state's already bad rep.

The purely symbolic bill has failed twice in the legislature already. It was voted down last year, and despite it passing in the Arizona House of Representatives earlier this year, it failed in committee in the Senate, so it never went to a full vote.

In any event, in the Arizona legislature's crusade to waste as much of its time -- and infinitely worse, your money -- as possible debating useless legislation, both houses could potentially reconsider the proposal.

Check back to Valley Fever for updates.