Guest Writer

The other day, one of my professors offered this definition of the word “crank” – a critic with a poor grasp of the subject matter of their critique.

But, hey, this is Arizona.

So I humbly offer an idiot’s guide to the November ballot propositions, which you are welcome to clip and save. Because it is an idiot’s guide, I’ll start with Proposition 200.

That’s the Protect Arizona Now initiative that purports to stop illegal immigrants from accessing certain government benefits.

Now the “pro” side says this measure will save the state a bunch of money and keep Costa Ricans from showing up to vote for Jim Kolbe (for more information see costaricansforkolbe.org). The “con” side says it will put federal money at risk, cost the state more in legal fees than any savings, and give the state another black eye as a bastion of intolerance.

The vagaries of these arguments are beyond the scope of this guide.

If you want a good reason to vote against Proposition 200, consider the supporters. Two of the seven supporting arguments for PAN submitted to the Secretary of State were written by guys named Randy. And on the list of wienie names, Randy ranks really high. It’s right up there with Terry, Ricky and Carlton. When you consider voting for or against Proposition 200, consider the company you risk keeping.

But if the mere fact that PAN is the choice of men named Randy isn’t enough for you, I suggest you ask yourself how often you misplace your license, your Social Security card, your birth certificate or your passport. As an absent-minded person, I admit that proving my citizenship at any given time would be a struggle. Thus, while one might assume an idiot would be inclined to support a measure like PAN, in actual fact an idiot who votes for the initiative is hurting him or herself. On the other hand, an idiot is much more likely to get confused about what his or her interests are.

So, if your idiot friends – and certain local talk radio hosts – are telling you to vote “yes,” remember you are powerless to resist them and pull the lever for Proposition 200. (Who else are you going to listen to? Grant Woods?). Indeed, Proposition 200: Vote “Yes.” Everybody else is doing it.

This criticism stuff is hard work.

Let’s look at another measure, Proposition 100.

This allows the state Land Department to swap state land for other public lands. It is similar to measures that the Legislature has been putting on the ballot every two years for, like, a really long time.

Thankfully, the idiot’s guide analysis of this measure is quite simple. No, it’s not that state lawmakers are idiots. They’re more like children. And if a child persists in asking for something even after you’ve said no time and time again, you really have no choice but to give in and say yes. Otherwise they’re just going to ask you again. And that’s a drag. Vote “Yes” on Proposition 100.

Proposition 101 requires future ballot initiatives and referendums that propose a mandatory expenditure of state funds to come with a dedicated funding source and allows the Legislature to reduce funding if the revenue source falls short.

This referendum is basically the Legislature saying to voters: “If you’re going to vote for a program, it’s not our job to come up with the funding.” A fool might argue that this is precisely the job of lawmakers. That, in fact, they should be responsive enough to the public’s demands that the public shouldn’t have to turn to the initiative process time and time again in the first place. But, like I said, that is a fool’s argument.

A better argument is that if lawmakers are so dumb, how did they get you to pay them? See. They’re not so dumb after all.

Vote “Yes” on Proposition 101.

Proposition 104 changes the timetable for initiatives so supporters would have to submit their qualifying signatures seven months before the election as opposed to the current three months.

Supporters of this measure say it will give voters more time to consider ballot measures. But the idiot’s guide says “hooey” – we’re not going to read them anyway.

Vote “No” on Proposition 104.

The rest of these measures bore me. So I’ll be brief.

• Proposition 102 has something to do with allowing the Board of Regents to trade interests in technology and intellectual property for stock in companies. Whatever you say, dude. Vote “No.”

• Proposition 103 has something to do with Justices of the Peace. We need to increase the peace. Vote “Yes.”

• Proposition 105 changes the membership of the State Board of Education, particularly to add a charter school representative. Any idiot can tell you the State Board has done a lot to make sure our kids is lurnin. The more the merrier. Vote “Yes.”

• Proposition 300 increases the pay rate of lawmakers from $24,000 to $36,000 a year. If you fall for this one, you really are an idiot. Vote “No.”

Tom Collins (tom.collins@law.arizona.edu) is a law student at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law, a former legislative reporter for the Tucson Citizen and former spokesman for the Arizona Department of Education.

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Tom Collins COLUMN

The logic behind Jake Flake’s cracking of whip

Tom Collins

Citizen Columnist

By now, if you’re a regular reader of these pages, you’ve observed the criticism of the tactics House Speaker Jake Flake has used to try to bring discipline to the GOP caucus in the state House of Representatives.

As Mark Kimble, associate editor of the Tucson Citizen, began reporting three weeks ago, Flake, R-Snowflake, has engaged in an escalating effort to punish Tucson Rep. Pete Hershberger and northern Arizona Rep. Tom O’Halleran for their work during the Legislature’s interminable special session on Child Protective Services last year – work that Flake and his allies feel was counter to their purposes.

Flake stymied all of Hershberger’s and O’Halleran’s bills, refused to assign legislation to their committees and finally stripped the two Republican moderates of their chairmanships. Critics of the move, including the Citizen, say that Flake and his backers have been antidemocratic.

But perhaps this is only a natural, and maybe even acceptable, course of action. In some ways, Flake’s seemingly hard-core approach to party discipline in the House chamber is one of the few weapons left in the arsenal of a legislative leader. Moreover, some GOP members probably feel that a lack of rigid disciplinary action in past legislative sessions has lead to disastrous results for those who have what they call a conservative vision of state government.

Voters have taken away some of the power of the legislative leadership by creating the redistricting commission. So while in prior years a legislator considered a problem child might have conveniently been tossed into an unfriendly district, Flake, or whomever the speaker is, no longer has that attendant leverage. At the same time, because of the Clean Elections program, any control legislative leaders might assert over donations by party faithful and interested parties, is reduced by the ability of a lawmaker to go outside the party structure to raise his minimum number of $5 donations. Thus, legislative leaders have lost much of the weight they would hope to throw around to ensure that their agenda prevails at the Capitol.

