The woman chosen to be the next director of Arizona’s state parks once carved her name into a historic park’s property in southeastern Arizona.

She also helped recover thousands of acres of burned parks land in San Diego County and launched an innovative system to allow people to make campground reservations online.

The Arizona State Parks Board’s unanimous selection of Renée Bahl to take over the parks system next month has polarized state leaders.

Parks officials say she is a dynamic, experienced professional who will help lead the parks system out of a historic budget crisis.

Bahl, 40, is “a vigorous, intelligent, resourceful person who knows how to get through the most difficult of times,” said Bill Scalzo, who led the selection committee for the Arizona State Parks Board.

But at least one lawmaker says her selection as director is inappropriate given a vandalism incident that took place a decade ago.

Bahl, a former assistant state parks director, oversaw historic preservation at the San Rafael Ranch.

In 1999, another employee caught her etching her first name and the year into the wall of a historic adobe barn.

Bahl was disciplined but remained in her job until 2002, when she left to become director of parks and recreation for San Diego County in California.

State Rep. Daniel Patterson, D-Tucson, criticized the selection.

“Bahl should be fully questioned about her vandalism of state historic properties, and rejected as a poor choice for this important job,” Patterson wrote on his blog. “Someone as clueless as Bahl on protecting state treasures is clearly not appropriate to head state parks.”

Through a spokeswoman, Bahl declined to comment. Officials said they were impressed with Bahl’s education, which includes a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s degree in public administration with a focus on natural resource management.

Scalzo said Bahl brought up the vandalism incident during an interview and apologized for it, saying she had made a mistake.

“One thing I really appreciated is she brought that up,” Scalzo said. “She didn’t say, ‘I’ve had a perfect career I don’t make mistakes.’ ”

Bahl, who will make about $140,000 a year, will take over for Ken Travous, who is retiring after 23 years leading the parks system.

Lawmakers swept $36 million from parks coffers in the last year, prompting the closure of three parks and threatening several more with closure. The board is working to prevent further cuts proposed by the Legislature’s Republican leadership, which board members say would devastate the system.

Scalzo called criticism a distraction from the parks board’s most pressing problems.

“We need help; we don’t need criticism,” he said. “We need to have this new person come in here with everyone wishing her the best, because she’s going to need every bit of it.”

On Nov. 4 voters in Legislative District 10 on Phoenix’s Northwest Side elected Doug Quelland to the Arizona House of Representatives.

On May 15, an unelected state commission overruled them and ordered Quelland out of the House for violating rules governing publicly financed campaigns.

Quelland is appealing and can remain in the House until that’s resolved but judging from the evidence gathered by the commission, it’s likely he’ll be forced out.

It’s the second time in two years the state’s Clean Elections Commission has overturned voters’ wishes because a candidate agreed to take public money for his campaign then broke the incredibly complex rules governing that money’s use.

Clean Elections and its cousin, term limits, were supposed to put the citizen back in citizen government. Neither has happened.

The Democrats elected to the Legislature are more liberal and the Republicans more conservative than ever before. The gulf that lies between them has prevented compromise and progress on a whole host of issues.

Candidates who had to put their hand out to numerous constituencies to raise money pre-Clean Elections need now only put their hands out to their parties’ true believers. Because of another good idea gone bad – the state’s redistricting commission, which botched the gerrymandering of state legislative districts – there are few competitive districts in the state. Most candidates need only win their party’s primary to get elected and primary voters tend to be the most strident of party faithful.

Meanwhile, party operatives have figured out how to game the system, turning Clean Elections into more of an oxymoron than a supposed field leveler.

While public financing was supposed to take the corruption out of politics by making candidates beholden more to voters than donors, term limits was supposed to refresh the state house every few years with new candidates bringing fresh ideas to state government.

Instead, candidates have likewise made term limits an oxymoron. Candidates termed out of the House after eight years simply run for the Senate, or vice versa, and almost always get elected.

Quelland’s seatmate from District 10, Jim Weiers, has been in the Legislature for 15 years. He did his eight in the House, including a term as Speaker, got termed out, got elected to the Senate for one term, then jumped back to the House where he was Speaker for two terms. He’s in the middle of his eighth two-year term in the Legislature.

It was this kind of career politician that term limits was supposed to limit.

The great irony is that term limits was unnecessary, there already were term limits every two years.

Voters should be able to give money to whomever they want and elect whomever they want however many times they want.

It’s time for voters to jettison both these laws and re-take responsibility for whom they elect.

PHOENIX — State officials say three environmentally contaminated mines in Arizona would get a $23 million cleanup as part of a settlement with the mining company that owns them.

The deal is subject to the approval of a Texas court overseeing the bankruptcy reorganization of Asarco LLC, the Tucson-based company that owns the mining sites.

State officials say $20 million would fund the cleanup and revegetation of the Sacaton Mine, a 3,000-acre open-pit copper mine near Casa Grande that was abandoned in the 1980s.

