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December 5, 2003

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
· The Journalists Roundtable
In-Studio Guests:
Chip Scutari, "The Arizona Republic;"
Howard Fischer, "Capitol Media Services,"
Doug MacEachern, "The Arizona Republic."

>> Michael Grant:
It's Friday, December 5, 2003.

>>> In the headlines this week, a proposal to reverse Tempe's smoking ban will not appear on the March ballot.

>>> The Arizona Supreme Court gives Governor Janet Napolitano a victory in a challenge to her use in the line-item veto.

>>> And President Bush signed the healthy forests bill into law which is aimed at preventing wildfires.

>>> Good evening, I'm Michael Grant. This is the Journalists Roundtable. Joining me to talk about these and other stories are Chip Scutari from "The Arizona Republic." Howard Fischer of "Capitol Media Services," and Doug MacEachern from "The Arizona Republic."

>>> A nearly $16 billion transportation bill that is supposed to appear on the ballot next year hit a road block this week in the Arizona legislature. Lawmakers want to he delay funding for light rail until the next decade and push back the date of the election. Chip, what's up?

>> Chip Scutari:
Well, Michael, you know how the Arizona legislature is. They can never let something flow right there. This plan has been worked on by cities and plans for about a year and representative Gary Peirce this week said that he wants to withhold the light rail funding. Basically his rationale is let's see how the Tempe-Phoenix light rail routes work. Let's see if they work before we pump $2 billion more into light rail. The contingent of these valley lawmakers love their highways, freeways and the cars. They are not sold on light rail. They called it a taxpayer boondoggle about 48 times a week. This issue will be the big deal in January. It will be transportation all the time because they have to get this bill to Governor Janet Napolitano by February 3rd. It'll be the biggest issue of the session come January.

>> Howard Fischer:
The interesting thing about this I'm not a big fan of what I consider to be a glorified trolly, but if you say let's see how the Phoenix-Tempe link works, you put this off until 2011, you need a true system to see how it works. If you've got something that only runs from point A to point B, you know, from Tempe up to, you know, the old Christown, that really doesn't give you the system that really will show, will people use mass transit. I think some people will use mass transit, but you have to drag it out to Mesa and down to Chandler. You have to go down to the southern parts of Tempe along Elliot down there, and you're going going to have to bring it to the West Valley. One line is not going to tell you anything.

>> Chip Scutari:
And I think the backers will say the West Valley gets roads and freeways, East Valley gets their roads widened, but for downtown Phoenix, they want the light rail because they are building density and lofts and different style homes along Central Avenue and downtown Phoenix and mayor skip Rimsza says if you mess with this plan, we'll take our ball and play somewhere else.

>> Michael Grant:
Doug, there is a fair feeling, though, that while the $3 billion -- it's $3 billion in a $16 billion or so package, is not exactly our best bang for the buck.

>> Doug MacEachern:
No, it's not. I can tell you as a matter of fact, Howie -- if you think you are skeptical of that glorified trolly, when I learned that you will not be able to turn left off the Central into the Georgian Dragon if you are going north, I got skeptical myself.

>>Howard Fischer:
We don't want to get between you and the Georgia Dragon.

>> Doug MacEachern:
It is a healthy amount of money, and what really amazed me at the beginning of this process was the lack of objection from the East Valley to the idea of putting a good chunk of their money into mass transit. That seems to be changing, though. It's almost as if they were waiting for what's going to happen in the legislature to put the skids to it.

>> Michael Grant:
A lot of business leaders are going to be descending on the State Capitol to try to turn this around; correct?

>> Chip Scutari:
Yeah, what this plan has going for it, we have conservatives who are with the Arizona Rock Products Association, like Rusty Bowers, Chuck Kauflin (phonetic), Doug Cole, who work for the conservatives lobbying group, running their campaign. We've got business leaders like Colangelo on board. We have cities and towns on board. There is a lot of public and private pressure on these lawmakers to do this plan the way they want it done. Of course, you have a lot of hemming and hawing by conservative lawmakers at the capitol. It'll be like everything down there, there'll be flies in the ointment, people want this and that, and when push comes to shove, hopefully it'll be done by the end of January.

>> Howard Fischer:
What they've got working against them is lawmakers have to be convinced, this will be a package that the voters will approve. If in fact they get the feeling that there is really too much light rail there and we start seeing columns from Doug in the "Republic" saying you really want to kill this package, you can't turn left into the Georgia Dragon, and the uproar that will result from such columns, but it has to be a saleable package.

