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November 7, 2003

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

 

>> Michael:
It's Friday, November 7th, 2003. In the headlines this week, Mexican president Vicente fox spent a few hours in Phoenix on Tuesday talking trade and immigration. Gammage auditorium selected as one of the three sites nationwide to host a presidential debate in the fall of 2004. And Governor Napolitano today announced five units of the Arizona National Guard have been placed on alert to prepare for possible mobilization in the war on terrorism.

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

>>Michael:
History was made this week. For the first time a president of Mexico visited Phoenix. President Fox spent several hours in the valley talking about a number of issues. He also spent some time meeting with the editorial board of the "Arizona Republic." Doug, what did he have to say?

>>Doug MacEachern:
Well, he had a couple of messages. It depended on the audience of course. He met first with a group of business leaders, and he said the idea of greater expanding trade with the U.S. and the opportunities that exist in Mexico. Later on he met with a group of about 3,000 people at Phoenix Civic Plaza and it was an enormous rally. He presented himself in my view, he presented himself almost as a U.S. politician working on their behalf. I'm speaking of the second group that he talked to. Talking about how he was positioning himself as a defender of human rights, of -- that he would work for getting money that they earn in the United States more easily to families in Mexico, lowering the costs for doing that. He was positioning himself as an advocate for those people. It was very interesting.

>> Michael:
Numerically, there were about 3,000 or so, but who made up the crowd at the Civic Plaza? Who were the people attending?

>>Doug:
That's an interesting question. The standing there asking if they were citizens of the United States, if they were -- most of the dialogue in the -- during the event was in Spanish, so you assume that -- and clearly most of them had Mexican roots. They were --

>> Michael:
Sure, yeah.

>>Doug:
But whether or not, you know -- I think it was probably very unlikely that it was a crowd of illegal immigrants.

>> Michael:
I wouldn't expect -- there was a lot of law enforcement around.

>>Barrett Marson:
It wasn't necessarily legales but you were talking about first generation and even recent immigrants. I did talk to some people in there, a lot of people from Tucson had come up. And a lot of them actually didn't -- they were such recent immigrants that they didn't speak English. They didn't need headphones like I did to translate. You did see a crowd mostly of, I think, people either recent immigrants or first generation.

>>Howard Fischer:
What's really interesting, even before he took the stage and they were kind of warming up the audience and you heard things like Viva Mexico, and if of purpose of fox's visit was to reassure U.S. residents and U.S. politicians that we are no threat to you, that immigration is no threat to you, that you should accept -- you should give driver's licenses to these people and accept at metric collar card, to have essentially a group there promoting their home country as opposed to saying -- instead of saying Viva USA sends a bad message to the folks against these immigration policies, the people like Randy Graf and the Russell pierces of the world. It made it seem like a distinct -- what they are afraid of is this idea of the southwest United States really becoming a part of Mexico.

>>Doug:

And that was an issue that he seemed to be creating a persona toward. As I said, he seemed to be creating this image of himself as almost a U.S. politician representing the interests of the constituency in this country. Which is very new.

>>Howard:
And going a step beyond that, he promised, for example, we're going to make sure that Mexicans living in the United States have the right to vote in the next Mexican presidential election. Again, encouraging folks, basically, you can stay here in the United States and keep all of your rights as Mexicans.

>>Doug:
I asked him, "The Arizona Republic" editorial board had a session with him before the afternoon at the plaza. And I asked him about what he considered to be the negatives, the down side of having a substantial flood of people from his country moving to another one? What is the loss in Mexico? He had a hard time answering that. Conceptually he was prepared to address the issues as they applied to the United States, but whether there was any down side in Mexico, he wasn't reading that. I don't believe he really sees much.

>> Michael:
He really couldn't even context actualize the situation were posing as being it's a positive that you have several million Mexican citizens moving this way?

>>Doug:
He only characterized it as a positive.

