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Transcripts

March 27, 2002

Host: Michael Grant
Topic: Special legislative session on Indian gaming;
Clean Elections funding sources;
Recent findings from a study in the New England Journal of Medicine -- when people take both aspirin and the pain reliever Ibuprofen the beneficial clot-preventing properties of aspirin become blocked
In-Studio Guests:
Scott Thomsen, Associated Press
Clint Bollick, vice-president, director of state chapter development for the Institute for Justice; Todd Lang, Assistant Attorney General

>> Michael: Tonight on "Horizon," should your parking ticket fine go towards funding a political campaign even if you don't agree with the candidate's politics? Plus, an update on legislative work at the state capitol and a health report, what people taking aspirin for heart attack prevention should know about other popular pain relievers. Good evening. I'm Michael Grant. Governor Hull is calling law makers into a special legislative session on Monday. The issue... Indian gaming. The plan proposed by Governor Hull would expand Indian gaming in some areas of the state. Debate expected on that subject, of course. Senate President Randall Gnant has his own proposal. Here to update us, associated press legislative reporter Scott Thomsen. Call officially expected tomorrow?

>> Scott: Yes. That's the word we're getting that the governor has put her plan together and she'll actually issue the proclamation probably tomorrow. Special session would begin on Monday and run concurrently with the regular session that they're in right now.

>> Michael: Interesting, little -- a little revenue incentive here. The governor's got about 40 million or so anticipated income from the compacts folded into the '03 budget and so it's a little difficult to go the '03 budget without knowing if, in fact, you have that 40 million bucks.

>> Scott: That's exactly right. They're planning to set aside work on the upcoming budget for a few weeks and focus on the Indian gaming compacts and whether or not you can get the legislature to approve the package. As you mentioned, she has tied in 40 million dollars out of revenue sharing from gaming into her recommendations for the 2003 fiscal year budget. So if you don't have the gaming compact, you obviously can't put the governor's budget plan in place.

>> Michael: It would seem that maybe you got two or three constituencies over at the legislature on this.

>> Scott: At least.

>> Michael: Well, you got people who support the tribes. You got people who aren't wild about gaming but figure they're stuck with it. And then you've got another element here that says, I don't care where $40 million or actually the projected $85 to $100 million on a four-year basis is coming from, that sounds good to me.

>> Scott: Sure.

>> Michael: How many other contingencies?

>> Scott: You have also the group that's trying to keep the horse and dog racing tracks in business that. There is a contingency of those folks out there. And there are some folks that as long as the money was right would be more than willing to expand gaming to whatever -- that's probably the the smallest group of the bunch.

>> Michael: Senate president Randall Gnant, as you.

>> Scott: Rich: Indicated, wants to refer to the ballot that would allow horse and dog racing tracks to have about a thousand slot machines. Is it necessarily, Scott, inconsistent for Senator Gnant to support the Indian gaming compacts but at the same time still support, let's move this other measure in relation to dog and horse tracks?

>> Scott: No, if he separated them in that fashion and went with the compact approvals on one hand and a separate measure referring to the ballot, the opportunity for the tracks to operate slot machines of their own, there is no inconsistency there. Co-continue to support those things. His initial plan was one to say, we set up a new round of negotiated compacts with the tribes and give the tracks their shot at things as well, and that would be all in one place. Co-certainly do that in two different pieces of legislation.

>> Michael: So is a two-week goal for this thing realistic or not?

>> Scott: Well, how long this takes is really going to come down to how many of those constituencies decide they have any fight left after the budget battles, and maybe they want to kill some more time until the April tax revenue collection numbers come out so they have a better idea of their budget. In the meantime they've got something to do. But I think what this really comes down to is a question of for those folks who perhaps don't like gaming and really prefer not to have gaming anywhere in the state, is this the best deal that they can cut to limit gaming to what you've essentially got right now? If they accept that argument that this is the only way to keep it from spreading to wherever, then I think that this thing comes together fairly quickly.

>> Michael: Governor requested an up or down vote. That's not likely?