About $3 million would pay for cleaning and restoring the 600-acre Salero and 335-acre Trench mines outside Patagonia in southern Arizona. Both mines were abandoned about a century ago.

The deal is part of a $260 million, 11-state settlement with Asarco to resolve ongoing environmental disputes at 17 mines.

“Resolution of these environmental claims is part of our effort to meet our obligations to our creditors, reorient ourselves and emerge from bankruptcy,” said Doug McAlister, Asarco’s general counsel.

Environmental regulators worry that hazardous chemicals left in mine sites will leach into the soil and groundwater.

Crews will use fresh rock or soil to cover piles of waste from mine operations and allow vegetation to grow. Officials expect the move to direct the flow of rainwater around the waste.

Officials don’t think the groundwater has been contaminated at any of Arizona’s three sites, but the settlement includes money for groundwater cleanup if it is needed, said Patrick Cunningham, acting director of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality.

Cleanup could take up to 30 years if groundwater is found to be contaminated, Cunningham said.

Also as part of the settlement, Arizona would get about four miles of riparian habitat along the Lower San Pedro River south of Hayden and Winkelman in Gila County. The land, which has not been mined, is valued between $3 million and $4 million.

Officials say the property exchange would compensate for damage to Mineral Creek and the Gila River caused by releases from Ray Mine and the Hayden Facility, two active Asarco operations nearby.

The riparian habitat is home to many migratory birds, nesting raptors, waterfowl species and the endangered southwestern willow flycatcher. The settlement includes about $4 million for land management.

“The San Pedro River is one of the most important riparian areas in the state, and perhaps the most threatened,” said Mark Winkleman, commissioner of the State Land Department, which owns much of the land surrounding the river. “This settlement will help preserve it, and that is of the utmost importance to this state.”

PHOENIX — Republican legislative leaders have set the stage for Senate committee consideration Wednesday of a new budget proposal that includes privatizing several state prisons to help close a big revenue shortfall.

The Senate on Tuesday suspended rules in order to allow short-notice consideration of the proposal.

Leader said it’s a revised version of a plan endorsed recently by a House committee and is a joint proposal by House and Senate leaders hoping to intensify negotiations with Gov. Jan Brewer.

Senate President Bob Burns, R-Peoria, previously had said he wouldn’t have the Appropriations Committee consider a budget proposal unless he had enough votes in the full chamber to assure passage.

He indicated that’s not the case now.

“I changed my mind based on the fact that time is slipping away from us. I think we have to make some changes in our plans of actions,” Burns said.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Russell Pearce said the privatization proposal calls for transferring operations of several prisons to a private company in exchange for an upfront payment of $100 million to $200 million.

The Mesa Republican said the state would continue oversight of the prisons and save money on operations. State employees working at the prisons could transfer to other state prisons or find work with the new operators, Pearce said.

Pearce said other elements of the plan include cuts in funding for K-12 schools and having the state grab some vehicle license tax revenues now going to local governments. The local governments then would be authorized to use some of their impact-fee money to backfill for the lost money from the vehicle license tax, Pearce said.

Arizona’s tax collections have been hammered by the recession and the collapse of the housing industry, and the state faces a projected $3 billion shortfall in the fiscal year that begins July 1. Depending on what spending cuts are made, the budget could total approximately $10 billion.

Sen. Jay Tibshraeny, R-Chandler, said the impact-fee proposal is fraught with legal and practical problems. Cities and towns are now preparing their budgets and need to know what money they will have, said Tibshraeny, a former mayor of Chandler.

Is the state Legislature working backward trying to craft a budget?

The more logical approach to budget making would seem to be determining the size and cost of government, then setting a rate of taxation to pay for it.

Instead, because of the bad economy causing tax income shortfalls, the Legislature is determining the amount of taxation then figuring out the size of government. By a majority of members making a “no tax” pledge, they’ve painted themselves into a corner, unwilling to raise revenue but also unwilling to eviscerate essential government services.

The problem I have with “no tax” pledges is that they border on anarchy. Certainly those who abhor taxes and government don’t argue for anarchy. If they do, we can dismiss them as extreme radicals with no constituency and therefore no real place in a democracy.

But anarchy is not the argument, it’s limited government. Many conservatives who make no tax pledges are really limited government advocates, not antitax boosters. The problem is that the limited government argument has been a political loser for decades (don’t point to the past eight years of Republican control of Congress and the White House, or the nearly 20 years of Republican control of Arizona’s Legislature as a counter to that last sentence, there’s been nothing “limited” about either).

To get elected, candidates for public office tell their constituents all the things they can have, not what they can’t.

But once elected, they try to backdoor the size of government policy by starving the beast, as Grover Norquist said, by cutting off government’s lifeblood, taxes.

Liberals, on the other hand, are big government advocates. But they go about promising world changing programs without rational debates on the cost and the effect the taxation will have on economic activity.

According to the Laffer curve, 0 percent taxation equals zero government and therefore anarchy and no real economic activity. Conversely, 100 percent taxation stifles all economic activity, which leads to no tax collection and therefore anarchy.

