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November 6, 2003

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
· First Thursday: The Governor on HORIZON
In-Studio Guests:
Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano

>> Michael: Tonight on "Horizon," a big week for Arizona gets capped off today with the announcement that the final presidential debate next year will be held in this building, Gammage Auditorium at ASU.

>>> Mexican President Vicente Fox visits the State.

>>> And the special legislative session drags on.

>>> Good evening, I'm Michael Grant.

>>> Welcome to "First Thursday, the Governor on Horizon." It's our monthly visit with Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, where she talks about the big issues and responds to questions from our viewers, but before we get to the governor, she was on hand this morning for the second big announcement in a week for Arizona, the naming of Gammage Auditorium as the site of the last presidential debate before next year's election. The announcement was made at a news conference.

>> Less than an hour ago in Washington D.C., Mr. Paul Kirk and Mr. Frank Faronchalk (phonetic), the co-chairs of the nonprofit and nonpartison commission on presidential debates, announced the selection of Grady Gammage memorial auditorium on the campus of Arizona State University in Tempe, as the location of one of the three presidential debates in the 2004 presidential campaign.

>> Michael Crow:
It's not by accident that the debate commission selected university sites and college sites to hold these debates because of our principal focus on free and open speech, our focus on learning, our focus on discourse and it's for that reason that we are tremendously excited that ASU has been able to serve as the host for this debate, to be the institution that provides the venue, if you will, and the setting for this next step in the development of our own democracy.

>> Many people supported our effort, people from the private sector, people from the public sector, and I'd especially like to thank leaders of both political parties who helped us with our application and our proposal. Senator John McCain, congressman Hayworth, and congressman Ed Pastor, helped a great deal and especially the person standing to my right, the leader of our state, the Governor of our state, Governor Janet Napolitano. Governor, we thank you very much for your personal involvement, your leadership and support in bringing this event to Arizona. It made a huge difference.

>> Governor Janet Napolitano:
This has been quite a week. A week ago today we were announcing that the Super Bowl was coming to Glendale, Arizona in 2008. And now we are announcing that the Super Bowl of politics is coming to Tempe this fall.

>> Michael:
Lots happening in the past week in Arizona. We get the Super Bowl, foreign head of state visits Arizona, and today we get the last presidential debate. Here to talk about that and more is Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano. Not only a debate, but the last debate.

>> Gov. Napolitano:
Yes, I think probably the best of the debates to have, the last one, two weeks or so before the people cast their ballots. The last chance for whoever the Democratic nominee is and President Bush to put their case to the people. It's going to be an exciting time in our town.

>> Michael:
What were the mechanics on it? I know a presentation had been made to the debate commission last spring?

>> Gov. Napolitano:
Yes, it's really been quite elaborate. I think mayor Giuliano of Tempe deserves a lot of credit for helping get the whole package put together, but there is a commission on presidential debates. Cities bid to have the debates. You have to show that you have a site that can host it. You have to show that you can handle logistics. You have to show that you can raise the funds necessary to provide the adjunct services for the debate. It's a whole package. Tempe put together in conjunction with Arizona State University, a very convincing package, and then it was just a matter of selling it.

>> Michael:
Was it necessary to raise some private funds on it, to the tune of about a million-five?

>> Gov. Napolitano:
That's right a million and a half dollars. Half of that goes back to the commission on the presidential debates. That's how they are funded. The other thing rest of is used to build a media platform. There will be lots of national and international media coming. The ASU foundation is committed to help raise that money from private sources, and I'm confident we'll get there, and on behalf of the state of Arizona, we've offered the City of Tempe all of the help that we wan provide as we bring this landmark event to the state.

>> Michael: S
hould be exciting, about 11 months away.

>> Gov. Napolitano:
And it will go very fast, particularly once the caucuses and parties start after the turn of the year and people realize, oh, my gosh it's a presidential election year. People are still not in that mode yet. Once that happens, it's going to go very quickly.

>> Michael:
Incidentally, and I know you have to be politic about this because you are Governor, but last poll I saw here in Arizona, Dean, Clark and Lieberman in a virtual dead heat. Do you think that's going to hold up over the next couple of months or so? What's your feel for the primary?

