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December 12, 2003

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
· The Journalists Roundtable
In-Studio Guests:
· Robbie Sherwood, "Arizona Republic;"
· Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services;
· Chris Coppola, "East Valley Tribune"

>> Michael Grant:
It's Friday December 12, 2003. In the headlines this week, some progress on CPS reform as the legislature concludes week eight of the special session. 9th circuit Court of Appeals ruling independents will be able to vote in the Arizona primary next year. And senator John McCain wins a key victory in the U.S. Supreme Court over the issue of campaign finance reform. Good evening, I'm Michael Grant. This is the Journalists Roundtable. Joining to talk about these and other stories are Robbie Sherwood from the "Arizona Republic," Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services, and Chris Coppola of the "East Valley Tribune". Week eight of the special session, a state-held hostage, produced a compromise agreement on CPS reform between the governor and the Senate however the house has not signed onto the plan. Robbie, glad you could make it for tonight's show. Where do we stand?

>> Robbie Sherwood:
We stand literally outside the Senate president's door waiting for the house leaders, the Senate leaders and the governor to, we all hope, come up with some sort of final at least handshake agreement on what to do. They have been talking for the better part of the last day-and-a-half, and it comes down to two issues, money -- the governor has come down from her $35 million request to about $21 million. The house doesn't feel like it can go any higher than about 16 million. Then there's the issue of constituting abuse when involved with psychotropic drugs. Those are the two main sticking points. If they don't come out of that room, and Howie and I are going to rush back as soon as the show is over and see what happened, but if they don't come out of the room with some sort of deal tonight, your hopes of this thing ending will go downhill fast.

>> Michael Grant:
The subissue on the dollars, both houses saying okay, $7 million or so for hiring new caseworkers because we want you to investigate every CPS report. So the spread really being on how much money they give CPS on just the current standing -

- >> Robbie Sherwood:
That's called a supplemental appropriations. CPS is saying it needs X amount of dollars, 27, I believe, million dollars to get through the rest of the year. It's going to run out of money around February and they're going to have to fire 152 caseworkers, they say. The governor is saying she has come down as far as she can. She's cut her number in half for money she says she knows they need. The house is saying that, you know, CPS, they've done a lot of auditing, a lot of raking CPS officials sort of over the coals to justify their budget, and they still say that CPS can't show them why exactly they need the money, how many employees they have, where the money goes and so they're reluctant to come up higher than they're coming up.

>> Howard Fischer:
And that's really the key behind this. You have a couple issues. First of all, the threat 23 you don't give us 27 million supplemental or even the 13 million in which the governor said, we're going to lay off caseworkers. You go to a Russell Pearce, and he says, wait a second, this is like every time the city needs money we're going to close fire stations and lay off cops. Nobody ever finds a middle manager to lay off. That's number one. Number two is last year CPS came crying saying we're out of money and suddenly found $20 million.

>> Michael Grant:
In fact, deposit they find another 1.8 million?

>> Howard Fischer:
1.8 million. There's a belief out there -- it's not just Child Protective Services but the broader Department of Economic Security which covers jobless benefits and food stamp administration, that somehow if you start poking around the couch of an agency like this the money is there.

>> Michael Grant:
Of course, that's part of the compromise, is it not, that we'll station two or three assistant auditors general over there permanently and they will go scurrying around looking for money

>> Howard Fischer:
And that's the hope, and I think that's part of the reason the house members have come up. Because they originally had offered only $2.7 million which is not going to even start out the process.

>> Chris Coppola:
How much of this questioning by the house, which really seems to be what has been holding this up, traces back to the fact that there were quite a few of them who didn't think there was a need for a session to begin with, didn't think that you had to convene because a crisis wasn't there?

>> Howard Fischer:
Again, that becomes the issue both with this and the corrections issue, which we'll be discussing, which is, if in fact you believe CPS really had the money, and not only to come through the year at the current level, but to hire additional caseworkers, and, in fact, John Huppenthal is running around with figures saying the caseworkers aren't overworked, that in other states they have higher case loads, so why are we saying that somehow taking on five new cases a week is somehow being overworked?

>> Michael Grant:
Well, that was in part the auditor general's report from, what, six or seven weeks ago.