The lack of discipline in the House GOP caucus has been apparent over time. Perhaps because of its large majority – practically twice as many Republican representatives as Democrats in the 60-member body – it is hard to keep the caucus together at the margins. Moderate to liberal lawmakers like Hershberger have a much different sense of the Legislature’s priorities. I guess that is the problem with the big tent.

Anyway, to understand Flake’s choice to play strongman rather than ringmaster, consider the ill-starred reign of former House Speaker Jeff Groscost. (Him again? Yes, it’s the unified theory of Groscost). Groscost was one of those guys who loved to play Monte Hall at the Legislature. But as my old boss at the Arizona Capitol Times once noted, he compromised himself because of his devotion to a very conservative ideology.

With that in mind consider the 2000 special session that brought us the Education 2000 sales tax referendum. Groscost, under considerable public pressure, chose to try to deal his way to victory against Gov. Jane Hull’s proposal to raise the state sales tax. He came up with his own plan to shift spending to provide more money to education, without raising taxes. At one point, tying funding to a popular effort to undermine the AIMS test was raised. In the end, however, Groscost was outhustled by Hull’s staff and moderate Republicans voted for the tax-cut package. In effect, the Democratic floor leader was Speaker of the House.

Later, Groscost fumed about “liberal” and “renegade” Republicans, but there was precious little he could do. Within a few months the alternative fuels scandal drove him from office.

So perhaps it’s understandable why the current leadership has dispensed with legislative wheeling and dealing in favor of welts and belts. (And considering their views on CPS, this may be more true that we know).

Had such discipline been in place in the late 1990s and early 2000s, one can argue, perhaps the growth of state spending and taxes, which many so-called conservatives see as disastrous, would have been stymied. Perhaps, one might argue, the deficit that the Legislature has wrangled with for what seems like an eternity could have been avoided. Perhaps by sparing the rod, independent-minded state lawmakers were spoiled.

Beyond these issues consider this: The House leadership represents many of the most conservative districts in the state. And, while they have been elected by the members of their caucus, they are almost uniformly dissed by the elite Arizona crowd that Citizen and Arizona Republic columnist Bob Robb is always bemoaning.

It is exceedingly unlikely that Flake, or House Majority Leader Eddie Farnsworth, R-Gilbert, or Whip Randy Graf, R-Green Valley, will earn the praise of editorialists in the state’s major papers when they take what they consider to be principled stands in favor of core ideological positions. And the folks back in their district – well I think it’s pretty clear they could care less. In fact I’d say it’s pretty clear that support from the state’s media – other than talk radio – could be a liability within those districts.

The fact that these men (and they are all men, aren’t they?) have been elected by their own caucus suggests that there, too, they have substantial support. At any rate our democracy is a Republican one.

Our democratically elected representatives have certain rules under which they operate. That an elected speaker has been given certain discretion by the elected members of his caucus doesn’t strike me as terribly undemocratic, considering we can always change the representatives and thereby change the rules.

In many ways the most conservative lawmakers in Arizona are fighting a losing battle with time and their own party. While the country appears to be increasingly evangelical, suggesting social issues will remain an effective calling card, there seems to be little support for limits on spending and social programs. I mean you don’t have to be a Washington pundit to observe that George Bush and the GOP’s congressional leadership are not tightwads.

Sleeping with the perceived enemy is tough to swallow when you’ve been elected in a test of ideological purity. Faced with such realities, not to mention a strong opposing governor, is it better to go down fighting? Maybe. I guess you’d have to ask Ralph Nader.

Tom Collins is a former statehouse reporter for the Tucson Citizen and former press secretary for the Arizona Department of Education. He is currently a law student at the University of Arizona. He writes occasional columns on Arizona politics. E-mail: tom.collins@law.arizona.edu

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Tom Collins COLUMN

Rose shows he is truly worthy of lifetime ban

Tom Collins

Citizen Columnist

When I was a kid, I was a baseball fanatic. I couldn’t get enough. I watched the Cubs practically every afternoon. I read every statistic and story I could get my hands on.

The history of baseball teaches that there is one cardinal sin above all others: betting on the game.

Despite the revisionist lore that has turned Shoeless Joe Jackson into a martyr, the truth remains Commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis’ decisive response in the 1919 Black Sox scandal was a seminal step in saving baseball from the scurrilous and turning it into the first true professional league, thus laying the groundwork for the multibillion-dollar business that is sport in this country.

For more than a decade now, we have watched Pete Rose attack, parry and evade the gambling charges that led to his banishment from baseball and his exclusion from Cooperstown.

Now, as he finally admits that he did in fact bet on baseball, although he claims, not the Reds he managed, we are expected to forgive and forget. After all, Pete Rose is the game’s all-time hits leader, surely the game should not deny him his rightful place in history.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Pete Rose should remain banned from baseball.

As a kid who loved the history of the game – perhaps in part because I was a lousy player – I admired Pete Rose. From his aggressive head-first slides, to his throwback effort as a player-manager for his hometown Cincinnati Reds, Rose was the epitome of what baseball was about: You didn’t need to hit 40 home runs to contribute, you needed to do what you did best. Me, I figured out batting averages for my Little League team.

Pete Rose was a man out of time, but rather than a throwback, he was a forerunner. All the hosannas to the head-first slide omit Rose’s relentless focus on his own bottom line: the fact that he wore something like a dozen uniforms the night be broke Ty Cobb’s hits record so that he could sell them later; the fact that he destroyed the young career of Nick Esasky, the promising first baseman of the Reds, so he could get a few more singles. The fact he believes rules don’t apply to him.

The fact that he bet on the game.

The fact that he lied.

Far from the team player that many imagined, Pete Rose did what he needed to do to take care of Pete Rose.

Yet it’s only fitting that the popular argument is forgive and forget. More and more it seems that rather than E Pluribus Unum, the national motto is I got mine, now go get yours.

Spend a little time with your cable dial, for example. Consider MTV’s “Cribs,” VH1′s “Fabulous Lives” series and E’s “It’s Good to Be” series: each episode a new testament on the righteousness of living in excess.