The goal of government is to then strike the balance between the optimal amount of government to promote the optimal amount of economic activity to create the optimal amount of taxation so that all the goals of a society can be met, private and public.

I’d rather the Legislature was spending its time determining the size of government and then how much tax to pay for it rather than the tax determines the government. That’s backward.

What do you think? Keep the argument rational, please. Keep your adhominem attacks to yourselves. As my former philosophy professor used to say a the end of every class: “Live a cogent life.”

Three jails in Arizona’s largest county are on an indefinite lockdown after some inmates threatened other inmates for refusing to participate in a hunger strike, sheriff’s officials said.

The Arizona Republic reported on its Web site that the lockdown took effect at 3 p.m. Monday at Maricopa County’s Towers Jail, the Fourth Avenue Jail and Lower Buckeye Jail.

“Lockdown will continue until they start eating again,” Sheriff Joe Arpaio said.

The lockdown will prohibit visits, phone calls and television in the jails, and is expected to affect about 4,200 medium- and maximum-security inmates, according to a sheriff’s news release.

Inmates participating in hunger strikes since early May have repeatedly threatened inmates who continue to take their meals.

The news release says six inmates have asked to be placed in protective custody “so they can eat without fear of reprisal.”

Authorities said the hunger strikes were triggered by an anti-illegal immigration enforcement march on May 2. The event drew thousands of demonstrators and about 200 inmates went on strike.

Since then, more than a thousand inmates have repeatedly refused their meals.

Inmates and their representatives have said they’re protesting the quality of the jails’ food. Complaints about the quality of food comes as a dietitian has worked to make sure the jail menus meet USDA guidelines, as U.S. District Judge Neil Wake ordered in a ruling against Maricopa County last fall.

Sheriff’s authorities argue that new healthier menu items fall within 2005 USDA guidelines, but taste worse.

Jail intelligence officers say inmates were displeased with the evening meals, and that most inmates were still eating the morning meal.

PHOENIX – Gov. Jan Brewer signed the latest midyear budget-balancing legislation into law Thursday but added a warning to lawmakers that they should bend her way next time.

“It would be fiscally irresponsible for the Legislature to ignore the depths of the (2010-2011) state deficit by promoting a budget plan for (2009-2010) that relies primarily on one-time measures,” Brewer said in a statement.

To close the latest $650 million shortfall in the current budget, GOP lawmakers resorted to accounting maneuvers that postpone $400 million of education spending into the next fiscal year. They also included $250 million of stimulus money, an amount larger than Brewer wanted but much less than lawmakers sought.

The plan also set the stage for the state to grab some school district savings to help balance the budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1. Estimates on how much money that would produce aren’t firm.

Brewer told lawmakers that the next state budget shouldn’t rely primarily on similar maneuvers because that would spell trouble for the following fiscal year, which starts July 1, 2010. It also faces a projected big shortfall that spending cuts alone won’t close, Brewer said.

Most majority Republican legislators have balked at Brewer’s call for a temporary tax increase to produce $1 billion of new revenue to help balance the next several budgets in face of deteriorating revenue collection.

Brewer said she “will not approve” a budget that doesn’t take into account the following year’s “needs and requirements.”

“I am hopeful that, with a continued emphasis on negotiation and compromise, the Legislature can reach consensus with my policy goals to approve a (2009-2010) budget package promptly,” she said.

Lawmakers approved the $650 million plan about 3 1/2 months after they closed a previous $1.6 billion budget shortfall. That action included spending cuts, raids on special-purpose funds and use of stimulus money.

PHOENIX — School-choice backers are proposing new state income tax credits to replace private school voucher programs that a court ruled were unconstitutional. And they want Gov. Jan Brewer to call lawmakers into special session to get that done in time for the next school year.

Chandler Republican Rep. Steve Yarbrough says the proposed legislation would create new individual and corporate tax credits for donations for tuition grants for disabled and foster children attending private schools.

Yarbrough says the proposal is a reaction to a March Arizona Supreme Court ruling that overturned voucher programs for disabled and foster children. The court previously upheld an existing state individual income tax credit.

A Brewer spokesman did not immediately return a call for comment.

The man in charge of building a virtual fence along America’s southern border said Thursday that the much-maligned network is moving ahead and will work despite criticism and public misunderstanding.

Mark Borkowski, executive director of the Secure Border Initiative, conceded that initial testing of the system near Tucson seemed like a “disaster” because of equipment glitches. However, he added, flaws are expected with new technology, and the problems have been resolved.

“It was a prototype. We did a bad job of communicating that,” said Borkowski, speaking at the Border Security Expo and Conference in Phoenix.

“When we got out there, it didn’t work very well,” he added. “We fixed it.”

The electronic monitoring system known as SBINet is being built by the Boeing Co. and other contractors at an expected cost of $6.7 billion. As planned, it would in the next five years cover much of the 2,000-mile Southwestern border.