>>Howard:
That's the key. I asked him a little later, I said, you know, there are people in this country who believe that you are exporting your problems of poverty and economics to the United States. What exactly are you doing to create jobs to keep people in your own country, and best he could come up with is a scholarship program for college and technical schools and $2.5 million in microloan problems to help people start up businesses. I don't think that they see pushing the Mexican economy in Mexico as a top priority to the extent that there are 35 million folks of Mexican decent living in the United States, they see that as a big plus.

>> Michael:
The prime message to the business audience, Doug, being Mexico is safe to invest in, come down and spend your money and -- spend your money in terms of capital investments, those kinds of things?

>>Doug:
He spoke a great deal about that, talked about the cheapness of money it's the same. It's gotten to be as cheap in Mexico as it is here. The opportunities that exist for American businesses. He was pushing that strong, and there was a big audience to hear it.

>> Michael:
Barrett, almost simultaneously with him touching down at Sky Harbor, gunfire breaks out on Interstate 10, rival coyote groups. The timing of this was absolutely incredible.

>>Barrett:
Yeah, you know, it couldn't have been timed any more coincidentally than it was. But here you had gun fight on Interstate 10 north of Casa Grande, and it's, you know, a sincere problem here where it's not drug trafficking, it's human trafficking, and this is one of the major real problems of the immigration aspect here in the United States. We're having this problem, and nobody has yet to deal with this.

>> Michael:
But now, Doug, you're bringing it home to neighborhoods. I mean, this thing ended near Ahwatukee. These people are using assault rifles.

>>Doug:
That's right. It was just south of Chandler, I believe.

>>Howard:
One of the points that the Governor made because we asked her about this because we knew about this at the press conference with fox, and what does all of this mean and how does this play out, and she said, this clearly is why you need a program like the Kolbe/McCain/flake reform bill so we know who is coming in the country so they don't need to use the coyotes and you won't have this kind of violence. It's a very -- we have violence during prohibition because you couldn't get alcohol. You are going to have violence among different groups of coyotes because it is illegal and that's where the money is.

>> Michael:
The road to the Whitehouse, 2004 traveling through Tempe next year at the Gammage auditorium which was selected to host one of the presidential debates next fall. Barrett, how did Tempe land the prize?

>>Barrett:
Tempe can host this great show, it can do just about anything.

>>Howard:
You are really, really full of it.

>>Barrett:
Tempe has not only the Super Bowl, but two national -- I believe it's two national NCAA championships. They have shown time and time again, they can put on the big event to host the block party. They know about security, they know traffic control and those types of things, and they know how to deal on a national scope with things. So that was really just one of the biggest upsides for Tempe.

>> Michael:
Actually, it's not just a debate, it's "the" debate. It's the last debate. It's significant from that standpoint.

>>Doug:
It indicates the importance at least the anticipated importance that people put on states like Arizona, which there just are not that many swing states around any more. There are the blue states and the red states, as everybody is much aware. And so, Arizona is really a big question mark, and so this is a venue where it could be hot in 2004.

>>Howard:
And the other piece of it is that historically, the only debates that have been conducted in the west have been in California, and I think that the presidential debate commission honestly wanted something west of the Mississippi but not back in California, and they looked toward Tempe. They were looking for a university site because the other three sites they chose are also university sites. They were looking for a large venue. They were looking for something quite frankly that honestly looks good to the TV cameras. You look at Gammage, it's a nice-looking building.

>>Barrett:
I've heard this whole west of the Mississippi. Does anybody realize that St. Louis is west of the Mississippi? I just wanted to throw that out there.

>>Howard:
Only geographically, not intellectually. Another interesting factor we were talking about the Super Bowl and the college championships, you probably have as good a chance of getting tickets for this in Arizona as you do to the Super Bowl, because in fact, the presidential debate commission will determine later on how the tickets are allocated, how many there will even be for the event.

>>Barrett:
You know, and the thing is we have to determine which debate actually comes here. This could be a town hall style and you might actually see some real voters and maybe even Arizonans in there. If it's a podium debate, you might bring in everybody else.

>> Michael:
Speaking of determining things, next week trial starts in court to determine whether or not we're going to keep the same boundary lines on legislative congressional districts as we've got currently?