>> Chip Scutari:
You can take polls for what they are worth, but most public opinion polls show that most voters are on board with this plan, they favor light rail, even if it is a money loser, it's a glorified trolly, and it doesn't take you to English pubs.

>>Doug MacEachern:
A significant part of this is the fact that the legislature wants to push the election back, that's the part I have serious concerns about because that pushes you up against the edge because it's to be renewed in '05.

>> Chip Scutari:
Yeah, the timetable crunch is why they want to do it in May to get it to the Governor's desk by February. They didn't want it on the ballot in November when there is a presidential election and senate election.

>> Howard Fischer:
God forbid people actually turn out.

>> Michael Grant:
Apparently we will not find out what Tempe voters think about the smoking ban?

>> Howard Fischer:
No, the interesting thing is there may very well have been enough people on the petitions to call for this referendum, but you had a problem with circulators, and you had a problem with a lot of people who signed it, not actually having bothered to go down to register to vote. It's sort of sad, because Tempe has always been sort of the kind of test zone for things in Arizona. Tempe is sort of like San Francisco is in California. We try things out here. It would have been interesting to see what in fact the voters would do in a city like Tempe, a city very dependent on bars and restaurants and on tourist clientele. But they were very poorly organized and it's going nowhere.

>> Michael Grant:
Mayor elect Phil Gordon in Phoenix is putting together his staff.

>>Chip Scutari:
Yeah, he made two key appointments, George Weiss, a former state lawmaker and also Mike Belecki. They both worked for Governal Hull. I think Mike Belecki will be a huge asset to Mayor Gordon dealing with firefighters unions and that type of stuff, and George Weiss who worked for Governor Hull, and now works for the Department of Corrections has plenty of ties with the state house and with the Governor's office. So Phil Gordon will have state level assets in his own office. I think it's been praised widely at the capitol.

>> Michael Grant:
Maricopa County, Doug, got approval in an election, to create the hospital district, but a majority of the Board of Supervisors is saying we're not going implement the tax in relation to it. You think this has to do with election politics?

>> Doug MacEachern:
It sort of smells that way to me, Mike. They had the option when the vote was approved by voters to implement it when they saw fit, but the election, which they promoted highly, which they insisted was desperately needed to upgrade the facilities at county hospital, to keep it running, to spend money where it was needed in the emergency room, which is falling apart, if it was so desperately needed why not spend the money at your first opportunity? The voters said that's what they want. Howard Fischer: What's really outrageous is the ballot brochure that went out said that if this is not approved, we may close the facility. That's how desperate they were. That's how much they said we need the money, we need it now, we need an immediate infusion. Now for them to say we can skate along another year, well, are things going to get better? Manna is going to fall from the heavens? It is not going to happen.

>> Michael Grant:
It'll get better from the standpoint that the election of 2004 will be over.

>> Howard Fischer:
But somehow, if anybody is going to run against these supervisors, they are going to say, these are the people who put this thing on the ballot and you can make it an issue or not.

>> Michael Grant:
February presidential primary, who did Bruce Babbitt weigh in for?

>>Chip Scutari:
He's going to endorse Howard Dean, who's now the front runner of the Democratic party. This is big because when the former Governor Dean started out, he was the anti-war, Internet candidate, and this shows even the establishment politicians like Bruce Babbitt, former Governor of Arizona, are signing on his campaign. He's up by 30 points in New Hampshire now. It like he could be pulling away with Arizona, too. It's a nice endorsement for him.

>>Doug MacEachern:
I suppose on the grand scale, the national scale, Bruce Babbitt probably doesn't have the resonance he once did when he was running for president himself, but it has some considerable significance here in Arizona, especially for people in Arizona especially for people like Joe Lieberman who is counting on getting Arizona because he's not going to do too well in Iowa. You've got the fact that Bruce's brother is running for congress, he was at a fundraiser for him. And to the extent that the Babbitt name carries a lot of weight north of the rim.

>> Michael Grant:
In the meantime, Wesley Clark opens a Phoenix office?

>>Chip Scutari:
He's probably the last one to do that, but it shows how important Arizona is in the presidential sweepstakes. He'll get up and running and probably be here more often in the next couple of months.