The virtual fence employs motion sensors, laser lights, cameras, radar and other instruments to alert agents when people are trying to cross the border illegally.

Borkowski said the entire system, which is supposed to detect up to 80 percent of incursions in a zone, has been upgraded to meet Border Patrol specifications and needs.

Early depictions created unrealistic expectations that a virtual fence alone would stop smugglers and undocumented immigrants, Borkowski said. Rather, he said, SBINet is one tool in a defense arsenal that relies on 20,000 Border Patrol agents and physical barricades as well.

“It is not the be-all and end-all of border security,” Borkowski said. “It is a critical element of a much larger approach. . . . The idea is how to mix those three things together the right way to secure every inch of the border.”

Borkowski said 624 miles of physical fencing and vehicle barricades have been erected to delay illegal crossers long enough so Border Patrol agents can catch them.

“We know people can cut through a fence. We know they can climb over a fence,” he stressed, “but we want to slow them down.”

By contrast, Borkowski said, the virtual fence is designed for surveillance and intelligence. Sensors detect human traffic and relay signals to nearby towers with cameras. The intelligence is transmitted to Border Patrol stations, where agents monitor the network and respond to breaches.

The first operating segment covers a 23-square-mile section of desert south of Tucson.

Borkowski said the fence will be completed and evaluated this summer by the Border Patrol. If all systems are go, a second segment will be built near Ajo, then towers that stretch across most of the Arizona border zone.

The project has been criticized for its costs, and last year the Government Accounting Office panned SBINet for delays and technological glitches.

Technical woes surfaced also. For instance, Borkowski said, sensors were linked to cameras by satellite communications that took several seconds to transmit. By the time cameras were automatically trained on a target zone, intruders had moved out of view.

Gotcha! A traffic camera flashes to catch a speeder on the Piestewa Freeway in Phoenix. But the person driving may not get a speeding ticket.

Motorists activated photo-enforcement cameras on Arizona highways more than 471,000 times from December through February – more than 5,200 times each day – but on average, only about one-third of those drivers received tickets from the state Department of Public Safety.

An Arizona Republic analysis of three months of records shows Redflex Traffic Systems Inc. and the DPS threw out more than 65 percent of the photos captured.

The reasons for rejecting tickets vary but are relatively uncomplicated: Sun glare, dirty windshields and traffic rank as top causes.

Redflex, a Scottsdale-based company that operates Arizona’s statewide system, has a goal of issuing tickets 80 percent of the time the cameras are activated, DPS Lt. Jeff King said.

A Redflex spokeswoman clarified by saying that figure applies only to photos that aren’t compromised by factors such as the weather. Redflex refused to comment on the expectations or success of the program in Arizona.

King wouldn’t characterize the DPS’ position on the number of activations and the percentage of tickets issued but said the agency is pleased with photo enforcement’s impact on public safety.

“I think there’s always room for improvement, but we also recognize that there are some things outside of everybody’s control. It’s nature. You cannot fix the sun,” King said. “Between sun glare, dirty windshields, shade, there’s really not a whole lot you can do with that.”

Part of the problem in Arizona, King said, is that the state has a driver-responsibility law, like Colorado, California and Oregon. That distinction means DPS officers have to match the photo of the speeder with one on a driver’s license.

Authorities issue notices of violation to owners when a speed camera captures a clear picture of a license plate and a driver. But the vehicle’s owner may deny being the driver. If authorities can’t then match the camera image to a driver’s-license photo, they can’t issue a ticket.

Other states, like Louisiana, have a registered-owner responsibility law, which requires authorities to match only the license plate with a registered owner. The owner gets the ticket, even if he or she wasn’t the one driving.

“I don’t think you could ever get to that perfect 80 percentile that they’re targeting,” King said. “We have to actually be able to look in the picture and identify that person.”

Redflex officials would not discuss the technology that operates the photo-enforcement system, but the cameras have high-powered lenses, King said. The cameras are designed to take high-resolution photos across multiple lanes of traffic.

“We can just about zoom in and see stuff on the dash,” King said.

Motorists occasionally beat the cameras by blocking their faces or having a fortuitously placed visor.

Walter Figueroa’s case, though it didn’t arise from a freeway camera, shows that other factors can be at work, too.

Figueroa received a violation notice in his Laveen mailbox earlier this week for driving 50 mph through a 35-mph zone in Mesa on his motorcycle on April 25.

But Figueroa doesn’t own a motorcycle.

He drives a Nissan SUV, as the violation notes, with a license plate of ONIX.

The citation also contains a picture of a man on a motorcycle, making an obscene gesture toward the camera, with a license plate of ON1X.

“I’m just a little bent. Two people physically signed this ticket,” he said.

American Traffic Solutions operates Mesa’s photo-enforcement system. Figueroa called the toll-free number on the back of the violation, and the operator forwarded his dispute to Mesa police, who issued the ticket.

“What if I was out of state or out of the country and never acknowledged that and missed the court date, then my license is suspended because of their mistake,” Figueroa said. “Did it not behoove you to check my registered vehicles? I don’t even own a motorcycle.”