>> Scott: That's really tough any time that you get 90 lawmakers involved in a process and tell them, this is it, "yes" or "no," because they always want to fiddle with something. But this is a deal that the governor has spent a little more than two years negotiating with the tribes, and it's going to be really difficult for the tribes to spend that much time hammering out a deal on fine points that are so important to them and then have the legislature come in at the 11th hour and say, oh, by the way, we've got you on four more things we want you to agree to.

>> Michael: Speaking of the legislature coming in at the 11th hour, on Monday we had the stadium site. Is the legislature starting to move to address certain aspects of the TSA legislation, most notably, whether or not an Indian tribe can sponsor a site?

>> Scott: Well, some of it is hard to say, because you've got this meeting that was held for 90 minutes with all of the interested parties, included just about everybody except the media. So as we sat outside, we had to kind of catch things secondhand, but the consensus was that they came out of this meeting with an understanding of what needed to be done in order to make sure that the TSA has the ability to cut a deal with some site, and that means one clarifying that Indian tribes can participate in the process, secondly, clearing up any kind of issues or questions that revolve around tribal sovereignty, and what that means for liability should something happen to a person attending an event. If you clear up those two things, president Gnant believes that the TSA board is then prepared to be able to cut a deal either with the City of Mesa or one of the tribes and have that done by July 1st.

>> Michael: This, of course, assuming that the City of Mesa wants to remain in this play.

>> Scott: Exactly.

>> Michael: That's a giant question mark.

>> Scott: Secondly f Mesa doesn't want to play, that you can get the Gila tribe interested in coming back into the process after being snubbed by Maricopa County. If that doesn't happen by July 1st, then the legislature would need to come in and do something drastic, whatever that may be. It could be deciding -- choosing a site for the TSA. It could be finally state -- finding state land somewhere and this is where you are going to put it or just scrapping the entire process.

>> Michael: I would love to see 90 legislators choosing a stadium site. I think that would be a lot of fun, particularly in the dead heat of summer around here.

>>> Senate moving out the homeowners' association bill?

>> Scott: The bill went through committee of the whole today -- excuse me -- went through the third reads in the Senate today and moved out. This is a big step for this particular legislation. A year ago Tom Smith was chanting this and could not get it out of committee because it was tied in with so many other issues that the neighborhoods were fighting for, methamphetamine lab cleanups and dealing with problem bars and so forth. It bogged down. Sue Gerard is sponsoring the legislation this year. It's out of the Senate. Goes over to the house. This is already a big step forward. And it's some fairly simple provisions. It says that if you are a member of an association, you can look at association records on their financial records and their budgeting. You get to go to the meetings that are held under the state's open meeting laws. There is an appeals process if they Arab fine against you for failing to comply with one of the association rules. And if you can't work it out through that appeals process, you can go to a justice of the peace and have them decide the case -- that disagreement for you.

>> Michael: Most importantly, can you fly the American flag?

>> Scott: Yes, you can fly the American flag. That's something that the homeowners associations have agreed to this year suddenly in the spirit of patriotism that they have been fighting against for about the last three years.

>> Michael: Knock me over with a feather. Scott Thomsen, associated press, thanks very much for the update.

>> Scott: My pleasure.

>>> Have you ever paid a parking ticket and wondered where the money goes? Some of the campaign money for political candidates in clean election systems comes from civil and criminal fines. Another clean election funding source, the annual $110 fee from for profit organization lobbyists was struck down in December in Maricopa County Superior Court. Now the fine surcharge is being challenged by a public interest law organization representing a state law maker who got a parking ticket and challenged the surcharge. Merry Lucero reports.

>> Reporter: Every parking fine paid in Arizona has a 10% surcharge that goes to the publicly funded political campaigns, part of the clean elections act pass the by voters in 1998. That surcharge and others on criminal and civil fines is one of four funding sources for clean elections candidates. But one parking ticket given here in Tempe has stirred a debate about the constitutionality of that surcharge. That ticket was issued to state representative Steve May.