>> Gov. Napolitano:
Well, first of all, I'm neutral. I've not endorsed any candidate.

>> Michael:
I understand.

>> Gov. Napolitano:
I think the Democratic primary here is too fluid to tell, in part because we haven't had a Democratic primary here for such a long time, we don't know who is going to vote, and that makes a big difference. But I would say, Arizona remains up for grabs, may be somewhat influence bide who has momentum because we are the week right after New Hampshire, who has momentum coming out of those first two events. So I think it's an exciting time. I expect between now and the third of February, we'll see the major Democratic candidates in and out of Arizona quite frequently.

>> Michael:
President Vicente fox comes to town this week. For the average Arizonan, what does that mean?

>> Gov. Napolitano:
Well, I think it means -- to me, it means several things. One is a recognition that Arizona and Mexico are neighbors, God made us neighbors as Paul Fannin would say, and we need to be good neighbors. We have terrific trade and economic opportunities with Mexico. They are our leading trade partner, $6.4 billion last year, and trade equates to jobs. And so a lot of our discussions with the president were things that we can do together, for example, joint research projects that can be undertaken between researchers here and researchers in Mexico. And we've signed some agreements on that score. Joint investment projects. For example, we want to improve the point at Guaymas which would give Arizona a close deep water port and trade could travel by rail up through Arizona to other parts of the United States. A cyberport at Nogales to facilitate truck traffic through. We're getting into winter vegetable season. There are 1300 to 1500 trucks a day going through that port. We want to facilitate that traffic. And facilitate the kind of cultural and educational exchange that we've had in the past but we need to build on.

>> Michael:
Let me go back to the deep port at Guaymas. That doesn't mean Arizona would invest money?

>> Gov. Napolitano:
Not as a state, but what we can do because Arizona will benefit greatly if that port were able to take larger ships and a larger number of ships. And that's what the business community has been telling me. So I anticipate that we might be able to identify some private investors from Arizona or from the continental United States who might be willing to invest along with the Mexican government and Mexican investors in that port.

>> Michael:
What about the guest worker program?

>> Gov. Napolitano:
Uh-huh. We talked about that. Congressman Jeff Flake, a Republican congressman from the east area of the valley say sponsor of a guest worker bill. I support the concept of guest workers. "guest worker" is a phrase that's a temporary visa for those coming into the country to work. I think from a homeland security standpoint, I think from an economic standpoint, and from a humanitarian standpoint, it would make a huge amount of difference for the Arizona border to have that kind of facilitation of legal immigration so that we're not flooded with the illegal immigration as we are now.

>> Michael:
As you know, the controversial aspect of that is normally amnesty. Did President Fox get into the amnesty issue?

>> Gov. Napolitano:
No, we didn't talk about amnesty, and there are a lot of different opinions on amnesty. I, for one, am not a fan of amnesty. And I think amnesty has to be handled differently than setting up a temporary worker program going forward. But we did talk about the fact that the vast majority of people who are crossing illegally or without documentation into Arizona are coming to work, and we need to recognize that, and look at our federal immigration policy. Those decisions, federal immigration policy, will be made by congress and the state department and the president and Washington D.C. The border in is an exclusive federal domain. But I think it's important that our leaders in Washington hear from Governors like myself who are bearing the brunt of the fact that they have not fully secured the border.

>> Michael:
Speaking of bearing the brunt, ironically, almost at the moment that President Fox touches down, gunfire breaks out on Interstate 10. You've got apparently rival coyote groups shooting at each other, a federal taskforce being mobilized, I read in the paper this morning. What do you know about that?

>> Gov. Napolitano:
I don't know a lot directly, but I do know from my experience as United States attorney and as attorney general that that was a growing part of the law enforcement effort here in Arizona, which was to get at these basically organized crime syndicates that were trafficking in human beings as opposed to trafficking in drugs. Using many of the same techniques that the big drug cartels use but the cargo being human beings. It did turn violent this week. It has been violent in the past. In fact, I think you can attribute some of the uptick in the homicide rate particularly in Southern Arizona to the presence of these groups. I'm delighted to see that they are upping the law enforcement efforts to try to get at it.

>> Michael:
What can the Department of Public Safety do in that regard? That's not to let the feds off the hook, but it seems to me that incident brought much closer to home the violence that can be associated with this issue and how it can threaten people's lives and property in the state of Arizona.

