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October 10, 2003

Host: Howard Fischer (substituting for Michael Grant)

Topics:
· The Journalists Roundtable

In-Studio Guests:
Le Templar, "East Valley Tribune;"
Robbie Sherwood, "The Arizona Republic;"
Paul Giblin, "Scottsdale Tribune."

>> Howard: It's Friday, October 10, 2003. In the headlines this week, the nine Democrats running for president were here in Phoenix Thursday for a nationally televised debate. A new report released this week shows former Arizona Corporation Commissioner Jim Irvin clearly broke the law. And a Valley couple suing for the right to marry lost their case before the Arizona Court of Appeals. Good evening, I'm Howard Fischer and, no, the fact I'm hosting and the cubs and the Red Sox are in the playoffs does not mean the end of the world. Joining me to talk about these and other stories are Le Templar from the "East Valley Tribune," Robbie Sherwood from the "Arizona Republic," and Paul Giblin from the Scottsdale Tribune. Arizona was in the national spotlight Thursday night as a nine democratic presidential candidates debated in Phoenix. Le, were the winners, loser or just everyone staying the same?

>> Le Templar: In general I think you could say that the people sort of cemented where they stood before. Nobody really stood out. Personally, the former debate coach, I thought that Dick Gephardt did the best. Technically he was more passionate than I've seen him at other times. Have a strong defense of the policies pursuit in the '90s. Gerald Wesley Clark seemed to get battered the most. He's a front-runner now and all the other eight went after him at one point or another and he had trouble answering a lot of troubles against him particularly on his stance on whether we should have gone to war with Iraq and supporting President Bush early why his first term in office.

>> Robbie Sherwood: It was like an initiation rite to a street gang. Everybody gathers around him and beats the tar out of him. And his reaction, how did he not see this coming? They hit him with kid gloves in the first debate. He probably should have strengthened his policy arguments and been coached better because it seemed like he was -- general Clark was on the defensive every time he spoke, and then was only -- was happy to sit there and be silent during other parts of the debate. So he didn't distinguish himself and he probably lost points, not that anybody maybe gained, but if there was a loser, it was Wesley Clark. I don't know who the winner would be.

>> Howard: It raises an interesting question. You sat there, and clearly people kept bringing up the statements he made, the conflicting statements he made in terms of should we or should we not have gone to war in Iraq? Is there a viable explanation for his explanation, for lack of a better way of putting it?

>> Robbie: It seems to be a lot of parsing. First he said that -- he supported the resolution to go to war. Now he's qualifying that, I supported a resolution to take this to the U.N. I never would have supported a vote to go to war. It doesn't ring as true as you would like.

>> Paul Giblin: But the whole argument struck me as bizarre because most of them at one point or another were in the same boat. Most of the candidates supported the war. Now that it's not going well and people are still dying months later they decide, they didn't really support the war. And not only did most of them have that opinion, I think most Americans had that opinion. I think most Americans were gung-ho and flying flags and painting their garages with flags early on, and now they're saying, ah, maybe not.

>> Howard: Which raises an interesting question, does that give Kucinich bragging rights?

>> Robbie: It does, but still nobody knows he is. Can he say he's the only one that voted against it. He's so far back in the pack, with all due respect to congressman Kucinich and Al Sharpton and Carol Mosely Braun, they're starting to get in the way. They can be entertaining. Al Sharpton is easily the most entertaining person at any debate he will ever be in from now on and in the past, but if you want to -- these other candidates didn't have enough time given the format and the number of candidates to really establish a winner, because the -- there wasn't enough time to answer the questions.

>>Paul: I'll disagree. I think Kucinich is the one candidate is most different than the others and for the viewers who don't know who he is, he's the one with the bad combover. I think he is another the one that is much different than the rest. I don't think he's just there for entertainment purposes.

>> Robbie: No, the others may be for entertainment. I think he's easily the most sincere, driven candidate. Of those three, he's the one that -- you maybe don't hope doesn't quit because for the Democrats' hopes he brings that green party element that was with Ralph Nader in the last election, this very strong antiwar, the hippies, but still, his needle is not going to move based on his performance in this debate.

>> Howard: Which raises an interesting question, Le, we have a primary here in February. How many of the nine do you think will show up on the ballot here several months from now?