>>Howard:
It's only been two years since -- by George, the court system really moves here. This is the fallout from the formation of the independent redistricting commission. You may remember that up until the year 2000, the legislature did redistricting, and they were only constrained by some very general federal requirements like minority voting strength. They took the power away from the legislature and gave it to the independent redistricting commission, but also put a bun. Of other constraints on there. Districts have to be compact and contiguous, and to the extent possible, you have to make competitive districts. A lot of folks didn't like what they came up with as the coalition of Democrats and Hispanics who contend that in fact you could have created more competitive districts. I mean, the Republicans quite frankly did very well in the redistricting congressionally and legislatively. The city of Flagstaff is unhappy because when they carved out a legislative district in northern Arizona, Flagstaff was included with the Navajo tribe and then the other issues which was dismissed in fact this week was that the Navajos were not happy because the congressional district was carved in a way that the Hopis even they are surrounded by the Navajo reservation were pulled out into a separate congressional district. The judge on that said, look, that doesn't even need to go to trial. As a matter of law, the commission could do that.

>>Doug:
The fascinating part is how the constituencies for the redistricting commission have totally flip-flopped. At the beginning the Republicans were total averse to the idea. The Republicans were paying for it with Jim pedestrian Der is on the chairman of the Democratic party putting out the money to get this through. Now the issue is reversed. It was difficult to get the Governor to part with the money to pay for the lawyers to defend this plan.

>>Barrett:
This is one thing -- you wouldn't know it, but this is the most important issue of the special session is getting 1.7 million for the independent redistricting commission. You had four or five members of the congressional district come down and lobby on the capitol steps there, you know, to have this money, money for lawyers. Now, forget CPS and forget corrections, children and prisoners don't matter.

>>Howard:
And the thing is, there is the fact that the trial is coming up and there is a constitutional obligation, not only to form the districts but to defend them. To the extent that you don't give them the money to defend the case that's starting on Wednesday, they can't defend it and you essentially have caved.

>>Barrett:
But you know, why has this become an issue today, yesterday? The commission knew months ago the trial date, they were running out of money and yet they didn't ask for the money sooner.

>>Howard:
Crisis is always better.

>> Michael:
Let's continue the snarkiness. Proposition 414, Tuesday the Maricopa hospital district it created, it's funded. Was it a surprise?

>>Doug:
No, it wasn't, really. They did a master full job of both scheduling and promoting proposition 414 to get the hospital district created. My hats off to them. They have taken the Phoenix mayor skim Rimsza model of election nearing and applied it to county elections and it worked to a tee.

>>Howard:
They also did a masterful job of PR and propaganda including the neutral ballot pamphlet that made it seemed to anyone that got it that if you voted against this, the hospital will be closed, doctors won't be trained, burn victims will be wandering the streets aimlessly. I mean, what a pile of crap, quite frankly. This was done in a way to scare people.

>>Doug:
It was a -- nevertheless, it was a master full campaign and my hats are off to them. Everything you say, Howie, with the possible exception of your objuration, but the voting public was given the -- one of the best symbols to vote for something, that is Jason Schechterle. He was out in front and I must say I don't think that there is a more beloved public figure in all of Maricopa County now than that guy is, and having him out front led the way.

>> Michael:
Going down to Pima County, Tucson have a mayor yet or not?

>>Barrett:
Well, pretty close. By Monday morning we'll find out. They are going to count the last 2500, 3,000 votes on Sunday. The mayor has the lead and it's probably a prohibitive lead.

>> Michael:
They would have to take two out of three of the remaining ballots to overturn it. It is a world gone mad, though, Barrett. Phoenix voters approve light rail, Tucson voters turn it down.

>>Barrett:
Well, there is no reason to have any kind of transportation plan when it only takes you an hour to get across town. Why bother.

>>Howard:
Okay, but the other piece of this, and I appreciate as you say the sort of ill logic of it since these are the tree-hugging whole-grain eating folks in Tucson who believe in getting out of their cars.

>> Michael:
They would hug a tree while riding transit.