Consider the praise P. Diddy earns for raising a couple million dollars for New York’s schools, when there is no telling how many school books could be purchased for the cost of one weekend in St. Tropez.

Consider the attitude and antics of today’s sports stars: Allen Iverson, Latrell Sprewell, Kobe Bryant. These guys owe a lot to Pete Rose.

Consider George W. Bush’s tax cuts, which – as presidential candidate John Edwards points out – seem in keeping with a policy that punishes work and rewards wealth. Consider Bush’s latest proposal to enshrine the second-class status of workers foreign and domestic through his so-called amnesty program, while all the while waging a relentless war on overtime pay.

Consider the opponents of campaign finance reform who argue that money and speech are inseparable.

Need we even say Halliburton? What about your 401(k)? All bespeak the outside consequences of inside information. Judge Landis was on to something.

Consider baseball – the very sport our president has enshrined on the White House lawn to symbolize his notion of virtue.

Baseball: where preseason is as likely to be about some millionaires vs. billionaires labor dispute as it is to be about pitchers and catchers reporting; where 40 home runs is an expectation and suspicion of performance enhancement runs rampant. Sammy Sosa’s bat, the legal battle over Barry Bonds’ home run record ball or Jose Canseco’s post-jail plans.

Yeah, baseball has learned a lot from Pete Rose.

Pete Rose says that he has done his time on the outside. But he lied to us because he knew he had broken the one rule baseball would not forgive. Some acts you don’t deserve parole for. The question for us is whether we’ve forgotten.

Tom Collins is a former statehouse reporter for the Tucson Citizen and former press secretary for the Arizona Department of Education. He is currently a law student at the University of Arizona. He writes occasional columns on Arizona politics. E-mail: tom.collins@law.arizona.edu

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Tom Collins COLUMN

California-style recall could happen here, too

Tom Collins

Citizen Columnist

Think recall fever won’t hit Arizona? Think again. The California recall fiasco gives the lie to claims of our modern day populists that reforms like Clean Elections have excised money from politics.

It’s already more than apparent that the historically progressive elements of Arizona’s political landscape – namely the initiative process– have put the levers of power in the hands of moneyed interests, sometimes at bargain prices. California’s self-immolation only shifts the battleground. Now instead of people buying a law or two, they’ll buy the whole governorship.

Reports say that California’s recall would have gone the way of last year’s abortive recall of John McCain without the financial backing of a wealthy California businessman.

Here in Arizona, a wealthy California businessman, in the form of race-baiter Ron Unz, purchased himself control of the state’s bilingual education policy for around $172,000, according to information from the Secretary of State’s Web site. (The money was funneled through Unz’s English For the Children organization in California.)

And, while Clean Elections advocates would have you ignore it, Unz-protEgE Tom Horne poured some $500,000 into his bid to unseat my old boss from the education department – dwarfing the “clean” matching funds that were supposed to allow Jaime Molera to stay competitive.

Similarly, some $30 million was spent by interests competing in the Indian Gaming sweepstakes last year, the Associated Press reported in November. One person’s progressive era is another person’s jackpot.

Arizona’s recall law requires signature gatherers to collect voter signatures amounting to 25 percent of the votes cast for that office in the previous election. So for governor, where about 1.2 million votes were cast, 300,000 signatures would be required to set a recall in motion. That’s less than 50 percent more than it takes to get an initiative on the ballot.

Once the ballot was set, the sitting officer has to finish with the most votes among all comers to retain the seat. (The secretary of state’s office has a handy Web page devoted to the initiative and recall process at www.sosaz.com).

Now imagine, shockingly, that Arizona were to end up with an unpopular governor in a crisis. Alt. fuels 2 Electric Boogaloo, for example. It’s not hard to imagine.

Seventy-four percent of Arizonans gave former Gov. Jane Hull a good or excellent rating in July 2000 poll by KAET television in Phoenix. By February 2002, only 28 percent of those polled approved of her job performance.

With California as precedent, it is not difficult to imagine an independently wealthy guy such as Harvard’s own Horne seizing the day should it arrive. The irony in all of this is the kind of reverse populism that you see emerging in California. It’s the “because I’m rich I’m with the people” position put forward by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In his Tonight Show appearance and subsequent news conference last week Arnold noted that as a hugely wealthy man he would be able to fund his own campaign – which would free him to make decisions on behalf of the “people.” Likewise, a Tom Horne type, willing to put real money at play, could use the same ploy.

If you think folks will see through this kind of ridiculousness, consider that George W. Bush has rammed through tax cut after tax cut for the wealthiest, all the while saying he wanted to get ordinary American working again.

The battle over Arizona’s initiative process has raged on the ballot itself and in the halls of the Legislature for years. Legislative meddling with initiative results lead to voter protection, which means that lawmakers are largely unable to alter language passed at the ballot. Under voter protection, according to the Arizona Republic, about half of the budget itself is basically off limits to the appropriators in the House and Senate.

While it’s hard to deny that this seems like a good idea when you’ve got a reprobate Republican like Russell Pearce running the House Appropriations Committee, one must be careful what one wishes for. People smarter than me have said they anticipate some kind of battle at the ballot over the future of fiscal policy, maybe Gov. Napolitano’s tax code revisions v. Pearce and others spending reforms, which would cap state spending based on population and inflation.

Is anyone going to be happy with enshrining the outcome of such a scenario in state law immemorial?

Still, efforts to reform the initiative process are often attacked as self-serving attempts by lawmakers to impede the will of voters. And there is legitimacy in that argument. Lawmakers who want to limit the initiative process often propose new signature requirements and other procedural hurdles. Such measures would impede true citizen action but do nothing to stop folks with real money from succeeding at the ballot.

But in a world where a multimillionaire like Arnold Schwarzenegger takes on the role of Huey Long, or a Run Unz gets by claiming he really wants all kids to succeed, who’s to say that such reforms aren’t something voters won’t go for. Thank the rich for saving us from ourselves. That’s Madisonian democracy in action.

But don’t worry, at least we have things like “clean money” to make sure no one can buy state policy in Arizona. And if that doesn’t work, well, we’ll pay you a million bucks to vote.