>> Gov. Napolitano:
That's right. It's one of the costs Arizonans are being made to bay because of the federal government has not done what it needs to do along the Mexican border. The Department of Public Safety is working with the feds and it works with local law enforcement at several levels. One is intelligence gathering because we now have a 24/7 intelligence center and some of that intelligence just by happenstance will be related to the smuggling. They obviously have some direct responsibilities when crimes such as the shootings occurred in our state. And they can provide backup to local law enforcement as well. There is a number of things that DPS is doing.

>> Michael:
I think a bill was recently dropped in Congress that would call on local law enforcement agencies to make immigration checks as part of routine traffic stops. What do you think about that concept?

>> Gov. Napolitano:
I think that is a terrible idea, and I know the law enforcement community opposes it. They are not immigration officers, and they shouldn't be spending their time being immigration officers. They should be spending their time on homicides and sexual assaults and property crimes that we have. That's what we pay our tax dollars for. I view that bill as a huge cost shift back to Arizona to pick up yet another border responsibility that should be borne by the federal government. I have no strong feelings on this topic.

>> Michael:
I can see, but to the extent that you've got a person stopped and to the extent that as we learned unfortunately very graphically this week that, can also be a source of violent and other crime. Why not kill two birds with one stone?

>> Gov. Napolitano:
Well, because that's not the purpose for the stop. The purpose of the stop is not to perform an immigration check. Let me remind you of a chapter in recent Arizona history. Chandler, where the Chandler police got temporary deputization to go out like mini-immigration agents and what they ended up doing was stopping Arizona citizens who happened to be of Hispanic origin repeatedly and intrusively over the course of a few days. That turned out ultimately to end up being a -- we didn't actually pick up all that many illegal immigrants. Lots of lawful residents here were upset, and there was a huge civil suit that ended up in the payment of thousands and thousands of dollars. This is not a good idea. If we're going to have an immigration service, properly fund it at the federal level and let local law enforcement do the job it is paid to do.

>> Michael:
On the same subject our first viewer question comes from Rusty Childress, one of the leaders of "Protect Arizona Now."

>> Gov. Napolitano:
I think he's one of my biggest fans. Hi, Rusty.

>> Michael:
Governor, when are you planning on placing the National Guard at the border in the interest of national security, the war on drugs, human smuggling and to stem the tide of illegal immigration?

>> Gov. Napolitano:
Well, the answer, Rusty, is I'm not, for several reasons. One is that is not their mission, in part, because we are not at war with Mexico. The second is that our National Guard is already stretched thin performing other duties in Arizona and the third is, quite frankly, today a huge number of them were given notice to be put on alert that they are going to be deployed after the beginning of the year in operation freedom Iraq. You may have seen in the paper that the president has -- is calling up thousands of National Guard people after the beginning of the year. So even if we thought it was a good idea -- and I don't think it's a good idea -- we wouldn't have the man power to do it.

>> Michael:
Is there anything, though, that the state of Arizona can do? Let's assume that the border is going to continue to leak like a sieve like it has for the last 40, 50 years and the federal government is not going to step forward with resources to security the border. We run through D perform S now, National Guard, local law enforcement. Is there anything we can do to shore up that border or do we just keep saying, you know, federal government is not meeting its mandate?

>> Gov. Napolitano:
Well, we do everything we can to provide support at the local level on the border, and for crimes committed on Arizona soil. But, again, we cannot be the substitute for the federal government. It's not the right thing

. >> Michael:
Super Bowl.

>> Gov. Napolitano:
Yes!

>> Michael:
That was a big announcement.

>> Gov. Napolitano:
That was huge.

>> Michael:
I understand you lobbied pretty hard?

>> Gov. Napolitano:
Well, I did my bit. I think our community owes thanks to the cardinal organization, the Bidwills and Mayor Scruggs of Glendale and Greg Holmes who is a community leader here led a host committee that put together a terrific presentation. Competition was tough. Our final competitors were Washington D.C. They were advertising having a Super Bowl because they are America's town, and then Tampa, Florida. Everybody brought in their local celebrities, and pitched the owners and we won.