Legislators approved the statewide program in July, giving the DPS a mandate to install 100 fixed and mobile cameras on Arizona highways.

The DPS suspended the program’s expansion in mid-January, with 36 fixed locations and 42 mobile units in place. The suspension coincided with a wave of anti-photo-enforcement efforts that included residents’ protests and legislative efforts to end the program, but DPS officials insist they suspended the program to seek the best locations for the remaining cameras.

The most recent data from the DPS shows cameras snapped motorists more than 1 million times on Arizona highways during the program’s first seven months.

More than 80,000 drivers have paid the fines.

Arizona has collected nearly $12 million through the process, with more than $1.3 million going to Redflex, according to terms of the contract.

King and other DPS officials cite statistics that show traffic fatalities have dropped dramatically in areas where photo-enforcement cameras are stationed. Critics deride that data, which compared the same 80-day periods in consecutive years, as incomplete.

The April 19 murder of Redflex employee Doug Georgianni while he worked in a mobile photo-enforcement unit near Seventh Avenue and Loop 101 in Phoenix brought the program, and the controversy surrounding it, into the spotlight again.

DPS authorities have tried to focus on photo enforcement’s safety benefits from the beginning but have been plagued by a 2008 prediction from then-Gov. Janet Napolitano that the program could generate as much as $90 million in revenue in the first year.

Critics point to that prediction as evidence that speed cameras are nothing more than a revenue generator masquerading as a safety program.

By JJ Hensley, Matt Wynn

Overflow stadium crowd braves heat to hear upbeat message

President Obama makes a point during the Arizona State University commencement ceremony on Wednesday in Tempe.

TEMPE – President Obama apologized for “stealing away” former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano and urged students to never stop achieving as he made a commencement speech Wednesday night at Arizona State University.

Some 63,000 people filled the stands and most of the football field at Sun Devil Stadium.

It will be up to young people to redefine success, Obama told graduates, from materialistic greed to building a quality life while taking on the nation’s challenges. That means serving a higher purpose than themselves, he said.

Developing clean energy and improving failing schools will be this generation’s job, he said. He pointed to his own job title and said that doesn’t define success, comparing Abraham Lincoln to Millard Fillmore.

Being a superpower isn’t enough for America, he said. It must be mindful of the struggles of the rest of the world.

“Class of 2009, that’s why we’re going to need your help,” he said of issues such as global warming, rebuilding the economy and solving other “unprecedented” problems.

Careers such as engineering and teaching can be crafted with service in mind, he said.

A body of work is never finished, he said. He went on to cite the achievements of people who never gave up, including Kurt Warner, a former Arena Football League player who led the Arizona Cardinals to their first Super Bowl in 2009.

He also pointed to late achievers Julia Child, Col. Sanders and Winston Churchill.

While acknowledging that graduates were facing a tough economy – the nation has lost 1.3 million jobs since February – he called the challenges an opportunity.

“Because it’s moments like these that force us to try harder and dig deeper and to discover gifts we never knew we had – to find the greatness that lies within each of us. So don’t ever shy away from that endeavor,” Obama said during a speech that invoked the bravery firefighters demonstrated on Sept. 11, 2001, and the civil rights movement.

“Don’t stop adding to your body of work. As a nation, we’ll need a fundamental change of perspective and attitude,” he said. “It’s clear that we need to build a new foundation – a stronger foundation – for our economy and our prosperity, rethinking how we grow our economy, how we use energy, how we educate our children, how we care for our sick, how we treat our environment.”

Some 9,000 students were awarded diplomas at Sun Devil Stadium on a day when the high temperature in Phoenix was 101, but Obama wasn’t going to be one of them. University officials declined to give him an honorary degree, saying he had not yet accomplished enough to deserve the honor.

“His body of work is yet to come. That’s why we’re not recognizing him with a degree at the beginning of his presidency,” university spokeswoman Sharon Keeler said shortly after the school’s student newspaper reported the decision.

Obama said he “heartily concurred” with that assessment.

Officials later backtracked and instead named a scholarship in honor of the nation’s first African-American president. The President Barack Obama Scholars program will offer students up to $17,000 annually to pay for tuition, books, room and board.

Some sweated the wait for Obama’s speech. An official at the university’s emergency operations center said about 95 people were treated for heat-related illness while waiting for Obama’s address. None of the illnesses was considered life-threatening.

Rocker and Phoenix-area resident Alice Cooper was to perform “School’s Out.”

Obama was to fly to Albuquerque, N.M., after the speech. The president planned to have a town hall-style meeting Thursday in Albuquerque on proposed restrictions on credit card companies before he returned to Washington.

The White House has announced Obama plans other commencement addresses at the University of Notre Dame and the U.S. Naval Academy.

Student protests were expected Sunday at Notre Dame over Obama’s support for abortion rights and embryonic stem cell research.

Nancy Tranchese (center) and her mother, Kathleen Tranchese, both of Tempe, join members of the End the War Coalition in a protest Wednesday in front of Sun Devil Stadium.