>> Le: At least five. Up to now, Howard Dean and Joe Lieberman have been leading the pack. Dean gets -- on the street gets more people out and they have more enthusiasm but it seems Lieberman so far has a deeper well of support, particularly you a -- among the people in a party that are going to bring voters out on election day. We haven't really seen any polling since Clark got into the race. We don't know what his impact, if any, he's having here in Arizona. But I think the people that are -- that already are in office and they can just hang on for a while, Dick Gephardt, John Edwards, John Kerry, even Kucinich might still be there.

>> Robbie: I would be interested to see if Edwards moves. He's way back in the pack, too, only because the second half of the debate where they had the undecided voters from -- say what you want about that -- but the undecided voters asking questions and it was more of a stand-up format, Edwards is a former trial lawyer, and it sort of played to his strength, interpersonal connection but he again is another one who has run his campaign badly out of the gates. He spent more time raising money than getting to know him, so he's so far back it may not help him.

>> Howard: Let me ask a related question, Le. All the Democrats were in town. Seems like all the Republicans were in town, too. Was this just trying to steal their thunder?

>> Le: Absolutely. They wanted to make sure the Democrats didn't get the stage alone. Ed Gillespie, who is head of the Republican national committee spent the day in Phoenix making himself available to the media. Today the big tent was real large under Arizona Republican politics, their headquarters, almost anybody who was a Republican was there to show their support as they formally announced the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign. Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl will lead that, which is a big deal considering McCain's relationship with Bush and some tension there even though they've settle add lot of differences since then. I asked McCain that question today, and he made it clear that he's not just a figurehead, he will be working on behalf of Bush.

>> Robbie: I thought it was funny that -- no need to wait. It's political hate speech.

>> Howard: Of course. Once you poison the well like that. Is any of this going to affect the ability of Phoenix, Arizona, Tempe, to get the big national debate next year? Any ideas?

>> Robbie: Might affect it in a positive way. I think from a logistical standpoint things went very well for the debate. It seemed like a success for Arizona, kind of putting us on the map, establishing us as an important state, as the small group of states who have February 3rd primaries, Arizona has the most electoral votes. I think we're the prize of that February 3rd day. I think it would help. I don't know if it's going to get it but I think it helps.

>> Howard: Let me go from the macro politics of the president to the tiny politics of city councils. We heard some claims by Karen Johnson, who's a very conservative state lawmaker in Mesa that she wants to run for Mayor, or not?

>> Le: Well, she has been talking to certain conservative Republicans in Mesa about challenging Keno Hawker, a man who ran for Mayor as a conservative but operated more as a moderate in office and upset some of the conservatives. The Tribune wrote about her today. One problem, state constitution forbids them from running for another office even if they resign from the legislature. It's odd she didn't know considering she is chairwoman of the house rules committee.

>> Howard: You're saying, of course, that's all Karen Johnson does is look at the constitutionality of bills.

>> Robbie: The constitution is a majority, 31-16 is constitutional at the legislature.

>> Howard: Other interesting issue that came up this week, you did a little piece on Yom Kippur. Not bad for a little boy from snowflake. Tell us why Yom Kippur is from to Arizona politics.

>> Robbie: I'm from Springerville. There's a large convention of highway safety professionals, firefighters, prosecutors and law enforcement that happens every year, and this year it was scheduled, it happened to coincide on the kickoff on Monday which is Yom Kippur which is the holiest day in the Jewish faith. That caused a problem with some of the Jewish people going to the conference, particularly Alberto Gutier, is who is the former office of highway safety director. But he did raise a strong point from that. The governor's office apologized all over themselves, said it was a schedule thing they couldn't get out of, but it raised a little bad blood.

>> Howard: Earlier this week attorney Mel McDonald released his investigation into former Arizona Corporation Commissioner Jim Irvin. Robbie, you read that two-volume report, stayed up all night, I'm sure. What does it show?

>> Robbie: It shored commissioner Irvin clearly and convincingly broke state and federal laws in a variety of ways during his tenure as commissioner. What prosecutors are going to do with that, I don't think -- not much. Early indications from the U.S. Attorney's office is they don't see much new there. But the report shows that in his dealings with the southern union takeover as commission and basically faking evidence at trial and the resulting civil trial and in harassing employees who blew the whistles, violates state whistle blower laws, that he broke the law. They could make a case.