>> Michael:
You know, last time, 1996, I guess the announcement for that obviously would have been about 1993 or so. It was pointed out that the Bidwills have a lot of capital with the NFL owners group. Did you find that to be the case?

>> Gov. Napolitano:
I did. I did. One of the things that was very clear to me is that particularly Bill Bidwill is held in high esteem by the owners, in part because the Bidwill family is one of the original founding families of the NFL. That carries a lot of paper.

>> Michael:
They are one of the only remaining sort of nonsuper corporate --

>> Gov. Napolitano:
A lot of these teams have had multiple owners over time. But what really sold the day were a couple of things. One is the fact that we're going to have a new stadium, and we were told when we put money into building a new stadium, that a Super Bowl would come. So they kept their promise. The second was, we have a great climate and great amenities for a Super Bowl, and the third is, it was very clear, that we had an organization that included the business community, it include the city, included the state, everybody involved had their act together and was ready to go. The little cliché we used, we were super ready for the Super Bowl.

>> Michael:
I saw that on the video.

>> Gov. Napolitano:
It's not until 2008, because the line is long, and that's the first opening. But now we can sell that Super Bowl and all of the things around it for the next five years. You know, we're the host city of the 42nd Super Bowl. Come to Arizona, the host city for the 42nd Super Bowl. It helps us in marketing Arizona in so many other ways that I think in the end we won't be able to count how much money it brings into us.

>> Michael:
Do you think we'll be able to sell it over and over again? I mean, the thought is that perhaps now Phoenix can be placed, Glendale can be placed in the regular rotation for the Super Bowl? Any feedback on that this?

>> Gov. Napolitano:
Yeah, my view is we ought to. We will have one of the best football stadiums ever, and we're ideally positioned geographically. We ought to be in a regular kind of rotation, if they ever go to a regular rotation, but -- so, yes, we are not done yet. And these kinds of things are good. They are good for our community. They bring in dollars. They give Arizona visibility and they are good for morale. Everybody says we won this thing. We got the presidential debate. We got the Super Bowl. We got the president of Mexico to come to our state. Things are moving and that's a good thing.

>> Michael:
All right, speaking of things moving, the special session, it's moving at lightning speed.

>> Gov. Napolitano:
Yes, it's moving so fast it almost seems like it's not moving at all. No, actually, I have to say, and I've been in a number of meetings with legislators Democrat and Republican, and we got a bunch of little stuff out of the way. We got the redistricting commission out of the way. And to their credit, really, the last five days, they are beginning now to focus on the two big reasons for the special session, one is funding for prison overcrowding, and the second is reform Child Protective Services. They've had a number of hearings this week. We'll keep working in with them and go with them day after day until we get it done.

>> Michael:
A lot of legislators are saying, all right, Governor, we agree with you, the $8 million is necessary to bring on more case workers, despite the auditor general's report, we know the caseloads are inappropriate, but how do you know only what, three, four months into the fiscal year that you're already $27 million under water on a $300 million total CPS budget?

>> Gov. Napolitano:
Well, David Burns, the new DES director, has been doing that, but the DES budget is partly an actual budget and partly a forecast budget. Once a child is in the system and you want to find a placement for the child, home for the child, provide services for the child, those costs come to bear. And we know that you know, we can predict, based on historical fact and where we are now, and what was actually put in the '04 appropriation that just to keep the current level of case managers and investigators and so forth on staff that we will need another $27 million, and to pay providers, to pay foster care parents, to pay group home payments and all of those kinds of things. It's just like --

>> Michael:
Was the legislature told that in May when they past the budget?

>> Gov. Napolitano:
I don't know that they were told $27 million, but I think it is common knowledge at the legislature between the legislative branch and the executive branch that they always -- when the first budget is done, they keep it, you know, thin and wait and see what the numbers look like. So for example, I don't think there's ever been a year in recent history where the Department of Economic Security has not needed to come back in and say okay we have this many more people that we need to pay for because the laws you passed say we have to provide services for these people. Prisons are the same way. We know, you know, we can predict now, what we're going to need to do to pay for the beds for the 4,000-some-odd extra prisoners that was appropriated for. We know, for example, in the general session, we will probably need a supplemental for the Department of Education to pay for enrollment growth. I think it's important for people to realize, these are not new programs. This is simply paying the bills due for the growth in population that we have.