President Obama and Arizona State University President Michael Crow sing the National Anthem before the commencement address Wednesday at the university stadium.

President Obama arrives at the Arizona State University commencement ceremony at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe Wednesday.

By Citizen Staff Report, Wire Report

The text of President Obama’s speech, as prepared for delivery:

Thank you, President Crow, for that generous introduction, and for your inspired leadership here at ASU. And I want to thank the entire ASU community for the honor of attaching my name to a scholarship program that will help open the doors of higher education to students from every background. That is the core mission of this school; it is a core mission of my presidency; and I hope this program will serve as a model for universities across this country.

Now, before I begin, I’d like to clear the air about that little controversy everyone was talking about a few weeks back. I have to tell you, I really thought it was much ado about nothing, although I think we all learned an important lesson. I learned to never again pick another team over the Sun Devils in my NCAA bracket. And your university President and Board of Regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS.

In all seriousness, I come here not to dispute the suggestion that I haven’t yet achieved enough in my life. I come to embrace it; to heartily concur; to affirm that one’s title, even a title like President, says very little about how well one’s life has been led – and that no matter how much you’ve done, or how successful you’ve been, there’s always more to do, more to learn, more to achieve.

And I want to say to you today, graduates, that despite having achieved a remarkable milestone, one that you and your families are rightfully proud of, you too cannot rest on your laurels. Your body of work is yet to come.

Now, some graduating classes have marched into this stadium in easy times – times of peace and stability when we call on our graduates to simply keep things going, and not screw it up. Other classes have received their diplomas in times of trial and upheaval, when the very foundations of our lives have been shaken, the old ideas and institutions have crumbled, and a new generation is called on to remake the world.

It should be clear by now the category into which all of you fall. For we gather here tonight in times of extraordinary difficulty, for the nation and the world. The economy remains in the midst of a historic recession, the result, in part, of greed and irresponsibility that rippled out from Wall Street and Washington, as we spent beyond our means and failed to make hard choices. We are engaged in two wars and a struggle against terrorism. The threats of climate change, nuclear proliferation, and pandemic defy national boundaries and easy solutions.

For many of you, these challenges are felt in more personal terms. Perhaps you’re still looking for a job – or struggling to figure out what career path makes sense in this economy. Maybe you’ve got student loans, or credit card debts, and are wondering how you’ll ever pay them off. Maybe you’ve got a family to raise, and are wondering how you’ll ensure that your kids have the same opportunities you’ve had to get an education and pursue their dreams.

In the face of these challenges, it may be tempting to fall back on the formulas for success that have dominated these recent years. Many of you have been taught to chase after the usual brass rings: being on this “who’s who” list or that top 100 list; how much money you make and how big your corner office is; whether you have a fancy enough title or a nice enough car.

You can take that road – and it may work for some of you. But at this difficult time, let me suggest that such an approach won’t get you where you want to go; that in fact, the elevation of appearance over substance, celebrity over character, short-term gain over lasting achievement is precisely what your generation needs to help end.

I want to highlight two main problems with that old approach. First, it distracts you from what is truly important, and may lead you to compromise your values, principles and commitments. Think about it. It’s in chasing titles and status – in worrying about the next election rather than the national interest and the interests of those they represent – that politicians so often lose their way in Washington. It was in pursuit of gaudy short-term profits, and the bonuses that come with them, that so many folks lost their way on Wall Street.

The leaders we revere, the businesses that last – they are not the result of narrow pursuit of popularity or personal advancement, but of devotion to some bigger purpose – the preservation of the Union or the determination to lift a country out of depression; the creation of a quality product or a commitment to your customers, your workers, your shareholders and your community.

The trappings of success may be a by-product of this larger mission, but they can’t be the central thing. Just ask Bernie Madoff.

The second problem with the old approach is that a relentless focus on the outward markers of success all too often leads to complacency. We too often let them serve as indications that we’re doing well, even though something inside us tells us that we’re not doing our best; that we are shrinking from, rather than rising to, the challenges of the age. And the thing is, in this new, hyper-competitive age, you cannot afford to be complacent.

That is true in whatever profession you choose. Professors might earn the distinction of tenure, but that doesn’t guarantee that they’ll keep putting in the long hours and late nights – and have the passion and drive – to be great educators. It’s true in your personal life as well. Being a parent isn’t just a matter of paying the bills and doing the bare minimum – it’s not bringing a child into the world that matters, but the acts of love and sacrifice it takes to raise that child. It can happen to presidents too: Abraham Lincoln and Millard Fillmore had the very same title, but their tenure in office – and their legacy – could not be more different.

And that’s not just true for individuals – it is also true for this nation. In recent years, in many ways, we’ve become enamored with our own success – lulled into complacency by our own achievements.

We’ve become accustomed to the title of “military super-power,” forgetting the qualities that earned us that title – not just a build-up of arms, or accumulation of victories, but the Marshall Plan, the Peace Corps, our commitment to working with other nations to pursue the ideals of opportunity, equality and freedom that have made us who we are.