Then you can fund the Recall Napolitano campaign in 2005.

Tom Collins is a former statehouse reporter for the Tucson Citizen and former press secretary for the Arizona Department of Education. He is currently a law student at the University of Arizona. He writes occasional columns on Arizona politics. E-mail: tom.collins@law.arizona.edu

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Tom Collins COLUMN

Pearce’s budget bulldozes programs for kids

Tom Collins

Citizen Columnist

A chief architect of the GOP budget proposal, House Appropriations Chairman Russell Pearce worries that “socialist tendencies” threaten our freedom. He worries about whether “activist Hispanic judge”(s) are setting state spending policies.

Given his concerns, it’s really no surprise that the budget proposal that emerged Tuesday is ugly. After all, the guy the House GOP has in charge of spending is just to the right of right of a Cochise County bounty hunter.

The budget takes aim in particular at education and children’s health – issues that demonstrate that the budget is a statement of social ideology masquerading as a dollars-and-sense approach to balancing the state budget. Or maybe the House and Senate majorities are just staking out a hard bargaining position.

For example, the package slaps at the governor, the schools and voters to the tune of $70 million – a spending increase that Gov. Janet Napolitano and others believe was locked in by the Education 2000 referendum. School advocates have guaranteed a court fight if this passes.

Pearce, who co-authored the budget, apparently doesn’t agree with that assessment of the law. But to get a sense of what Russell Pearce and some of his colleagues do agree with, you have to look at what he opposes and what he doesn’t oppose.

He doesn’t believe, for example, that the state should be funding pre-school or full-day kindergarten because, as he told The Arizona Republic in a legislative questionnaire: “Absolutely not. Can not afford it and my answer to pre school development is called MOTHER. . . . American excels significantly above all nations that have pre-school programs.”

He doesn’t agree with judges, generally, and especially the ones who make the state live up to the law on education. For example it was when decrying Federal Judge Alfredo Marquez’s efforts to make the state meet its rather limited obligations to students whose first language is not English that Pearce expressed his concern about an “activist Hispanic judge” telling the state what to do.

He said he was simply discussing “judges who legislate from the bench,” adding “This has nothing to do with Hispanics. My comment had to do with the activism of the Hispanic caucus. We have judges out of control.”

Suffice it to say when it comes to the Latino education crisis in Arizona – a bigger crisis even than the budget – Pearce has a silver bullet, so to speak. To wit: “English Immersion as intended by the passage of Prop. 203 by the voters. This alone would achieve the results everyone keeps saying their (sic) trying to achieve.” These statements on education seem to speak for themselves – and they speak through the budget.

There is a notion of holding the line on spending in the $70 million rollback, but it is obscured by sure popular political scorn and unsure legal footing. After all, if former Gov. Jane Hull could convince voters that Education 2000 wasn’t a 12 percent increase in the state’s sales tax (which she did), good luck convincing those same voters that halting a promised spending increase for schools is not a cut in funding (you won’t).

But the ideology behind the budget proposal runs deeper than that.

Pearce, a former (and decorated) sheriff’s deputy turned bureaucrat turned lawmaker, blames schools, among other things, for violence, saying, “Violence in America is due not to the availability of guns but to social pathologies – illegitimacy, dysfunctional schools, drug and alcohol abuse, moral decay in America (the sanctity of human life, i.e., abortion on demand).”

So what should be cut?

“I would look at programs that are not mandated by the Constitution and Social Programs that should be and used to be the responsibility of Family, Church, and/or Community and not of government,” Pearce wrote in the candidate questionnaire. Whatever that means.

In considering the GOP budget, remember Pearce has sponsored a measure called the “Taxpayer Bill of Rights” that says, in short, state spending shall be capped at the rate of population growth plus inflation.

I’m no public administration expert, but I figure growth is complicated – because of historic underfunding or shifts in the priorities of the population of the state and shifts in the population itself that drive policy.

That indicates that in selecting an appropriations chair, the Republican leadership signaled it doesn’t like all the math that goes into government finance. After all, Pearce said a “bracketed tax” is always “unfair” and has said he likes consumption taxes and flat taxes. Regression is the better part of valor.

When Pearce and the GOP leadership trained their sights on Kids Care, the health care program for the kids of low-income families, they are, as the saying goes, carrying a good joke too far.

Besides offering health insurance to some 50,000 kids, the program is matched by the federal government and the efforts to enroll kids have actually helped thousands of even poorer children who qualify for AHCCCS. In fact, the chief complaint about Kids Care in the past (and this is not just in Arizona) is that it has failed to draw down more of the federal dollars set aside for the program. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Or, maybe it’s just that “the politically correct crowd does not want to recognize that we are spending billions on the illegal immigration, in education, jail cost, health care cost, quality of life destruction, drug traffic, gang related issues, etc.” Not mention “our activist government.” Or so Pearce has said.

You don’t have to be J. Edgar Hoover to see that society benefits when its kids aren’t sick. If that’s socialism, who’s not a little pink.

THE WIT AND WISDOM OF RUSSELL PEARCE

From www.russelpearce.com

- On gun control: “Laws against murder and a ban on handguns in the nation’s capital didn’t deter the young hoods, but the former vice president supposed safety locks would somehow foil them.”

- On freedom: “We must understand the principles of Freedom and Limited Government and resist Plunder and socialist tendencies.”

From The Arizona Republic

questionaire

- On the economy: “Arizona’s economy is well balanced, with industrial distribution that mirrors that of the nation as a whole. However, a) Arizona’s has a larger proportion of blue collar workers, b) our climate is a reason people move here and are willing to work for a little less, c) the politically correct crowd does not want to recognize that we are spending billions on the illegal immigration, in education, jail cost, health care cost, quality of life destruction, drug traffic, gang related issues, etc. d) another issue is our activist government.”