>> Michael Grant:
Legal challenge by Republican lawmakers to some of Governor Napolitano's line item budget vetoes fails this week at the Arizona Supreme Court. Howie, why did the Justices decide against the legislature and in favor of the 9th Floor?

>> Howard Fischer:
It isn't that they decided that the Governor was right and the legislature was wrong. They basically took the poultry droppings approach to court rulings. They said we're going to sidestep the issue. We're going to sidestep the issue because there were only four lawmakers who brought the lawsuit. Senate President Ken Bennett, House Speaker Jake Flake, Senate Majority Leader Tim Bee and House Majority Leader Eddie Farnsworth. They suffered no personal damage. They did not have authorization from the full legislature to file this action, and they never tried to do an override so they could get a sense of the legislature.

>> Michael Grant:
Interestingly enough, of course, a similar suit was brought back in the early 1990s, in fact, brought by Janet Napolitano on behalf of then Senate President Rios, and I don't think they had authorization either.

>> Howard Fischer:
That was one of those dark secrets. Nobody raised the standing question back then. The court will only decide things before them. The courts had the power and justice Jones said we could waive standing, but here's the other part of the problem. The legislature is asking us to decide that the Governor violated certain constitutional provisions dealing with her power of line-item veto. She wasn't vetoing an expenditure, she was vetoing a cut in the budget. Some of the things the Governor vetoed were what they call Omnibus Reconciliation Bills or ORBS. These are Christmas trees of odds and ends that are -- some of them to have the law conform with the budget, some things are things they couldn't get through any other way. The court said, wait a second, the constitution has a single subject rule. All bills shall only contain one budget. So you are asking us to use your potentially illegal bill to determine Janet acted illegally this way, and they said we're not going to get involved.

>> Michael Grant:
They cancelled those out.

>> Chip Scutari:
The interesting thing about this is John Bomel (phonetic), Fife Symington's attorney, said it seems like the court favors the chief executive over the legislature in these cases.

>> Michael Grant:
One of the lessons here is the legislature is going to have to be a little tidier in its budget practices, right?

>>Howard Fischer:
Exactly. And that's really is significant. The courts said they invited the vetoes. Normally if you only want the Department of Economic Security to spend, let's say, $200 million, you say $200 million. They said we want them to spend $230 million and then in a separate line says, oh, by the way, take $30 million off. Well, guess what, the Governor says I get to line out the minus 30.

>> Doug MacEachern:
Isn't there just a little bit of irony in the courts coming to the conclusion that the Senate President and the Speaker of the House don't have standing as representatives of all of the taxpayers in Arizona?

>> Howard Fischer:
Well, they said -- certainly they addressed the issue of taxpayers. They said the only time you allow tax payer action on this was an unconstitutional spending of money. There is no question about the constitutionality of what she is spending it on. The question is did the legislature authorize it. Theoretically, this is what the court should be allowed -- you've got the executive branch and the legislative branch battling. The judicial branch is the arbiter. I think the Justices decided that the better part of valor in getting their budgets approved was just to stay out of it.

>> Michael Grant:
Let's move from the regular session battles to the special session battles. Chip, the Governor had a press conference this afternoon at 4:30 to talk about progress being made in the special session?

>>Chip Scutari:
She met behind closed doors for almost five hours today with senate leadership Democrats and Republicans trying to hammer out some kind of compromise on the CPS reform bill. We love when they come out of these meetings and they say they made progress, which really means they are still far apart. And what the Governor did admit today is that they are still far apart on the money issue, and when she announced the special session, she wanted $35.5 million to reform CPS and add new case workers and do a whole array of things. Conservatives and the GOP leadership do not want $35 million. They still haven't, you know, been convinced by DES, an umbrella agency that CPS works under, that they need this money. They said it's been frustrating finding out where all of the money goes. So there is still quite a bit away. They are going to meet again on Monday, but there is still no solution in the near future.

>> Michael Grant:
What about the corrections side of the equation? There were signs earlier in the week that maybe they worked out a compromise on having the request for proposals for these new facilities reviewed independently, so the state wouldn't be cutting itself some breaks on building state facilities as opposed to private prisons? That unravelled. Does that --

>> Chip Scutari:
Of the two big ticket items, prisons and CPS, I think prisons are a lot closer. And in a compromised bill we can have 2100 beds out of state, privately or publicly built. There is other language to work out, but the prison bill, is a lot closer. CPS is still miles apart.