>> Michael:
Why not do this? Why not take $8 million and run, go for the programmatic changes that you want on CPS as an institution, and see what happens in the regular session on the remaining $27 million in February?

>> Gov. Napolitano:
You want me to live dangerously, I see. Play the game -- easy for you to say. I think that as long as we're looking at CPS in a thorough way under the light of day, which is very important that we do, that the legislature needs to see both sides of the equation. They need to see what we need to get through the beginning, through the end of this fiscal year, what we need to get us up to the kind of caseloads and things that will allow us to do the types of follow-up investigations. We haven't been able to do in the past, and enable them to look at the whole picture. It's about time. I've been hearing about CPS for the 20 years I've lived in Arizona. I think everyone is tired of it. We want to fix it. We want to do the right thing, and it's up to the legislature to step up to the plate and do it.

>> Michael:
Part of it is knowing what you can get at a particular point in time. I guess what I was searching for is certainly getting a bump in case workers and getting those kinds of programmatic changes and letting it sit for a couple of months, could create more favorable environment.

>> Gov. Napolitano:
Actually it will have the reverse effect because not being able to provide services, the kind of varied services that we have right now and keep kids in homes with proper supports, ultimately what that means is more kids will have to go to out-of-home placements to be safe and that's the most expensive thing to do. By cutting yourself short right now on the funding for the things that are going on, in the end, you'll end up paying more money.

>> Michael:
Correction side of the equation. Where is that in your opinion?

>> Gov. Napolitano:
In what sense?

>> Michael:
At the legislature session.

>> Gov. Napolitano:
I think there is a common understanding that the supplemental needs to happen. The question is, if we do any construction -- and I've taken most of the construction off the table and said, look, let's save that for the general session. We have the remaining issue about three, four hundred bed level one facilities, level one being the least restrictive type facility. They are getting into the issue now of should those be public or private. I have grave concerns about private prisons. I think they end up costing more money and are less manageable than running your own prison system, particularly given the excellent new director that we have in our state, one of the nation's leaders in running prison systems. So, we're going to have that fight at some point, but I think there is a general recognition among all legislators of both parties that, look, unless you're going to tell me which 4,000 prisoners you want me to let go, you've got to pay for them.

>> Michael:
How immediate, though, is the need? Are private prisons -- I'm told there is some facility in Oklahoma that is either empty or nearly empty, that at least could warehouse on a short term.

>> Gov. Napolitano:
That's right. There is a difference between permanent beds and professional beds, professional being temporary. We have used private prisons before for temporary beds, and I'm not averse to doing that as we go through this next cycle. We have to put people someplace, and I would rather put them in a prison setting than keep adding beds that -- to facilities that are already overcrowded at Florence and so forth. The real question is do we build permanent private prisons in our state or do we run our construction through our own state system.

>> Michael:
You were at Karchner cavern. Did you open the big room?

>> Gov. Napolitano:
I was. We opened the big room. It's wonderful. It's beautiful. I encourage everybody in Arizona to head there. It's a wonderful Arizona treasure.

>> Michael:
It is magnificent.

>> Gov. Napolitano:
Yeah, it was absolutely breath taking.

>> Michael:

Governor Janet Napolitano. Thank you very much. A busy week. A busy couple of weeks.

>> Gov. Napolitano:
Yes, thank you.

>> Michael:
If you would like to see a transcript of tonight's show or see what is coming up on "Horizon," go to our web site at www.kaet.asu.edu, that's www.kaet.asu.edu. Click on "Horizon" in the lower left of the screen. That will lead you to all you need to know about our show. Speaking of which, let's take a look at what is happening tomorrow on "Horizon."

>> Reporter:
Mexican president Vicente fox talked trade and immigration this week with valley business and political leaders, marking his arrival a coyote shooting that continued to up the ante in the smuggling war. Also state legislators make headway in their special session. Those issues and more on our Journalists' Roundtable Friday night at 7:00 on "Horizon."

>> Michael:
Journalists' Roundtable will talk about that stuff and more. Thank you very much for being here on a Thursday evening. I'm Michael Grant. Have an absolutely great one. Good night.

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