>>Howard:
We won't even go there. In Maricopa County, light rail was not a separate ballot issue. Light rail was, we've got this massive plan, by the way, over here on the side we've got a little bit of light rail. Tucsonans were given a specific ballot issue dealing with light rail and looking at the economics of it and one line going south downtown and one line going east they said it doesn't pencil out.

>>Barrett"
You can't put a freeway there any more. It's so overbuilt. You cannot put a freeway. You've got to go light rail.

>> Michael:
Doug, Scottsdale, bob us Dane running for mayor? This caught me off guard this week.

>>Doug:
I'm just delighted. This is going back away, but bob, a long time ago when I was a cubby reporter covering the State Capitol was I think --

>> Michael:
I remember your cubbiness.

>>Doug:
The majority leader of the senate.

>> Michael:
Ultimately senate president.

>>Doug:
Ultimately senate president, sorry. And he's a delightful guy, a great politician. He's identified as a conservative, but not always. He was just a fun guy to deal with. I think moving into this sort of thing would be a nice fit if he goes for it.

>>Howard:
The only thing that will keep him from becoming mayor is God for bid they try to quote him. I was out there when you would come out. Fact is, wonderful guy, doesn't understand punctuation, sentences verbs or any of that stuff. Totally unquotable, but a wonderful guy.

>> Michael:
Five units of the Arizona National Guard placed on alert today to prepare for a possible mobilization in support of the continuing war on terrorism. Howie what is known about the order?

>>Howard:
Well, actually it's a sort of semi order. It doesn't say we're going to mobilize these units four of them in Phoenix, one in Tucson, it says we may, and this is sort of a preparatory. So if you've got a job, if you've got something you need to take care of, take care of it. Now, there's also no answers as to where these units would go, because there are three separate operations that the guard gets involved in. One is mobile eagle which is the domestic anti-terrorism operation. You've got enduring freedom, which is the overseas anti-terror operation and then you've got Iraqi freedom -- you've got to keep these things straight here -- which is dealing with the war overseas.

>> Michael:
Enduring freedom is Afganistan, primarily; right?

>>Howard:
It is Afganistan primarily, but it could also be seen as other sorts of border-type activities. So, you know, there is no active war in Afghanistan. They are not shooting at us the way they are in Iraq. They need the guard because we've actually shrunk the army so much that we really don't have the capacity to do this.

>>Barrett:
This is an effort by the U.S. government, the Pentagon to give people time, because you know, over the last year or two years, you know, they've called them up, given them 30 days and they've got to go. Now people are going to have a couple of months, have a few months to get their affairs in order, to get those families prepared, and you know, so at least that gives them some comfort.

>> Michael:
Speaking of getting your affairs in order, the tax amnesty program doing much better than expected?

>>Barrett:
Doing gang busters. A lot of people in Arizona apparently don't pay taxes. The --

>>Howard:
Don't look at me when you say that.

>>Barrett:
It's brought in about $73 million, $22 of which it was already going to bring in, but throw in another $50 million. $4 million goes to the cities and the rest stays in the state coffers. State predicted $25 million. So they are $25 million above that. It's beaten projections. The state is flush with cash now.

>>Howard:
What's interesting, most of the money comes from corporate income taxes which meant you had a lot of businesses here that either weren't paying their full tax and perhaps weren't paying their corporate taxes at all. Although there were a few individuals to come in about 2700 individuals -- one guy came in and of course they don't give us names. He paid his personal income tax for the last 33 years, which makes you wonder if I hadn't if you volunteer bothered for 33 years, why would you come in now.

>> Michael:
Doug, are we encouraging evildoers with this program?

>>Doug:
For one thing it creates aggravation on the part of people that for one reason or another haven't paid their taxes and pay some pretty stiff fines when they finally get around to doing it, and -- but I think the bigger problem, and this hasn't shown up in Arizona so much because it's been quite a while since we've done this, but when you have amnesty programs like this, it's an incentive for people not to pay their taxes because they can put it off.