>> Howard Fischer:
The prison bill in the Senate is a lock with the Governor and the Democrats. The problem is you have a number of House members who want private prisons, and do it now, whether that's the completion of the Marana facility or somewhere else. They are wedded to the idea that we will make permanent private prisons. That's going to be a hard sell in the House.

>> Chip Scutari:
The thing that I've noticed in my short time down at the legislatu
re, this year compared to previous years, the House seems just like a foreign country compared to the Senate and the Governor. The Governor is only negotiating with Senate leaders. The House is doing their own thing. It's really like three separate bodies we're dealing with now. It's not like the Senate and the House are controlled by Republicans, they are just two separate entities right now.

>> Michael Grant:
House passing some tax legislation in the midst of this thing. Howie, what is it, and how do you think it will fair in the Senate?

>> Howard Fischer:
Here's the deal. The Governor wanted minor changes in the tax law. She wanted to play with the withholding rate of what's taken out of employee paychecks. When the fed lowered their tax rates, and Arizona's withholding is tied to the federal rate, it screwed up the money coming into the State. The computations were bad. The State is going to wind up with $80 million less this year than it thought. That's purely cash flow. She wants a little extra money also for the Department of Revenue to do some revenue enhancement, i.e., go out and find taxpayers who haven't paid their bills and some monies for what they call the Lodwick (phonetic) settlement to settle a lawsuit. Basically the State representatives said we'll give you that, but we also want this massive tax break for large multistate corporations that means if you do a lot of manufacturing here but don't sell a lot in the State, you pay little or no corporate income tax at all.

>> Michael Grant:
And the Senate prospects for that?

>> Howard Fischer:
That'll be a hard sell. Each of them like one piece or the other. They have constitutional questions as to whether you can link these issues. What the House did is they put a conditional act. They said this takes effect if these three are signed and this one takes effect if these three are signed. Think it'll be a hard sell.

>> Michael Grant:
School district consolidation is one of those things like the weather that everybody talks about but you don't do anything about it. Some legislators are proposing let's do something about it but --

>> Chip Scutari:
This is one of those bills. Every year there is a school district consolidation bill and every year it inches along, inches along and and then the school district lobby gets involved and teachers get involved and it usually gets shot down. Unless they can tinker on the outer edges, I don't see a lot getting done because there are so many powerful forces against this. We know how powerful the school district lobby is down there.

>> Michael Grant:
And one thing that really -- that's two basic propositions together, efficiency in government and local control. That's what they always struggle with.

>> Doug MacEachern:
That's a fascinating part of this debate. People that are advocating for this to happen, for the centralization of control to happen are basically people that like decentralization in most things. They just see a lot of money being saved. And the numbers pan out. Larger districts, the per student amount of money spent on administration is much lower.

>>Howard Fischer:
One way they hope to get around the politics is set up like the base closure commission. When congress set it up they said, you make recommendations, if we don't veto it, it takes effect. This will set up a 13-member commission where they would say here's the new lines --

>> Michael Grant:
We're going to combine this one, this one and this one, and if the legislature does not veto it --

>> Howard Fischer:
It will take effect. I don't think the legislature will even give up that sort of control. They all like to tinker, as Chip said. I think it's going to have a hard time.

>> Michael Grant:
President Bush signed into law the Healthy Forest Initiative, which is designed to help prevent major wildfires in states like Arizona. Doug, what does the bill do?

>> Doug MacEachern:
Well, it's a major piece of legislation. The proponents of it, Jon Kyl, in particular, Jeff Flake, among them, were kind of -- they recognize that it was something of a compromise. They were happy enough with what they got, and they refer to it as a process. It's a good starting point. Basically what you have is $760 million dollars being spent on forest thinning, half of that amount to be spent within a mile and a half of communities, which is not part of the deal that Bush is seeking. That was part of the compromise issue. I think the really important aspect of this bill is, well, first of all, the fact that it'll expedite appeals of forest thinning projects. That's very important. But I think a very important part of it that sometimes gets missed is that judges will now be required to consider the long term impact of the decisions they make when they decide to stay a thinning project.

>> Michael Grant:
In other words, one of the things that I think they'll be required to look at, is what's the effect of not doing something and does that exacerbate the possible ultimate damage to the environment and the forest?

>> Doug MacEachern:
Yeah, is protecting this particular endangered species habitat more important than, say, the forest burning down?