>> Le: I -- just to play devil's advocate, a couple things you have to keep in mind, Mel McDonald uses the standard of clear and convincing evidence, not the same as proving a case beyond reasonable doubt, which is what you have to do to prove a crime. The other thing is Jim Irvin did not offer any substantive testimony in deposition. He didn't try to defend himself. I'm assuming he's planning to do that at trial if it went to that point. So you have a one-sided presentation of a prosecutor trying to make Jim Irvin look as bad as possible in order to start winning the case in the minds of lawmakers who have to decide this if it went to impeachment.

>> Howard: Let me play a double devil's advocate. During his civil trial his argument he presented to the jury is he did nothing wrong and everything he did in the southern union intervention he was entitled to do. I mean, does that not -- the fact that a civil jury didn't buy it mean that perhaps Mel looked at the same arguments and didn't come up with anything either?

>> Le: Well, except I guess in my mind, in that case, there was the play of the defense versus the offense, which we don't get in this impeachment report. It may all be true that everything Mel McDonald says happened happened. But you just have to keep in mind that there isn't -- the full story isn't there in terms of what crimes might have been committed.

>> Robbie: Jim Irvin is on record during the Southern Union trial. He got up on most of these issues and it boils down to -- this is a very complicated case, but it boils do you know these 50 other people, all these unrelated people, these CEOs for all these big companies, these other lawyers, these other commissioners, other staffers, are all lying and I'm telling the truth. The jury did not believe that.

>> Paul: You have a problem with that?

>> Robbie: The jury did not believe that and neither did Mel McDonald, obviously.

>> Paul: 64 million reasons to raise doubt about that and that would be the amount of fine he has to pay. But there's three offices that theoretically could follow through on this, you've got the U.S. Attorney's office, state attorney's office and the Maricopa County attorney's office. Quite frankly I'm a little dumbfounded why they don't go through with this. If it were you or I, I have the feeling we would be spending time in tent city or worse.

>>Robbie: Let me summarize, I guess, where maybe they're coming from. There might be a political reason here. If you take a run at him and the evidence is strong enough for civil jury but not strong enough for beyond a reasonable doubt, which is a much higher standard of proof and you fail to convict him on that, then you open yourself up for what happened with Mecham, when Mecham was impeached he was later acquitted, he came back and successfully basically sued the legislature for his legal fees over $300,000. I don't think they want that to happen with Irvin.

>> Howard: Consensus, prosecute or no?

>> Paul: Yeah. Michigan Le?

>> Le: I don't think it's likely unless Richard Romley wants to get back in on this.

>> Robbie: I don't think they will.

>> Howard: Court of Appeals was busy this week, Paul. Interesting case there by two Maricopa County men who said that once the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the laws on sodomy they had a constitutional right to have the state recognize their marriage. Court didn't see it that way.

>> Paul: No, the Court of Appeals had an interesting interpretation on the law. They said they couldn't get married on the basis that the state has an interest in procreation, so the argument therefore would be, all marriages are for the purpose of procreation. That gets into a lot of -- kind of -- well, quite frankly uncomfortable.

>> Howard: It does raise some interesting questions because the court did look at the fact there are couples who cannot or will not reproduce. I mean, should they be precluded from getting married?

>> Robbie: Don't ask me this question. No, they shouldn't. But I think that was an argument advanced by the state, but I think that perhaps this case was on solid legal ground anyway for not being able to overturn it because the Supreme Court decision that supposedly opened the door, everybody I know from legal analysts say it didn't open the door that wide, didn't make it okay for these guys to advance the case. They think they're just making a run at the castle.

>> Paul: I was of the different opinion that the argument the state has an interest in procreation was so absurd they moved forward with that knowing that it would be struck down, because it was just ridiculous. Okay, you know people who are married, they have kids and then they stop having kids for the majority of their marriage. Are those unions legal? Of course they are. I think these gay guys should get married if they are. I don't know who these guys are and --

>> Howard: Do you honestly believe the state Supreme Court, U.S. Supreme Court is going to overturn this?

>> Paul: Overturn this? I don't know. I'm not going to predict the Supreme Court.