>> Howard Fischer:
Exactly. And that becomes one of those, you know, problems of lies, damn lies and statistics, where the odd stir general said you're not overworked but we're counting the supervisor taking case loads and that --

>> Robbie Sherwood:
The governor pretty much dismissed that out of hand because of the way they requested it to be done. The house joint legislative audit committee asked for an audit from June to June, tracking cases from June to June. June happens to be the lowest month for child abuse reports because most of the things are generated from schools and so usually August when school comes back into session or right after the holidays are your peak months. So it wasn't looking at -- peak month to peak month and so it seemed perhaps intentionally designed to show you the lowest case scenario.

>> Michael Grant:
What are they going to do -- I'm doing fast math. 16 plus 21 is 37. We going to settle on 18.5 million dollars?

>> Robbie Sherwood:
I think at some point -- I may walk out of this studio and be proved instantly wrong, but I --

>> Michael Grant:
It's a tradition on this show.

>> Robbie Sherwood:
I think the governor will give them some sort of minimal -- a million bucks or so just to get out of the room and probably flip on the psychotropic drugs issue and throw them a bone there. Something that can be fixed in a regular session if it turns out to be a disaster.

>> Howard Fischer:
That drug issue, despite the fact it's a tiny portion, is really a sticking point for some lawmakers. They believe that there are school officials and doctors who are telling parents who have kids who are attention deficit hyperactivity disorder you put your kid on Ritalin or we will report you to CPS. They want language that specifically says the failure to put your child on a psychiatric medication by itself does not constitute abuse and neglect which is fine as far as it goes but you have people like Dr. Robert CATTALa pediatrician out of Yuma, who says there are certain psychiatric medications if you take your kid off it they go into epileptic seizures, they die, if they're manic depressive, they are suicidal, may even be homicidal and he wants to craft the language to say in someway yes but. That's where the sticking point is right now, what's that yes but.

>> Robbie Sherwood:
The governor has been arguing from a real position of strength. The thing came out Senate 22-5 and there was a belief through most of the week it probably had enough votes in the house to pass and somehow --

>> Robbie Sherwood:
It wasn't the right votes. So the house spent the last two days avoiding any sort of floor work while they bring people in and God only knows what going on behind closed doors. That might constitute child abuse. They finally got their caucus in line and now have more bargaining strength.

>> Chris Coppola:
How much of this is political games manship going on beyond just the issue at hand where the house not only wants to show it can assert itself against the governor but the Senate. Er they setting themselves up for bigger power plays?

>> Robbie Sherwood:
Absolutely. You see the Senate and house become very annoyed with each other over this and they really get mad when you say the governor is dividing and conquering to get her way. She is on this issue. They are dieing to have some issue where the House and Senate agree on something and the governor doesn't like it and they force her to veto it. They haven't yet.

>> Howard Fischer:
That's the political reality. The house doesn't have 16 solid conservative Republicans. Linda Bender and Slade Mead have shown certain issues -- this is the Senate -- they're willing to jump ship and vote with the Democrats. So Ken Bennett is in the position, of course, I have to have a more moderate place. It's nice you have 39 Republicans, but I can't deliver them.

>> Michael Grant:
Howie, let's assume we get some compromise on CPS, then they will quickly move to prisons and where are we there?

>> Howard Fischer:
The issue there is less a question of money and more a question of philosophy. Both sides are agreed we need some money for at least temporary beds. We have a prison system that is -- 4,000 inmates than it was designed for. As we talked about on the show on Wednesday, some are in day rooms, some of them under temporary facilities, some are being held at county jails. But the problem is, there are some house Republicans who are insistent that this package has to include some permanent private prison beds, which mean long-term contracts. What really angers the house Republicans is that there is a contract that's been out there to build a private prison in Kingman, and for a variety of reasons and there's a lot of blame going around, that hasn't been let and the legislature specifically ordered the governor to contract for a 3200 bed private prison in Marana and the governor has been kind of dragging her feet on that saying, oh, well, we need to change the policy. I have a new department of corrections director here and she can do it cheaper and they're just angry.

>> Michael Grant:
Last night I asked her if she would sign it with private prison beds and she gave me one of those usual cryptic "we'll see."

>> Howard Fischer:
I'm shocked to hear that.

>> Robbie Sherwood:
The committees are going to hash out this thing with Russell Pearce on the committee and he is the most adamant about these new private beds you don't see a lot of hope the governor will get something. There's a great chance it will fall apart before it gets here.