We’ve become accustomed to our economic dominance in the world, forgetting that it wasn’t reckless deals and get-rich-quick schemes that got us there; but hard work and smart ideas -quality products and wise investments. So we started taking shortcuts. We started living on credit, instead of building up savings. We saw businesses focus more on rebranding and repackaging than innovating and developing new ideas and products that improve our lives.

All the while, the rest of the world has grown hungrier and more restless – in constant motion to build and discover – not content with where they are right now, determined to strive for more.

So graduates, it is now abundantly clear that we need to start doing things a little differently. In your own lives, you’ll need to continuously adapt to a continuously changing economy: to have more than one job or career over the course of your life; to keep gaining new skills – possibly even new degrees; and to keep taking risks as new opportunities arise.

And as a nation, we’ll need a fundamental change of perspective and attitude. It is clear that we need to build a new foundation – a stronger foundation – for our economy and our prosperity, rethinking how we educate our children, and care for our sick, and treat our environment.

Many of our current challenges are unprecedented. There are no standard remedies, or go-to fixes this time around.

That is why we are going to need your help. We’ll need young people like you to step up. We need your daring and your enthusiasm and your energy.

And let me be clear, when I say “young,” I’m not just referring to the date on your birth certificate. I’m talking about an approach to life – a quality of mind and heart.

A willingness to follow your passions, regardless of whether they lead to fortune and fame. A willingness to question conventional wisdom and rethink the old dogmas. A lack of regard for all the traditional markers of status and prestige – and a commitment instead to doing what is meaningful to you, what helps others, what makes a difference in this world.

That’s the spirit that led a band of patriots not much older than you to take on an empire. It’s what drove young pioneers west, and young women to reach for the ballot; what inspired a 30 year-old escaped slave to run an underground railroad to freedom, and a 26 year-old preacher to lead a bus boycott for justice. It’s what led firefighters and police officers in the prime of their lives up the stairs of those burning towers; and young people across this country to drop what they were doing and come to the aid of a flooded New Orleans. It’s what led two guys in a garage – named Hewlett and Packard – to form a company that would change the way we live and work; and what led scientists in laboratories, and novelists in coffee shops to labor in obscurity until they finally succeeded in changing the way we see the world.

That is the great American story: young people just like you, following their passions, determined to meet the times on their own terms. They weren’t doing it for the money. Their titles weren’t fancy – ex-slave, minister, student, citizen. But they changed the course of history – and so can you.

With a degree from this university, you have everything you need to get started. Did you study business? Why not help our struggling non-profits find better, more effective ways to serve folks in need. Nursing? Understaffed clinics and hospitals across this country are desperate for your help. Education? Teach in a high-need school; give a chance to kids we can’t afford to give up on – prepare them to compete for any job anywhere in the world. Engineering? Help us lead a green revolution, developing new sources of clean energy that will power our economy and preserve our planet.

Or you can make your mark in smaller, more individual ways. That’s what so many of you have already done during your time here at ASU – tutoring children; registering voters; doing your own small part to fight hunger and homelessness, AIDS and cancer. I think one student said it best when she spoke about her senior engineering project building medical devices for people with disabilities in a village in Africa. Her professor showed a video of the folks they’d be helping, and she said, “When we saw the people on the videos, we began to feel a connection to them. It made us want to be successful for them.”

That’s a good motto for all of us – find someone to be successful for. Rise to their hopes and their needs. As you think about life after graduation, as you look in the mirror tonight, you may see somebody with no idea what to do with their life. But a troubled child might look at you and see a mentor. A homebound senior citizen might see a lifeline. The folks at your local homeless shelter might see a friend. None of them care how much money is in your bank account, or whether you’re important at work, or famous around town – they just know that you’re someone who cares, someone who makes a difference in their lives.

That is what building a body of work is all about – it’s about the daily labor, the many individual acts, the choices large and small that add up to a lasting legacy. It’s about not being satisfied with the latest achievement, the latest gold star – because one thing I know about a body of work is that it’s never finished. It’s cumulative; it deepens and expands with each day that you give your best, and give back, and contribute to the life of this nation. You may have set-backs, and you may have failures, but you’re not done – not by a longshot.

Just look to history. Thomas Paine was a failed corset maker, a failed teacher, and a failed tax collector before he made his mark on history with a little book called Common Sense that helped ignite a revolution. Julia Child didn’t publish her first cookbook until she was almost fifty, and Colonel Sanders didn’t open up his first Kentucky Fried Chicken until he was in his sixties. Winston Churchill was dismissed as little more than a has-been, who enjoyed scotch just a bit too much, before he took over as Prime Minister and saw Great Britain through its finest hour. And no one thought a former football player stocking shelves at the local supermarket would return to the game he loved, become a Super Bowl MVP, and then come here to Arizona and lead your Cardinals to their first Super Bowl.