Tom Collins is a former statehouse reporter for the Tucson Citizen and former press secretary for the Arizona Department of Education. He is currently a law student at the University of Arizona. He writes occasional columns on Arizona politics. E-mail: tom.collins@law.arizona.edu

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Tom Collins COLUMN

Napolitano a whirlwind as GOP sits frozen

Tom Collins

Citizen Columnist

The GOP has run the state for a long time. So when local Republicans trek to Phoenix later this month for their state convention, they do so without a governor as the head of the party for the first time in more than a decade.

And while Republicans still hold both U.S. Senate seats and represent the majority of the state’s congressional districts, at the state level the party seems weakened beyond its actual losses.

In fact, as Gov. Janet Napolitano spent last week running circles around the GOP, the House and Senate leadership seem positively Daschleized.

Faced with a guaranteed second week of media coverage of state issues led by Napolitano’s State of the State address, Republicans seemed almost complacent in the face of what really amounted to a repudiation of the past decade of Republican rule.

Republican Senate President Ken Bennett summed up the apparent malaise when he said – arguing the state of the state was not so “grim” – that “this is not a time for blame.” Instead, Bennett called putting partisanship aside to tackle the budget mess, rather than aggressively staking out any new territory for the party on fiscal or on any other state policy.

Having received a broadside in the State of the State, the GOP responded with a mere whimper of complaint about growing spending and its record on education funding. It will take more than that to turn the tide of conventional wisdom.

The governor blamed a decade of virtually uninterrupted GOP rule for a host of problems, for a bankruptcy of vision, for the grimness upon the state, for balancing the budget on the “backs of our children.” And Republicans were calling for bipartisanship? Perhaps that ship has sailed.

Bemoaning Napolitano’s use of executive orders to give her administration a running start, Republican leaders refused to commit to any court action and frankly couldn’t offer even a criticism of Napolitano’s plan, much less an alternative.

Said Bennett, “It’s a great program, and it may help a lot of people, but we need to be working more closely together if we are going to accomplish other interests.” Then he and other leaders demanded Napolitano cut out the executive orders.

It was kind of like that scene in “The Princess Bride” where the evil prince says. “Surrender,” and the embattled and surrounded hero says, “Surrender to me? Very well, I accept.” Except in the movie it’s a joke.

Are the Republicans so paralyzed by the budget issue or so intimidated by the new governor? Napolitano is not cowed by the budget.

In the face of the budget crisis, it’s Napolitano the Democrat forging ahead with plans to seek private funding for new kindergarten programs and facilitating economic development through the state’s universities.

It is Napolitano who is pledging to go line by line through key state budgets to eliminate waste and duplication.

Meanwhile last week Bennett and House Majority Leader Eddie Farnsworth were telling the Associated Press they were going to take on voter-passed legislation that they see as a roadblock to fixing the budget. It’s like once Napolitano said “no new taxes,” Republicans don’t know what to do.

Regardless of what your position is on fiscal issues, you have to accept that the GOP positions are not ones to be ashamed of. But Republicans need a leader at the state level.

And perhaps that’s why it was no surprise, although unseemly, to see state GOP Chairman Bob Fannin – fresh from losing the Governor’s Office for the party – lurking around the Republican response to the State of the State last week. Unseemly because Fannin is an incredibly powerful lobbyist and his presence only bolsters the argument the GOP-led Legislature is a slave to special interests. No surprise because there was no message.

Napolitano has made a show of being active. One minute she’s at a University of Arizona basketball game, the next minute she’s delivering the State of the State. One minute she’s trying to get seniors a price break on prescription drugs, the next minute she’s pouring over budget figures.

It’s not that she’s surprising anyone with her agenda – she’s just busy. But busy looks important. A friend of mine said Janet is still running for office. The GOP better start soon.

Tom Collins is a former statehouse reporter for the Tucson Citizen and former press secretary for the Arizona Department of Education. He is currently a law student at the University of Arizona. He writes occasional columns on Arizona politics. E-mail: tom.collins@law.arizona.edu

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Tom Collins COLUMN

Napolitano hires big batch of political retreads

Tom Collins

Citizen Columnist

When Janet Napolitano claimed victory in November’s gubernatorial election, she pledged to scour the state to find the best and brightest to fit the “One Arizona” vision of her recent inaugural galas. People of all colors, cultures and backgrounds need apply, she said.

How ironic then that Team Napolitano is as heavy as the Bush administration with white guys who have been either elected officials, losing candidates or both. The one’s who have done both must be the brightest.

To wit:

- Co-Chief of Staff: Alan Stephens, former state lawmaker.

- Head of Budget Policy: George Cunningham, former state lawmaker, failed congressional and Arizona Corporation Commission candidate.

- Government Technology: Chris Cummiskey, former state lawmaker, failed candidate for Secretary of State.

- Department of Water Resources: Herb Guenther, former Yuma Democratic state senator.

- Residential Utility Consumer Office: Stephen Ahearn, failed corporation commission candidate.

- Department of Environmental Quality: Steve Owens, former Al Gore staffer and two-time congressional candidate.

- Economic Development: Sen. Ramon Valadez, while Hispanic, surely secures old boy status through his diligent service as a political cog in southern Arizona.

Napolitano is not alone.

GOP Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, seeking to put a smiling southern Arizona face on the racially-charged politics he practices, hired former Democratic lawmaker, failed treasurer candidate and football fan Ruth Solomon to serve as one of countless associate superintendents. She was a Clean Elections candidate, while Horne was not.

Should we be surprised? Of course not. This is par for the course in politics, whether you’re Andrew Jackson or George Bush.

What is troubling is the way in which Napolitano’s actions appear distinct and different from her words. It will be interesting, at the end of her term, to compare her efforts to those of former Gov. Jane Hull, who set a land-speed record for appointing Hispanics to key posts and judgeships while governor.

When the national press does pieces on the cozy relationship between George Bush’s appointees and industry (Remember Harvey Pitt?), the White House likes to say that only in Washington is a bad thing for an appointee to have experience in the field they now oversee.

There’s a certain logic there. Here, however, to say that Valadez or Cummiskey or Owens are leaders, or even recognized authorities, in their area of assignment, is a stretch.

They are politician’s politicians.