>> Howard Fischer:
The issue is, when we first started on October 20th, it was one thing to say we had a crisis. We're now a month from the regular session. There are a lot of lawmakers saying if we don't solve it now, 30 days more than is not going to make a difference.

>> Michael Grant:
Let's say we clear prisons, how many hypos have we got here, the tax legislation probably dead?

>> Howard Fischer:
Probably dead. While the house passed out this package of bills, one big tax break for large multi-state corporations and then three revenue enhancements and one appropriation the governor wanted tied together, the Senate didn't like they were tied, they in fact killed one of the bill the governor wand. At this point everyone is so tired those go away.

>> Michael Grant:
And then Arizona trust laws are those --

>> Howard Fischer:
That's actually -- that's something that probably should go. Earlier this year the legislature adopted some change in the uniform trust code which the three of us together could probably know about four paragraphs of. One of the changes I understand is in these so-called irrevocable trusts, beneficiaries have a right to know certain information. The chain says the trust needs to inform the beneficiaries affirmatively of changes. There are some trust attorneys who are saying that people with large trusts rather than have the kids know what mom's going to get or what mom already got and might be wasting will move their money and themselves out of state. They say you at least need to delay the effect of this law which is supposed to take effect December 31st while we study the issue.

>> Robbie Sherwood:
What I know is it hasn't yet been added to the call. The governor is waiting for a show of solid support and I believe if it's added to the call it will instantly become hostage with all other bills that are going with people pledging support --

>> Michael Grant:
Well, let's just assume, Robbie, we clear CPS --

>> Howard Fischer:
How many assumptions do you think you can build on this puppy before it collapses?

>> Michael Grant:
We lose taxes and, I don't know --

>> Robbie Sherwood:
Wouldn't it be funny if the taxing passed and they called a special session for children and prisons and the only thing they passed was a $100 million tax cut --

>> Howard Fischer: And that $1.7 million for the independent redistricting commission.

>> Michael Grant:
If we do all those things, do we adjourn tomorrow?

>> Robbie Fischer: I
'm still thinking next week. I think they might get CPS and the other major work done and just have some fine tuning to do but I suppose anything is possible. I don't think they'll do it tonight, though. That's what they're talking all day.

>> Michael Grant:
That one is off the table. All right, ruling from the 9th circuit Court of Appeals allows independent voters to cast ballots in Arizona's primary election in 2004. Howie, kind of a strange decision.

>> Howard Fischer:
This was -- this was a decision only a three-member court could come up with where they affirm part, rejected part and remanded part back to the trial court. The underlying issue is a 1998 voter initiative to say that independents who constitute like 23% of all voters in state can go into the primary in September and say, I'd like a democratic ballot or the Republican ballot or the Libertarian ballot and I would like to make some choices. The proponents say you've got disenfranchised people who should have some say in the primary particularly with the districts the craft -- whoever wins in the primary in most districts wins the general. The Libertarian party filed suit said, wait a second, we are essentially a private club in a lot of ways. You're not only allowing them to choose our candidates, but you're allowing them to choose are called precinct committee men. These are the party officials who set the party policy and also in certain circumstances can, in fact, name replacements when there are vacancies. The Court of Appeals said to the extent that we're allowing independents to choose party officials, you can't do that. They said --

>> Michael Grant:
That violates the first amendment?

>> Howard Fischer:
That's clearly an owe associational issue. They said the trial judge when he said open primaries are illegal overstepped his bounds in also dragging in the Republicans and Democrats because they never sued.

>> Michael Grant:
They never showed up and I don't have a factual record upon which to decide that issue. I'm not quite sure what factual record --

>> Howard Fischer:
At least in September you'll be able to get a democratic or Republican ballot. Finally as to the issue of voting for Libertarian candidates, for some reason only a judge could explain, they sent it back to the trial court to develop some additional record, look at the case law and then bring it back.

>> Michael Grant:
Couple of Arizonans playing a pretty prominent role on campaign finance this week back in Washington. Justice Sandra O'Connor and, of course, John McCain, who had moved McCain-Feingold through the process.

>> Robbie Sherwood:
Yes, Sandra Day O'Connor was once again a key swing vote in a divisive national issue and in this case it was campaign finance reform. She was the swing vote upholding the McCain-Feingold act. It upholds the ban on soft money and advertisements from unions and corporations within 60 days of a general election, 30 days of a primary. She had some interesting things to say as part of her decision. One was sort of a cynicism we all probably share about politics, which was that money is like water, and it will find a way -- this decision as important as it may seem is not going to be the end of the road for big money influencing politics.