>> Steve May: I'm not a lawyer, I'm just an average citizen, and the bottom line is I don't understand how it's right for the government to take money from me and give to it politicians, politicians with whom I disagree or politician whose campaign against me. There are a lot of politicians, many of whom I work with here, that I disagree with, and I don't want to support them. That's why I don't give them campaign money and there are other politicians I write checks to every couple years because I agree with them. But how is it right that the government takes my money without my permission and gives to it a politician that I oppose simply because I was late on a parking meet center it's not right!

>> Reporter: Clean elections is not the only surcharge on parking tickets. There is a 47% surcharge for a criminal justice fund and a 13% surcharge for a medical services fund. But none of those go towards political campaigns. Representative May does not participate in the clean elections funding. He says if the court finds the surcharge unconstitutional, he wants the $2.70 of his $27 ticket returned to him with interest.

>> Michael: Joining me now to talk about the challenge, Clint Bollick, vice-president, director of state chapter development for the institute for justice and Todd Lang, Assistant Attorney General. Gentlemen, good to see you both.

>> Good to see you.

>> Michael: Seems like only a matter of moments since we were last together. Todd, why don't we bring the procedural posture of the case up to date. A special action had been filed with the supreme court. What happened there?

>> Todd: The plaintiffs filed the special action after losing in the trial court and the supreme court reviewed and it declined to review the case. They declined to consider the merits, and so the case has been dismissed. Now it's back to the trial court and there the case can end. However, the plaintiffs had filed appeal in the Court of Appeals -- rather than filing an appeal, they filed another special action in the court of appeals.

>> Michael: Clint, the supreme court's declining jurisdiction on the special action does not necessarily indicate any -- an attitude or an opinion by the supreme court on the case?

>> Clint: That's right. Like God, the Arizona supreme court acts in mysterious ways, and we'd only be able to guess at what their rationale was, but this case ultimately will return to that court and possibly go on to the U.S. supreme court as well.

>> Michael: Why file another special action now with the Court of Appeals at the intermediate level instead of just simply taking an appeal?

>> Clint: Well, we want to get a decision in this case as quickly as possible. There's an awful lot riding on this lawsuit. Millions of dollars of taxpayer money is being spent to subsidize political candidates this year. Already the clean elections commission is having to refund about $350,000 that was wrongly collected from the lobbyists. That fee was struck down by the trial court. And if this election cycle proceeds and candidates all over the state get political subsidies from taxpayers, the refund that will be required after that would be just stupendous. So we want to get a decision as quickly as possible and stop this unconstitutional surcharge.

>> Michael: And we'll get to the mayor nuts just a moment, but, Todd, just on a pure timing issue, I would think that at least the state also would have some interest in getting it resolved one way or the other -- I mean, I know you have strong feelings on resolving it one particular way, but for example, I would think it would be not very conducive to good campaigning to have an adverse ruling from the court come down, for example, in mid-september.

>> Todd: That would be a problem, but, remember this, case has been resolved. The trial court reviewed the merits and rejected the claims. They said there was no compelled speech problem. This isn't the first lawsuit to challenge the clean elections act. This is the sixth. All of them have failed in their attempt to skull the act. The act is still here. It will be here after this election. So the only cloud of doubt is the cloud created by this litigation, not by any concern about the validity of the act. The act will withstand this lawsuit.

>> Michael: This one was partially successful from the standpoint of at the -- at the trial court -- of knocking down the surcharge on lobbyists. On what basis did the trial court strike that?

>> Todd: They found that the lobbyist fee was a prior restraint, which is unconstitutional. In other words, it was restraint of speech before it took place. It only amounted to about 2% of the budget and in the big picture it was insignificant, as compared to the compelled speech issue, which is about 60% of the budget.

>> Michael: Now, admittedly, it was only a small part of the budget, but it was a part of the budget that had built up over time, but even factoring that in, this is not -- does not represent a major economic hit on clean elections and its ability to fund campaigns?

>> Todd: In fact, the clean elections commission, in order to assuage any concerns regarding that issue, whether or not they would be able to fund candidates, factored in losing the lawsuit in their budget. They just put it in the budget and said, look, even if we lose this part of the lawsuit regarding lobbyists fees we will be fine. That's the situation we're in.