Appointing Cunningham, on the other hand, while he is an official with decades of public finance expertise at the University of Arizona and in Gov. Mofford’s office, is kind of like dragging William Shatner out for another five-year voyage.

And think about this: Many of these officials ran as Clean Elections candidates, suggesting that this revolving door is paid for by taxpayers. As such, Napolitano’s efforts have the makings of another argument against the narrowly supported election finance program if it returns for a public re-vote as promised in 2004.

Despite the “reform” of Clean Elections, the Governor’s Office remains a giant incubator for political viability and a great cash machine for political payoffs, no matter how unbesmirched Napolitano and the people she has hired generally are.

I have no doubt that Napolitano’s white boys are bright. But the brightest the state has to offer? Where are the thinkers, the businesspeople, the builders of things? Where are the outsiders?

In contrast, Napolitano has selected international banking executive Gil Jimenez to serve as head of the Department of Commerce. Jimenez has expertise and experience working with Mexican and Latin American markets, as well as a Harvard business degree. But he has never been a state senator.

Now, down here in Pima County, we know all about “inside baseball.” It’s the stuff of stadiums and street projects. But if – and this is a big if – voters turned out for Napolitano in hopes of changing the tune up in Phoenix, it appears that the words have changed, but the band is playing the same old song.

Instead of “Hail to the Chief,” it’s “Here Come the Hacks.”

Tom Collins is a former statehouse reporter for the Tucson Citizen and former press secretary for the Arizona Department of Education. He is currently a law student at the University of Arizona. He writes occasional columns on Arizona politics. E-mail: tom.collins@law.arizona.edu

Legislature ponders economy, risk of spending revenues

By TOM COLLINS

Citizen Phoenix Bureau

PHOENIX – When Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan says “downside risks predominate” in the economy, state lawmakers and Gov. Jane Hull listen.

And while state economists say Arizona’s economic climate is likely to remain warm throughout the year, Hull and some lawmakers see dark clouds on the horizon as the Legislature wrestles with a two-year budget guaranteed to top $7 billion annually.

Faced with a slowing economy, many states are grappling with bleak revenue forecasts and the possibility of budget cuts or tax hikes to match spending and revenue.

Two big questions for Arizona are, what are the risks and what should be done?

Hanging in that uncertainty are dozens of legislative spending proposals that include everything from an increase in the number of graduate teaching assistants at the University of Arizona to $10 million for a new Pima Community College campus on the Northwest Side, not to mention proposals for helping senior citizens buy prescription drugs and efforts to lure high-tech firms to Arizona.

“The question is, how much risk are we willing to take?” said Hull’s chief lobbyist, Jaime Molera. “Are we willing to risk tremendous growth and then have to cut? Or do we want to take a more modest tack and make sure that the state is not in jeopardy fiscally?”

“Arizona is continuing to grow, but we don’t want to really risk having to do midyear budget cuts like other states are already having to face,” Molera said.

Some states, for example, have seen anticipated surpluses disappear. In Texas, an anticipated $700 million surplus is threatened by increased costs in Medicaid, and in California, a budget surplus expected a month ago is all but gone. Both South and North Carolina have seen anticipated surpluses of more than $500 million disappear.

The economic picture is changing so rapidly that one national legislative organization, the National Conference of State Legislatures, is scrambling to reassess the nationwide scene.

“Clearly the situation is different because of what’s happened to the economy in general,” said NCSL analyst Arturo Perez. “States are as prone to any downturn in the economy as anything else.”

In Arizona, where the state budget has doubled during the last 10 years, some analysts are considering revising their revenue estimates downward in reaction to early signs that the economy may be weakening.

For example, sales tax growth for November, the key retail month, was expected to rise 8.6 percent, but instead rose a paltry 2.2 percent. To put that in perspective, Hull’s budget adviser Tom Betlach said each percentage point accounts for about $30 million annually. In addition, January personal income tax revenues were off $11.5 million from last year, he said, and corporate income tax rates are off $13.4 million.

Add to that a range of uncertainty that includes the ultimate cost of the alternative fuels fiasco and some officials fear that the state could be forced to reduce its 2002-2003 two-year budget if things don’t go according to plan, some officials said.

The governor and the Legislature began the session with revenue estimates $250 million to $300 million apart on revenue projections. Hull’s staff estimated budget growth during the next few years at 7.4 percent and the Legislature at 8.1 percent.

Budget analysts, however, are faced with projecting the health of the economy 30 months ahead, and small miscalculations can add up. Being wrong by 1 percent during each of the next three years adds up to more than $400 million.

But not everyone is taking a bleak view of the situation. Sen. Ruth Solomon, D-Tucson, said that the reaction to the nation’s slower economy is exaggerated.

“I think they are indeed hyperbolic,” Solomon said. “You can’t tell by just one month.”

She said recent national and local reports show sales picked up in December and January.

“According to the economists, we’re already landing softly,” Solomon said.

The potentially troubled outlook, however, hasn’t stopped lawmakers from considering $100 million in tax cuts, a staple of state budget policy for the last 10 years.

House Speaker Jim Weiers, who supports a variety of personal and corporate tax cuts, said cutting taxes now may allow the state to avert the slowdown hitting the rest of the country.

“It’s almost miniscule (compared to the rest of the budget), but it does send a message,” Weiers said.

But other lawmakers say it’s premature to consider tax cuts before the state addresses needs ranging from more money for services to the mentally ill to a substantial pay hike for state employees.

“I’m trying to figure out now if we have enough money to pay the bills,” said Rep. Marion Pickens, a Tucson Democrat and assistant minority leader of the House of Representatives.

Lawmakers also are considering additional spending that could cost $500 million alone if state senators passed everything they’ve proposed, she said, adding that every additional dollar will be scrutinized.

Molera said the governor also will be eyeing the Legislature’s spending priorities.

“There are always pork bills coming through the Legislature, and those are always troubling,” Molera said.

Meanwhile, the governor has been begging lawmakers to put money back into the rainy day fund and another fund devoted to overruns in the cost of providing health care.