>> Michael Grant:
In fact, Chris, there were already people pointing out is all you're going to do is move the soft money from one receiving source to other receiving sources.

>> Chris Coppola:
That's true. I think McCain himself has even acknowledged as much can happen but I think he still Bush this was a huge political victory for Senator McCain. A few years ago when this all started he took a beating from a lot of his Republican colleagues in the Senate and Republicans and Democrats for that matter in the Senate and here in Arizona. I think in a strange quirk of timing he was at Guantanamo when this ruling came down and I think he sped back to get in front of the cameras but certainly a big victory. >> Robbie Sherwood: The wind of change started blowing on political money well ahead of this court victory. The funny thing is that the courts upholding it and the people are who raise political money are already off to new things. They are part of these groups called political nonprofits we will talk about in just a second, but they're the next big thing. They don't have to disclose necessarily where they get their money, they run issues ads where they skirt McCain-Feingold and any other thing by avoiding expressed advocacy. They can say anything bad they want about you as long as they don't say vote for or against you.

>> Michael Grant:
Just call you up.

>> Howard Fischer:
There is one sort of disappointment out of this and it's a curious one, the court overturned one section that said children cannot give to candidates, and we all know, and I guess we all look at these campaign reports, you'll see if there's a $500 limit, you see 500 from the husband, 500 from the wife, 500 from the 4-year-old child and everything else like the 4-year-old knows hoot candidate is. For some reason the court decided, well, this is unconstitutional infringement on the right of these children. I mean, what next, I'm going to start giving in the name of my cat?

>> Michael Grant:
You have quite a strong associational right with your parents, Howie --

>> Robbie Sherwood:
I'm going to express a opinion. I hate limitations on campaign giving, especially in Arizona where it's like $256. You can never as a reporter, this is just from a journalism standpoint -- you can never pinpoint where that money came from. The candidate knows, they knew who held the fund-raiser. I would prefer it to be no limitations, instant reporting. If you want to take $100,000 from enron, knock yourself out, but we're going to write a story about it.

>> Michael Grant:
Let me cycle back to a point you made a couple minutes ago, and that's grant woods and others forming the club for growth.

>> Robbie Sherwood:
Their enemy is the club for growth, a right leaning five political 527, a political nonprofit, that had set up shop, you remember, a couple months ago in Arizona saying that they're going to get tough with moderate Republicans who didn't tow the conservative line on spending and taxes, anybody that may have voted for the budget could probably consider themselves a target to this group. Grant woods and jack Jewitt, a former lawmaker, now a regent, think this is not the way Arizona should go, and so they've formed their own political action group through throw -- to throw money into races where moderate centrist candidates, probably Republicans, maybe Democrats, too, are threatened by groups like the club for growth, Arizona's best --

>> Howard Fischer:
This ghost backs to the point about primaries. In Arizona you have -- the people tend to turn out in the primaries tend to be the most conservative and they figure if they can get some name recognition for the more moderate candidates in the East Valley, in the rural areas, perhaps they can actually affect it.

>> Michael Grant:
Speaking of the East Valley, lot of mayors races coming up in March, the filing deadline passed this week.

>> Chris Coppola:
Right, this past Wednesday. We actually have some pretty good races for Mayor. We could see some new faces. We already have a new Mayor in Phoenix, we know, Phil Gordon. One of the biggest races is going to be in Scottsdale, four candidates running for Mayor, one incumbent, Mary man Ross. One of the candidates, a former Senate president Bobest Dane and two council members, David Ortega and Cynthia Lucas, and in Scottsdale you have four council seats. So there are five seats up for grabs on the council. Mesa, Mayor Hawker has a challenge from Terry there and also three council seats up there. Tempe, we're going to get a new Mayor for the first time in 10 years to replace Neal Giuliano. It will be who you Hillman versus Cahill, Dennis Cahill. That race is already shaping up to be a pretty good one in terms of where they're tapping the funds.

>> Michael Grant:
And that had that strange quirk when the court ruled that Giuliano could serve another couple of years, and hull man was going to run a while back

. >> Chris Coppola:
That's right. They've both served on the council. Looks like the Cahill is going after the more established fund raising money, developers, as opposed to Hullman.