>> Michael: That must have been difficult to explain to the trial court judge.

>> Todd: Yes, it was a clever tactic.

>> Michael: All right. Clint, let's go to the merits on this. Why is it impermissible for the state to slap a surcharge on fines and then for pour into that publicly funded elections?

>> Clint: Well, it's been a bedrock principle of our republic from the very first days that political speech is at the heart of freedom of speech, and political speech must be voluntary. Now, it is ok if the voters get together and tax themselves, but what happened here is that the framers of the clean elections act knew that the taxpayers would never tax themselves to fund political campaigns, and so what they did was they tried to find some unpopular groups to single out to bear the burden of these political subsidies, and they found two groups, lobbyists, and that's been struck down, certain lobbyists, not all lobbyists, and people who incur criminal or civil fines. That means that any time a person in Arizona gets a parking ticket, they end up paying a contribution against their will to a candidate not of their choosing. And courts over and over again over the years have struck down singling out a group of people to fund political speech with which they disagree.

>> Michael: I guess I don't follow the consistency of that argument. Why would it be ok for 51% of the voters to get together and say, hey, 10th of a cent on the sales tax and we will give the proceeds to candidates you -- the 49 who lost -- don't like or 51% of the voters get together and say, you know, let's hit law breakers with 10% more, and that's ok.

>> Clint: Well, I actually don't think that either of those things is ok. I don't think that any group should be taxed, even if it's everyone, to support political speech at all. But nonetheless, the courts have created a dividing line. It's ok in the view of the courts for everyone to bear some costs of making political subsidies available, but the idea of singling out a discreet group of people -- it would be -- under the theory that's been advanced by the state, the state could tax the citizens of Mesa to subsidize political campaigns for the people in Scottsdale and that's really essentially what's going on here. These people who are paying parking tickets and that sort of thing, they don't have anything to do with the political process. And that's why this is ultimately going to be struck down.

>> Michael: Todd, why is it going to be affirmed?

>>Todd: Because it's the right decision. The court has said, you know, a fundamental ruling the court made in Buckley versus Vallejo over 25 years ago, was that public money can go to fund political speech. In fact it promotes democracy because it promotes participation in the political process. The court said that's a good thing, not a bad thing. Here the only issue is when you fund -- when you levy a tax to fund -- to create a fund to fund political speech, the only issue is whether that money is distributed in a viewpoint-neutral fashion. Anyone can qualify for clean elections money whether they are conservative, liberal or anywhere in the spectrum. It's only if it's not neutral that you have a problem.

>> Michael: What about Clint's argument that, well, you're not tapping everybody. You are tapping the unfortunates who don't look at their watch and figure out when to run back and refeed the meter.

>> Clint: There's a couple responses. One is rather facetious but there is an element of truth, if you don't want to Pate tax, don't violate Arizona's laws. Simply comply with the law and you'll be fine. But more importantly, it's not -- the court cases that invalidate speech compelled found a person was required to make payment to a particular speech, to a particular message, in other words, a grape produce hear to fund a commercial for grape products or a person had to have a license plate or salute the flag, they had to give speech, they had to make a statement. In this case, Steve May is not funding any particular speech. In fact, his money isn't necessarily going to political speech. It goes to administrative costs and the like. Only if Steve May's funds a particular viewpoint that it becomes a problem. This is no different than my income taxes that pay representative May's salary.

>> Michael: On that, everybody is paying for everybody else's point, we're out of here. Todd Lang, thank you very much for joining us. Clint Bollick, our thanks to you as well. If you want to know more about clean elections or the institute for justice you link to their websites from "Horizon"'s web page. Log onto Channel 8's website at www.kaet.asu.edu and click on "Horizon."

>>> Michael: Many people take an aspirin a day to protect them from heart attack and stroke. But a recent study in the New England journal of medicine found that if people take both aspirin and the popular pain reliever Ibuprofen the beneficial clot-preventing properties of aspirin become blocked. Here's a look at those findings.