>> Howard: Robbie, we had a pipeline blowup the end of July. Senator McCain, another Republican who came to town to steal perhaps a little thunder from the Democrats, had a hearing down at the city hall. What's going on here?

>> Robbie: Well, when John McCain holds a hearing, everybody shows up. You had all the Kinder Morgan people, the Governor's, Attorney General's office there to testify, and McCain is raising some legitimate questions about federal oversight of these pipelines, that the state only has the jurisdiction to inspect these federal pipelines because it's an interstate, it crosses state lines, and they just duty detective work for the federal office of pipeline safety. Through public records searches and this is what outraged the senator and others, we discovered that the federal government had almost zero interest in inspections and wanted to take that away from the state for a long time and it was the Corporation Commissioner Carl Kunasek who fought that, and had he not done that there would be almost no inspections and no oversight. They don't want the state to do it and don't want to do it themselves.

>> Howard: What's the solution, have the state take it over?

>>Le: Given the fact that we also learned yesterday the office of pipeline safety decided a safety violation occurred even though this pipeline ruptured because of stress corrosion over some type of lack of maintenance --

>> Robbie: Now a guy has 20,000 gallons of gas sprayed on his house.

>> Le: Exactly. Seems like if you're going to do more than you are doing now, the state says we want the responsibility, we're willing to take it on, it's an issue of where -- in a Bush administration, which regulation gets in the way of a national energy policy is willing to cede control to a state that's perhaps going to be more stronger enforcement.

>> Howard: I seem to recall the governor said we will take it but a little money to go with it perhaps.

>> Robbie: I think they want to ensure the pipes are doing their job.

>> Howard: Another quick issue, Robbie, Child Protective Services, we have a special session coming up theoretically on October 20th, but Senate president Ken Bennett and house president Jake flake don't seem to have all the answers they need.

>> Robbie: They're raising questions -- they have a notion and this is goes back to the last session, that the governor has access or control over the federal funds that come into the state budget which three to four times more than the state funds that come in. They advance an argument she basically has a blank check and she could solve the problems at CPS if she took federal funds from one area and have put them in another. They don't work like that, they have strings attached. But they raise add lot of other questions, too. They questioned whether the governor is shooting straight when she says that if they don't get $27 million of the 35 she has asked for that 153 caseworkers will have to be laid off before the end of the fiscal year. They're saying during the budget issues nobody raised this particular emergency. Their budget wasn't cut but the governor says we've been telling them there's trouble there for a long time.

>> Howard: Do you believe they're going to accept the governor's numbers?

>> Le: No, I think that the governor knows going into this that there's going to be some ground for compromise, and they're going to have to accept for something less. The trick is balancing between what she claims is money just to keep the agency where it is now, without laying people off, and what she says is new -- new money needed in order to bring case loads in line with national standards, increase some pay to keep -- decrease turnover, and the much larger chunk she placed into keeping the agency afloat, which raises some problems.

>> Howard: One of the biggest annual events is undergoing a name change. The Phoenix Open, which, of course, is held in Scottsdale, will be known by a new name when it's played next January. Paul, what's it going to be called?

>> Paul: It's going to be call the FUBAR Open.

>> Howard: I assume that doesn't mean what I think it means.

>> Paul: No, it's the initials FBR which is the name of an investment bank back east and don't ask me what the real name is, because I don't know. They decided a good marketing ploy would be to take over the Phoenix Open and change it to the FBR Open.

>> Robbie: I bet the R stands for reserve. I don't know, but I'm just guessing.

>> Paul: It kind of underscores what's going on in sports a lot. You see a lot of corporate sponsors. It used to be like the John Hancock Sun Bowl and then they changed it to the John Hancock Bowl.

>> Howard: You followed business. Is there really a value, are people going to say, you know, I've seen that bank name when I've got to deposit $5,000 because I happened to see the Phoenix/scottsdale/FBR Open.

>> Paul: I don't know the statistics off the top of my head but I have spoken to some Tostitos people from the Fiesta Bowl and they say the sales of their chips have gone up since they've been associated with the bowl.

>> Robbie: They have injected nachos during the Fiesta Bowl and it may have been some subliminal thing going on on the television.