Treasurer Carol Springer, however, said that if lawmakers think they can rely on that money to weather an economic storm, they’re fooling themselves.

“I think we’re going to have some problems in the future if the Legislature doesn’t take a look at what is happening in the economy,” Springer said. “The rainy day fund is for all practical purposes gone.”

GRAPHIC: At a glance

Arizona’s funding sources

Source: Governor’s Office/Tucson Citizen

ILLUSTRATION: Photo Illustration by RANDY HARRIS/Tucson Citizen

By TOM COLLINS

Citizen Phoenix Bureau

PHOENIX – A Senate committee yesterday killed a measure aimed at closing the so-called “gun show loophole” that local officials blame for allowing one of the convicted Pizza Hut killers to obtain the gun used to kill three people in Tucson two years ago.

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 4-3 yesterday against the bill, which would have required all gun show vendors to get an instant background check through the state’s Department of Public Safety.

Opponents of the measure argued it amounted to unnecessary regulation. But Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall said that anyone who would be blocked from buying a gun because of a background check shouldn’t have one in the first place.

“Legitimate people don’t have a problem getting a background check,” LaWall said.

LaWall cited the case of Kajornsak “Tom” Prasertphong, one of two men convicted in the January 1999 Pizza Hut triple homicide. The .40-caliber Glock semiautomatic handgun he used was obtained from an unlicensed private vendor.

Under federal law, only licensed gun dealers are required to perform “instant” background checks. Sales by unregulated private individuals do not face the same scrutiny.

Darren LaSorte, a lobbyist with the National Rifle Association, said the measure would be an impediment to the transfer of private property. He said only about 2 percent of guns used in crimes were bought at gun shows.

“We’ve got to draw the line somewhere,” he said. “These criminals who are committing the crimes are going to be getting their guns elsewhere.”

Sen. Elaine Richardson, chairwoman of the committee, said it appeared the legislation is all but dead for the session, but she still supports it.

“What’s the NRA afraid of?” asked the Tucson Democrat, who voted for the measure.

Sen. Tim Bee said he understood the issue is difficult, but he tended to come down on the side of the opponents.

Steve Lynn, a public relations executive, will lead a commission redrawing the state’s legislative and congressional districts.

By TOM COLLINS

Citizen Phoenix Bureau

PHOENIX – Tucson area lawmakers say Southern Arizona could have a fighting chance to retain its representation in the state Legislature thanks to the latest appointment to the state’s new redistricting commission.

Steve Lynn, a Tucson public relations and advertising executive now serving as a spokesman for Unisource, the parent company of Tucson Electric Power, was named chairman of the commission yesterday by unanimous vote.

Lynn, an independent, joins Tucson landscape architect Daniel Elder, a Republican, on the five-member board charged with drawing the lines for the state’s congressional and legislative districts.

But the selection of Lynn, a former Republican, did nothing to assuage the fears of Arizona minority groups, many of whom are angry the commission is entirely Anglo.

The law requires the four commissioners chosen by legislative leaders pick a fifth member – an independent – as chairman.

However, the group had to pick from a list that did not include any minority independent members.

Senate Democratic Whip Pete Rios said that if the commission draws district lines that are unacceptable, the issue could go to the U.S. Justice Department, which oversees Arizona election law under the Voting Rights Act.

Lynn yesterday acknowledged the misgivings. But he said he is not a “Republican masquerading in independents clothing” and that he changed party affiliation many times to support particular issues and candidates.

Critics, he said, should judge the commission by “the content of its work product, not necessarily its complexion.”

While expansion of Maricopa County all but guarantees that Pima County will lose at least one seat in the Legislature, Rep. Pete Hershberger, R-Tucson, feared the area would lose more. There are now six Tucson-area districts.

Lynn’s appointment, Hershberger said, gives him “a much higher comfort level.”

But Lynn and Elder yesterday downplayed their influence on the process of drawing district maps.

“This is really not the appropriate time to be parochial,” Lynn said.

Elder noted that the U.S. Census might have more influence on the process.

Voters in November approved Proposition 106, which took the power to draw district lines out of the hands of the Legislature and gave it to the new commission.

Districts are redrawn every decade, based on the most recent U.S. Census data. Because of its 40 percent increase in population, Arizona should gain two seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

University High students plan to lobby a House committee to reconsider the measure, which they rejected last week.

By TOM COLLINS

Citizen Phoenix Bureau

PHOENIX – A group of Tucson teen-agers have their work cut out for them if they want to give Arizonans the chance to expand the right to vote to people as young as 16.

A House Committee last week voted 7-1 against House Concurrent Resolution 2011. The measure would ask voters in 2002 to give the right to vote to high schoolers.

But despite the resounding vote, students from University High are holding out hope that a procedural maneuver could save their measure. The students say they plan an all-out lobbying effort in the slim hope of getting the House Counties and Municipalities Committee to reconsider its action.

Stephanie Green, 18, co-founder of the group Generation Now, likened the situation of people under 18, who work and pay taxes, to the circumstances that lead to the American Revolution.

Joshua Lederman agreed, calling the current situation “taxation without representation.” He urged lawmakers to pass the measure, arguing it would teach students good voting habits and noting that young adults are ranked the lowest when it comes to voter turnout.

But the measure faced opposition from the Arizona Association of Counties. Tonia Garrett, a lobbyist for the group, told lawmakers that with the federal voting age set at 18, younger voters would require separate ballots, which could double the costs of running local elections.

Rep. Tom O’Halleran, a Flagstaff Republican, said that he saw no groundswell of support among young people. Green and Lederman acknowledge their group, while active in 16 states, doesn’t have a Phoenix branch.

Meanwhile Reps. Marian McClure and Linda Binder argued that 16 is simply too young to vote.

“Sixteen is just a little bit too young to be voting,” said McClure, a Tucson Republican.

Lederman, 15, counters that 16-year-olds, besides working and paying taxes, can drive and drop out of high school legally. But Binder, a Republican from Lake Havasu City, said that she has a 19-year-old and said the difference between an 16-year-old and an

18-year-old are marked.