>> Robbie Sherwood:
As has become typical in -- hullman is a Republican. He has been running for it. Cahill is a Democrat and is going to get some help from Governor Napolitano, giving away one of our scoops for the political insider, but the governor is going to do a big fund-raiser for him in January.

>> Chris Coppola:
Of course, these races are supposed to be nonpartisan. But --

>> Michael Grant:
That's the political insider that runs in Sunday's republic?

>> Robbie Sherwood:
Inside your local section of the "Arizona Republic".

>> Howard Fischer:
I think we should get in the Saturday Tribune, then.

>> Michael Grant:
Consult your program guides for a newspaper near you. Apache Junction police chief Robert Warner has been placed on administrative leave while the city council considers the terms for his resignation. Chris, why is warn inner hot watt center.

>> Chris Coppola:
After the results of an audit of the police department that the city sought came out, it was terribly 68ing against mismanagement in the department on a number of fronts, a lot stems from the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old boy out there who was holding a knife a couple of years back, and what the police department knew about that officer's background and some red flags. Other types of things, instances of alleged sexual harassment, supervisors passing around pornography and other mismanagement. It's pretty clear that next week the council is essentially going to vote on terms of his resignation package and he'll be out.

>> Michael Grant:
Interesting lawsuit down in southeast Arizona. Some people who have been wearing border patrol hats and --

>> Howard Fischer:
And it's part of the frustration that exists particularly along the border and I lived a number of years in Cochise County of the illegals who cross. It used to be the illegals would come and the ranchers have some water, whatever, they knew they were on their way. You're getting a lot more in terms of burglars and everything else. Roger and Donald Barnett have 22,000 acre ranch down there and they have been patrolling it regularly and picking up and stopping people who are undocumented crossers and holding them for the border patrol, sometimes at gunpoint. What's happened is they've expanded activities off the ranch to the point where Roger Barnett said f I see them on highway 80 I stop them and I make them stay there. And what happened with this lawsuit is he apparently, according to the litigation, went on the ranch of another person, who actually doesn't have a problem with the illegal border crossers, and held people there. So this rancher along with the border action network filed suit alleging violation of these people's civil rights, which is interesting since none of the quote-unquote victims are in fact named, but also alleging trespass and saying they want a restraining order to block the Barnetts from taking these activities and from impersonating peace officers. Roger Barnett told me, oh, I don't have a border patrol hat, although he said anyone can go down to NACO and buy one. That's going to be an interesting lawsuit since number of the illegals who have crossed are named as plaintiffs in this.

>> Michael Grant:
Chris, you are the Metro editor for the Tribune and I want to congratulate you here because you've got an entire trolley system named after you.

>> Chris Coppola:
Yes, it's better than being the trolley editor.

>> Chris Coppola:
A name they prefer we don't use for the light rail system --

>> Howard Fischer:
Wait a second. I'm sorry, if it runs on the surface, not grade separated, not underground, it's a trolley. I don't care what you call it.

>> Chris Coppola:
The choosing of the name was very important because of the image that we sent -- we're going to send with this, and so Metro is a name, of course, that's used in a number of other cities, I think Los Angeles, Washington D.C. --

>> Michael Grant:
I want to say Houston.

>> Robbie Sherwood:
When I hear Metro, I think fast.

>> Chris Coppola:
Fast, urban, modern. Anything that doesn't convey the image of a train, something slow or old, and so they said they had 3400 entries. I don't know how many said Metro.

>> Howard Fischer:
This is best, Metro, not anything local, Maricopa area regional transit, mart or something --

>> Chris Coppola:
It's got.

>> Howard Fischer:
I'm calling it the tunerville trolley. I'm sorry.

>> Michael Grant:
On that note, we're out of time. To share your views or contact us, please visit our website at www.kaet.asu.edu. Click on the word "Horizon". That will lead you to transcripts, links and information on the Metro. Let's see what's on "Horizon" on Monday.

>> Reporter:
Phoenix Mayor Skip Rimsza has served the city as Mayor longer than any of his predecessors. As he prepares to step into a new life, a look back on his challenges and accomplishments. Also as the holiday season approaches you may be attempted to give a pet as a gift. You'll need to watch this before you do. Monday night at 7:00 on Channel 8's "Horizon".

>> Michael Grant:
Tuesday a status report on the citizens finance review commission. Thank you very much for joining us on this Friday edition. I'm Michael Grant. Have a great weekend. Good night.

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