>>Barrett:
I've got to say one thing, though. The Governor predicted $25 million. It's brought in a lot more than that. There were people in the legislature and people at this table as a matter of fact, and I am looking at you, Howie, who said Arizona has done this before, it brought in bump kiss. The Governor brought in new money to this state.

>>Howard:
I want to see the tape. I want to see the instant replay on that one.

>>Barrett:
And so now, you know, she is able to really she's winning every battle it seems, right now.

>> Michael:
When he said butt kiss, I said that's a snarky attitude. What happened third week special session? Anything happened this week?

>>Barrett:
It was really -- it was getting really busy now. The senate committees met twice. It's such a slow pace right now, and while they are having some meetings, they are fact finding, getting facts on the table, I don't see a lot of movement actually getting some deals on the two major issues.

>>Howard:
The one I think they are getting a little more movement on has to do with CPS where they are trying to take the Governor's proposal and the proposal that really came out of Rick Romley and former assistant attorney general Steve twist and figure out what they can fit in and create this third consensus vote. The Governor is going to be forced to accept more openness in court records and court hearings than I think she wants, but Romley is not going to get his idea of creating a whole separate Child Protective Services. That one seems to be moving. The Governor folded on her big issue which is the $470 million for new prisons. These down to $27.the 9 million. They are not anxious to give her that. They want everything done with privatization. That's harder to resolve.

>>Barrett:
But even -- the Governor and her DOC director actually don't mind doing private prisons for the short term. We've got 4,000 more prisoners than beds, then space, send some of those to the privates, but we still actually need money to send them to the private prisons.

>>Doug:
I would say it would be for the very short term. I mean, the Governor has got a real animus towards the private prisons. I don't think you will see too many more private prince.

>> Michael:
What's the source of the Governor's animus against private prisons other than the obvious?

>>Howard:
Well, I think that there is a philosophical question there, number one, which is if these people are in fact having their freedom taken by the state, should they be turned over to private organization? Technically the state still returns legal -- retains legal custody of these people even if they are put into a facility operated and owned by someone else. The other part is she believes with her new collections director that properly done, long-term, you can do it cheaper. If in fact you build facilities that are properly designed for the level of inmates you need, you build it on existing state land so you don't have the land costs, some of the facilities they have now are designed for expansion, and you really don't need to have Romley pay the private company for their costs and the private company for their shareholders.

>> Michael:
What is it that gets this thing going? I mean, when do we move? Is there a deadline? Is it Presidents' Day?

>>Barrett:
The deadline I guess would be January 13th or 14th?

>> Michael:
They don't have to, you could run concurrent.

>>Barrett:
Well, you know, December 5th is when my son will be born and then I don't care what they do for the rest of the session, and I think we'll be in session right about that time.

>> Michael:
Seriously, what does it take to break this thing?

>>Howard:
I think it's going to take everyone realizing this is as much as we're going to get. Each side still sees a victory in here, and I think if they get out a compromised CPS plan, I think the prison stuff they will come up with a little bit of money for the temporary housing, and they will declare victory and go home.

>>Barrett:
The problem is some conservative say we already have it in law that we'll build a private prison in Marana or a bed for female inmates probably in Marana and we'll build a 1400 bed facility in Kingman. The Governor is not moving forward quickly on either of those. So there is some animus there from the Governor.

>> Michael:
Panelists we're out of time. Thank you very much. To share your views, please visit our web site at www.kaet.asu.edu click on the word "Horizon," that'll lead you to transcripts, links and information on upcoming shows. Speaking of which, let's see what's on "Horizon" on Monday.

>> Reporter:
Federal authorities will join with state and local law enforcement to fight immigrant smuggling operation. A conversation with the CEO of the national association of children's hospitals, and a Mesa firefighter says drug testing is an invasion of privacy. Monday night at 7:00 on channel 8's "Horizon."

>> Michael:
Tuesday veterans day "Horizon" looks at issues important to military personnel. Wednesday, update on the special legislative session. Thank you very much for joining us on a Friday. Have an incredibly snarky weekend. I'm Michael Grant. Good night.

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