Each of them, at one point in their life, didn’t have any title or much status to speak of. But they had a passion, a commitment to following that passion wherever it would lead, and to working hard every step along the way.

And that’s not just how you’ll ensure that your own life is well-lived. It’s how you’ll make a difference in the life of this nation. I talked earlier about the selfishness and irresponsibility on Wall Street and Washington that rippled out and led to the problems we face today. I talked about the focus on outward markers of success that can lead us astray.

But here’s the thing, graduates: it works the other way around too. Acts of sacrifice and decency without regard to what’s in it for you – those also create ripple effects – ones that lift up families and communities; that spread opportunity and boost our economy; that reach folks in the forgotten corners of the world who, in committed young people like you, see the true face of America: our strength, our goodness, the enduring power of our ideals.

I know starting your careers in troubled times is a challenge. But it is also a privilege.

Because it is moments like these that force us to try harder, to dig deeper, to discover gifts we never knew we had – to find the greatness that lies within each of us. So don’t ever shy away from that endeavor. Don’t ever stop adding to your body of work. I can promise that you will be the better for that continued effort, as will this nation that we all love.

Congratulations on your graduation, and Godspeed on the road ahead.

PHOENIX – The Arizona Legislature has approved a plan to close the current state budget’s growing shortfall by delaying some spending and using federal stimulus money. It also moves to trim the next budget’s shortfall by grabbing some school district money.

House and Senate votes Wednesday nearly tracked partisan lines as the chambers approved the Republican plan negotiated with Gov. Jan Brewer to close the current budget’s projected $650 million shortfall.

Brewer, a Republican, is expected to sign the two-bill package into law.

“If these bills are passed, they will receive the governor’s support,” Eileen Klein, Brewer’s budget director, told a legislative committee before the House and Senate votes.

The Legislature approved a midyear budget-balancing plan in January to close a $1.6 billion shortfall, but deteriorating revenue collections have produced the expectation of the new shortfall at the June 30 end of the fiscal year.

Republican leaders unveiled the plan Tuesday and pressed for approval Wednesday, citing the state’s lack of cash to pay a $330 million payment to K-12 schools Friday.

The plan would use $250 million of federal stimulus money to replace state dollars for K-12 schools. It would postpone $100 million of university funding and $300 million in K-12 school funding into the next fiscal year.

State repayment of the postponed K-12 funding – nearly all of the payment scheduled for Friday – would then be reduced several months from now by amounts lawmakers say districts have saved above state limits.

Republican supporters said that taking the school districts’ money targets dollars that the districts’ legally can’t have or use and that sweeping it up will help avoid cuts in state aid for schools.

“If there was ever a time to reach into excess funds, this is the time to do so,” said Sen. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa. “They’re going to be used to offset reductions for the classroom.”

Most Democrats protested the grab, saying it could force school districts to raise local property taxes to recoup money grabbed by the state.

“This a backdoor tax increase,” said Sen. Rebecca Rios, D-Apache Junction.

Amounts to be taken from districts have yet to be determined but estimates range up to $300 million.

Even with enactment of the new plan, lawmakers still face the challenge of closing a $3 billion shortfall to produce a budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

By approving so-called “rollovers” of funding obligations into the next fiscal year, Republican lawmakers are following a course of using virtually any and all budget maneuvers before resorting to a temporary tax increase proposed by Brewer.

“What we’re doing here today is fighting off that potential tax increase,” said Sen. John Huppenthal, R-Chandler.

Brewer has exclusive authority to decide spending of most of the state’s stimulus money, and the $250 million allotment for the current fiscal year represents a compromise with legislators who wanted her to use more.

Some legislators said they wished Brewer used stimulus cash to close the current year’s entire shortfall, but Brewer originally wanted to use only $200 million so more could be saved for the next two fiscal years.

“She did compromise,” said Brewer spokesman Paul Senseman.

PHOENIX – A top aide to Gov. Jan Brewer testified before a legislative committee and shared thoughts on the state’s budget crisis on Wednesday, a development that some lawmakers called overdue.

Budget Director Eileen Klein told the House Appropriations Committee that the governor supported legislation to close a shortfall in the current state budget.

Several lawmakers’ comments and questions to Klein focused on their perceptions that Brewer hasn’t given the Legislature a detailed read on how and when she plans to spend federal stimulus money.

Klein said Brewer intends to spread the money over several years and hasn’t made that a secret.

Lawmakers responded by saying they want specifics, and the more the better.

PHOENIX – Arizona Treasurer Dean Martin says the state is back in the red and again is being forced to rely on short-term borrowing to pay its bills.

Martin told legislators that the state’s worsening cash-flow situation put its operating accounts $34.7 million in the red as of Wednesday.

He said the state would need to borrow to make a $330 million payment due to K-12 schools on Friday. Legislators are considering a proposal to postpone that payment into the next fiscal year.

Arizona was in the black for several weeks after the state resorted to short-term borrowing in late April for the first time since the Great Depression.

State officials said April tax collections were lower than expected, worsening a fiscal picture that was already grim.