>> Le: On the other hand, Bank One Ballpark, I honestly forget that is the name of a company, Bank One. I just think of BOB when I say those words, and I never give any thought to where the name comes from.

>> Robbie: FBR just doesn't roll off the tongue the way "BOB" does.

>> Le: FUBAR does, though.

>> Howard: Elsewhere we have news on Scottsdale's water front project. We're going to be building up and better?

>> Paul: We're going to be building up certainly. This is a project that's south of Scottsdale fashion square. I get most malls mixed up. It's south of there. It's two large towers and smaller things out front. It has kind of that California look, that California, I guess, fake Venice look to it. It should be interesting. It will be scaled from the street and get taller. This is something I think has been inevitable in Scottsdale for a long time. I think Scottsdale probably ought to be thinking about building up in the downtown area. If they want to preserve the edges and get more people in there, which Scottsdale does, you have to do it somehow, you go up.

>> Howard: But you had what's called the west's most western town and this idea of urban sprawl. Is this going to sell? Is this the future of Scottsdale?

>> Robbie: I think Paul is right when he says it is. It's interesting that Scottsdale in the past had taken a lot of pride in not building up and not going above certain heights to preserve a certain character, but I think that that character is shifting in order to stay economically viable because of other failed attempts to develop that area.

>> Paul: They did this -- with this development they chopped off some of the height from it to make it even with that other bank building across the street there and I think this is a bad strategy. What you do is make all the buildings look like dominoes next to each other, which is what happened at the Esplanade center. And that thing is a dog. Boring sky lines are ones that are all the same. If you think about any skyline, when you think skyline, you think Seattle, New York, et cetera, and those are different heights, and I think that's a better skyline overall.

>> Howard: Assuming all the same can't go past a -- Robbie, we have a new buy for what was Circle K, which became Tosco, which became CONOCO and the new winner is --

>> Robbie: It's a Montreal based company is that a lot of French sounding words I can't pronounce. The good news is they're still going to keep the name Circle K. We can keep our brand identity.

>> Howard: Is Arizona that much in demand -- are we a buyer's market here for out of state and out of country --

>> Robbie: Certainly charge a lot for our gas.

>> Paul: That's a good question. Motorola was doing a little wheeling and dealing this week, and it seems like lot of companies here are selling.

>> Howard: You talk about Motorola. Several years ago they spun off one segment and became go, which didn't. Now they have another spinoff they're doing. This one they say is different?

>> Paul: It's different in that it doesn't have a name yet, doesn't have a headquarters yet. It doesn't have a CEO yet. Other than those things, it's coming along. It has a good idea. They're going to make chips and they think being split off they might be able to develop that more, that will be their primary focus and maybe it will. Maybe it will be good for us.

>> Robbie: What's Austin got we don't have?

>> Paul: More people that make chips. And Austin is also a good market for chips and high-tech sector.

>> Howard: One other business thing, little Mesa airlines is swallowing an elephant buying Atlantic coast. What do they have in mind there?

>> Paul: Get bigger. You see a lot of that in consolidation throughout the airline industry. Airlines are falling off the radar all the time and getting gobbled up and I think we'll continue to see that, at least the next several years, until the whole industry gets stronger.

>> Howard: Is there a future for these little commuter puddle jumpers?

>>Paul: There is a future for that. Because people in cities, Pierre, South Dakota, for instance, they have to drive long distances to get to real airports but these cities are coming along and they need air service, and it doesn't make sense to fly the bigger jets in there and you can start hitting mid-tier cities. People think Phoenix is a mid-tier city, but it isn't. Hasn't been for years. But there is a market for this.

>> Howard: To share your views or to contact us, please visit our website at www.kaet.asu.edu. Click on the word "Horizon," and that will lead you to transcripts, links and information on upcoming shows. Let's see what's happening on "Horizon" Monday.

>> The democratic presidential candidates gather in Phoenix for a momentous debate. Both Democrats and Republicans are gearing up for the 2004 election. Analysis and observations about the political season Monday night at 7:00 on Channel 8's "Horizon."

>> Howard: Tuesday on "Horizon," a look at the past and future of Arizona's forest health. Thursday, the challenges and solutions facing native American education. Thank you for joining us this evening. Panelists, it's been a good show. Have an incredibly beautiful weekend. Good night.

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