If the group wants to forgo the Legislature and take its issue to the ballot, it faces the challenge that only people of current voting age can carry petitions for initiatives.

“It’s kind of a Catch-22 in that sense,” Lederman said. Green, however, said the group hopes to put together an advertisement to run on Channel One, the in-school cable channel.

Rep. Marion Pickens, a Tucson Democrat who sponsored the bill, said that the teens have a point.

“They should be involved,” she said.

The combined campus gets endorsements yesterday from a state Senate committee.

By TOM COLLINS

Citizen Phoenix Bureau

PHOENIX – Plans for a combined Pima Community College and University of Arizona campus on the Northwest Side took an important step forward yesterday.

The Senate Education Committee endorsed two bills related to the campus planned for North Shannon and West Magee roads.

One bill would spend nearly $10 million for a building to house Arizona International Campus students. The other bill would allocate $800,000, starting in 2003, for campus operating expenses.

Faced with enrollment growth, PCC and UA are joining forces with Pima County and a YMCA project that includes athletic fields and an aquatic center.

“It’s not only important to the UA and to the northwest, but the whole idea behind that, which is pooling resources,” said Sen. Toni Hellon, a Tucson Republican.

The full facility would eventually serve about 12,000 UA and PCC students, PCC consultant Ken Sternstein said.

The money from the Legislature would be coupled with $25 million from local bonds, said PCC Vice Chancellor John Gabusi. The school should come online in 2003.

Plans for the campus are going ahead in anticipation of the new cash, Gabusi said.

But at least one Phoenix legislator is wary.

“There is an awful lot of money going down to Pima County and to higher education,” said Sen. Mary Hartley, a Phoenix Democrat.

Hellon acknowledged that given the Legislature’s budget, it may be a tight squeeze to find the money for the project this session.

Meanwhile, the same committee approved spending $3 million over two years to add about 10 percent more graduate teaching assistants to UA’s 1,200-member work force.

Gary Pivo, dean of the UA Graduate College, said TAs now are forced to work on average 25 percent more than the hours for which they’re paid.

Jason Auxier, a UA optical sciences graduate student, said some 7,000 freshman a year take English composition classes.

“That could not be done by faculty members alone,” Auxier said.

The state Senate Rules Committee voted down the measure despite advice from its attorney that the bill is legal.

By TOM COLLINS

Citizen Phoenix Bureau

PHOENIX – A Tucson lawmaker is scrambling to revive a bill aimed at banning employment discrimination against gays after a Senate committee rejected the bill this week, saying it was unconstitutional.

The Rules Committee, which is supposed to determine whether proposed laws are constitutional, voted the measure down Wednesday despite advice from the committee’s attorney that it was legal.

Sen. Elaine Richardson, a Tucson Democrat, said the committee overstepped its bounds in rejecting her bill, which would provide equal protection in the workplace for gays and lesbians.

Sen. Darden Hamilton, chairman of the committee, said such a measure needs to be an amendment to the state Constitution, rather than a simple change in the law.

Hamilton, a Glendale Republican, contended the measure runs contrary to other state policies banning discrimination against race and religion. Being gay or lesbian involves a choice, he said.

“I didn’t kill the bill. My argument prevailed,” Hamilton said.

Also Wednesday, the head of the House Rules Committee came under fire for holding up a bill aimed at creating a system to allow mothers to drop off newborns at hospitals and other institutions without facing criminal prosecution.

More than 30 lawmakers have signed a petition seeking to withdraw the bill from the Rules Committee. They accused chairwoman Karen Johnson of holding back the bill.

The measure would create a statewide system similar to the Safe Baby program the Pima County Attorney’s Office is developing.

The Senate gave the preliminary go-ahead to a similar measure yesterday.

Johnson, a Mesa Republican, said the bill is vague in describing organizations that could take the infants whose mothers feel they cannot provide adequate care.

The petition marks the first use of a House rule passed earlier this year by moderates from both major parties to strip some power from the committee. All House bills must go through the committee. Rep. Pete Hershberger, a Tucson Republican, said he hopes the petition will send a message to Johnson.

“I’m feeling that once we’ve used it, now we won’t have to use it” again, he said.

By TOM COLLINS

Citizen Phoenix Bureau

PHOENIX – Gov. Jane Hull is expected to sign a measure Monday that will put 116 more highway patrol officers on Arizona roads, including 20 more in the Tucson area, over the next two years.

It will be the first increase in Department of Public Safety officers in 10 years in the Tucson and Phoenix areas.

“It’s something that was needed,” said Francie Noyes, Hull’s press secretary.

The measure, which calls for spending another $52 million on DPS over the next two years, passed the state House of Representatives 52-5 yesterday.

It cleared the Senate on a 28-2 vote.

The bill includes an emergency clause that will allow the state to immediately start recruiting officers, who would begin training in July.

Some of the funding in the bill would pay for overtime and new patrol cars.

Thirty-three officers and five sergeants patrol the 289 miles of interstate and state highways in the Tucson area.

At least one DPS study shows the Tucson area needs 60 new officers to properly deal with a 40 percent increase in highway traffic over the past 10 years.

Citizen Staff

By TOM COLLINS

Citizen Phoenix Bureau

PHOENIX – Gov. Jane Hull is expected to sign a measure Monday that will put 116 more highway patrol officers on Arizona roads, including 20 more in the Tucson area, over the next two years.

It will be the first increase in Department of Public Safety officers in 10 years in the Tucson and Phoenix areas.

“It’s something that was needed,” said Francie Noyes, Hull’s press secretary.

The measure, which calls for spending another $52 million on DPS over the next two years, passed the state House of Representatives 52-5 yesterday.

It cleared the Senate on a 28-2 vote.

The bill includes an emergency clause that will allow the state to immediately start recruiting officers, who would begin training in July.

Some of the funding in the bill would pay for overtime and new patrol cars.

Thirty-three officers and five sergeants patrol the 289 miles of interstate and state highways in the Tucson area.

At least one DPS study shows the Tucson area needs 60 new officers to properly deal with a 40 percent increase in highway traffic over the past 10 years.