>> Reporter: For years dock versus have been prescribing an aspirin a day to people at risk of heart attack or stroke. Aspirin's benefits, it's a blood thinner and prevents clots. But a recent study says that when the popular pain reliever Ibuprofen and aspirin are taken together, Ibuprofen blocks the heart protecting effects of aspirin. Dr. Gordon Ewy, head of the Sarver Heart Center says it's important to information.

>> Dr. Gordon Ewy: If you take aspirin with Ibuprofen, the aspirin doesn't work because the Ibuprofen blocks the little channel so that the aspirin can't get in the platelets activate so that you still have this risk if that you take Ibuprofen.

>> Reporter: Ibuprofen is also in Motrin and Advil, both popular medicines used for arthritis and other types of pain. The study showed just one dose of Ibuprofen stopped aspirin's blood-thinning power by 98%. Cardiovascular pharmacist Dr. Paul Nolan says he was a little surprised by the study, but has some guidelines for what to do.

>>Paul Nolan: So the recommendation right now would be to, at least from a study that either, A. avoid Ibuprofen and take a different nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug or perhaps take the Ibuprofen sometime after -- at least two hours after you've taken the aspirin.

>> Dr. Gordon Ewy: With Ibuprofen, you need to take the aspirin well before the Ibuprofen so that it affects the platelets before you get the Ibuprofen dose. Take the aspirin in the morning, take the Ibuprofen at night for your arthritis so you can sleep. If you need it three times a day because of severe arthritis, then you might want to take something like Naproxin, which has its antiplatelet effect. So it's not simple.

>> Reporter: These graphics in the New England journal of medicine show just how Ibuprofen blocks aspirin's effectiveness.

>> Paul: Ibuprofen when taken either chronically or taken before aspirin blocks the site where aspirin binds. It does not allow aspirin access to that and it, therefore, is the substance that causes platelets to stick together is not completely inhibited. Allowing clots to form in and blood vessels to be plugged.

>> Reporter: Other over-the-counter remedies similar to Ibuprofen are Naprosyn and Aleve and will affect aspirin, too. On the other hand, Dr. Nolan says, popular pain reliever Tylenol and other drugs like it are perfectly safe to take with aspirin. And then there are prescription drugs such as Celebrex known as a two inhibitor usually for arthritis relief. These two have no effect on aspirin.

>> Dr. Gordon Ewy: Information is good. These are new scientific discoveries and the physicians now know -- for example, if you are a young patient and you have know risk of heart attack, you can take your Cox, Celebrex-type anti-inflammatory, not worry so much about having an upset stomach and you don't have to worry about heart disease because you're not at risk, but if you're in your 75 and 80s where we're all at risk for -- most of us -- for heart disease, then you need to consider how you're going to take your aspirin and have that work with your other medications, and then again just to be aware that Ibuprofen blocks the effect of aspirin.

>> Paul: Take your aspirin, unless you cannot tolerate it. Then if, for example, you have a cold or the flu and you want to reduce those symptoms, probably a safer drug to take for those would be Tylenol or acetaminophen. Since that does not -- that drug does not interfere with the antiplatelet effects of the -- or the platelet inhibiting effects of aspirin.

>> Reporter: And if there is ever any doubt about what you're taking, Dr. Nolan says always ask.

>> Paul: Types of people you can ask would be the pharmacist or your physician. In terms of providing useful information. We don't know a lot about lots of combinations, as you said, patients probably have been taking aspirin and Ibuprofen in combination for a long, long time, but -- and it just shows you that without good information you can be do doing potential mow harm than good when taking selected drugs in combination with one another. So it's important to ask before you do something.

>> Michael: Please join us tomorrow for "Horizon." Is Arizona's tuition tax credit achieving its goal of helping needy students attend a private schools? Some say it is not. And Friday on the journalists roundtable, more legislative news plus the continuing saga, of course, of the Cardinals stadium. Thanks for joining us on a Wednesday. I'm Michael Grant. Have a great one. Good night.