>> Michael Grant:
Than having zero habitat, just illustratively. Tom Ridge was in town this week. What was he doing?

>> Doug MacEachern:
He was escorted into town by John McCain who has been a busy guy since congress -- since he left Washington, and he took Tom Ridge down to the border to show him around. And he made a strong point of the fact that Ridge is not unaware of the problems that Arizona has with border enforcement, but being there, seeing it, recognizing the problems with your own eyes is a lot different than just reading about it, and it's very true. He came away from their trip -- he took a helicopter down around the border and saw a lot of the environmental degradation that's occurred.

>> Michael Grant:
The Homeland Security director, however, tiptoed around the question of what do you think about the guest worker thing?

>> Doug MacEachern:
A lot of people are avoiding that.

>> Michael Grant:
America West Airlines, they are going to get a pact with their pilots?

>> Howard Fischer:
They came, as the old saying goes, this close. And "this close" is five votes. This is the second time this year that an issue of the pact has gone to the pilots. The airline thought they had made a fairly generous offer, 11% immediate increase, 3% additional at the end of that, additional money into 401Ks, to address retirement concerns and job security issues. By 725 to 720, the pilots said not quite there yet. This is -- this is over three years that they have been negotiating. It's not like they are going to go on strike. They recognize that that's not in anybody's interest, but they say, look, we're among the lowest paid in the business. The airline is healthy. It got a big write up in some of the national magazines this week about how to do it right, how to emerge from bankruptcy right, and we would like to share in some of the good fortune here without killing the golden goose.

>> Michael Grant:
America West has its hands tied a little bit because of some strings on government loans that they've got.

>> Doug MacEachern:
That's right. The government loans, which America West will tell you is a key to their turnaround had the requirements that you can't hike pay during the period of repayment over 15%. This would push it 11% immediately and 3% at the end of the contract, so there you have 14%. I have to assume that the pilots are holding out for the full 15%, and I don't blame them. They are the lowest paid in the industry, and they should -- I would expect that they would get as much as they can.

>> Michael Grant:
On the other hand maybe you can go to 12 and 2 and pick up 5 votes?

>> Doug MacEachern:
It might happen that way.

>> Michael Grant:
Maybe they could demand a recount. City of Phoenix weighs in with help on improvements to America West Arena?

>> Howard Fischer:
What's fascinating about this is how quickly and quietly that went through. You remember when the idea first went up of taxpayers funding Jerry's playground, people were saying, oh my God, we can't do that. All of a sudden we need improvements. We need a $5 million new electronic score board. We need $5 million for new locker rooms. And we need $2 million basically for better guest suites up off the floor. And the city council said, okay, here's your money. It's $17 million, and we think it will come and you can pay it back. The city gets sales tax revenues. They get a percentage of the profit, but as I say, this one really shocks me, how fast this went through.

>> Chip Scutari:
I don't think it would have happened as quickly or quietly without the Glendale arena coming in. They know there will be major competition. They want to make America West Arena as pretty as possible. That's why I think there is the impetus.

>> Michael Grant:
Doug, to a certain extent, the more major dollars that Glendale put on the table, obviously, for that facility, I think, maybe provides some level of cover for Phoenix.

>> Doug MacEachern:
They put up $180 and we can't put up $20 million? We're slackers here.

>> Michael Grant:
Howie, real quickly, U.S. Supreme Court is going to review the sentences of death row inmates?

>> Howard Fischer:
Yes, as you remember, last year, the Supreme Court said that those who were not sentenced by a jury, you know, were not legally sentenced. The court, however, wasn't very clear on how retroactive this was. Clearly the people who had not exhausted post conviction relief were subject to it. Now we have to decide if everyone on death row gets resentenced.

>> Michael Grant:
All right, panelists, we're out of time. Thank you very much.

>>> To share your views or to contact us, please visit our web site at WWW.KAET.ASU.EDU, click on the word "Horizon" and that will lead you to transcripts, links and information on upcoming shows.

>>> Monday, we're off for pledge.

>>> Tuesday, we'll talk to you about the run on flu shots.

>>> Wednesday, we will tell you about Pet Partners. That's a pet therapy program.

>>> Thursday, the Governor will be here. Among the topics she'll talk about special session and the recent court victory.

>>> Hope you can join us next week on "Horizon." I'm Michael Grant. Have a great weekend. Good night.

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