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September 12, 2003

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
· The Journalists Roundtable
In-Studio Guests:
Mary Jo Pitzl, Arizona Republic;
Howie Fischer, Capitol Media Services;
Robbie Sherwood, The Arizona Republic

>> Michael: It's Friday, September 12th, 2003.

>> Michael: In the headlines this week, former councilman Phil Gordon was overwhelmingly elected Tuesday as the new Mayor of Phoenix.

>> Michael: There's a report that says Arizona Corporation Commissioner Jim Irvin may resign rather than face impeachment.

>> Michael: And the Arizona Supreme Court hears arguments because of some vetoes by Governor Napolitano.

>> Michael: I'm Michael Grant. This is the Journalists' Roundtable. Joining me to talk about these and other stories are Mary Jo Pitzl from the "Arizona Republic," Howie Fischer from "Capitol Media Services," and Robbie Sherwood from "The Arizona Republic." As expected, Phil Gordon was elected as new mayor of Phoenix. Mary Jo, placing a million dollars and name identification to one side, how do you think he won in such a landslide?

>> Mary Jo Pitzl: Low turnout. This was a pretty overwhelming victory, almost a three to one margin for Phil Gordon over Randy Pullen. He got, I think it was 60 odd -- 83% of the early ballots, there you go.

>> Michael: He's named the transition team or started to?

>> Mary Jo: Yes, today he named a 6-person transition team, headed by Jack Feister former SRP executive and vice president under Lattie Coor at ASU.

>> Michael: Now, the first thing we do, we buy a bench and we sit out in front of the house?

>> Mary Jo: Yes, you do. This is the Gordon mantra. I think you'll be hearing more about this. He says people will hear more about it, buy a bench, preferably in Phoenix and put it on your front porch and watch the world go by and report suspicious activity.

>> Howard Fischer: And what part of Phoenix in late July does he not understand? I mean, this is almost as good as Jessica Flores' plan to turn on the lights and buy a big dog.

>> Mary Jo: Yes, you know, mayor elect Gordon has an urban heat island effect plan that's in the works so he'll address that.

>> Howard: He's going to shut us off and stop the heat? No, I'm sorry.

>> Michael: Speaking of Jessica Flores, we thought it was going to be close and that was close.

>> Mary Jo: It was darn close. Tom Simplot won the race by 57 votes, if I recall.

>> Michael: I think that's 57, that's what I heard.

>> Mary Jo: Light years ago. It went into overtime. They had to take an extra day to count early ballots. It was very close. She basically won the west side of the district, he won the east side. We looked at the precinct returns and Interstate 17 was a bright line of demarcation.

>> Michael: That's interesting. You were telling me before we went on the air that it just -- you could just draw a line right there at I-17 and it broke --

>> Mary Jo: You'll see that in tomorrow's newspaper.

>> Robbie Sherwood: One thing I would like to mention, Randy Pullen didn't run the brightest campaign in the world, trying to politicize or trying to make this a partisan race but on the day of the election, his father died. It was a double whammy, kind of a sad note on that.

>> Howard: The other thing about Pullen, leaving aside that he kept saying I'm a Republican and vote for me like that's going to really carry it on a city-wide race, is he waged not a negative campaign, but a campaign almost of negative-type issues, we're against immigrants, we're against crime. There is no vision there. There was no greater feeling. I mean, the people who have been elected mayor of this city, going back to people like Terry Goddard, have talked about the greater good, the neighborhoods, the people of the city, and you know, Randy wasn't doing that. He just was busy talking about, well, we're going to get those immigrants out of here, we're going to cut down on crime. And I don't know --

>> Robbie: That's at the city level than any other level of government. You can't be a theocrat at the city level because people want to know why you didn't get my garbage today.

>> Michael: Speaking of negative campaigns, those signs popped up, no on Simplot, lobbyist/developer.

>> Mary Jo: Yes.

>> Michael: Possibility there was an adverse reaction to those or not?

>> Mary Jo: You know, again, whenever there is an election that's decided by such a slim margin, it can be anything. Oh, shoot, one neighborhood we didn't walk. One side that didn't go over well with people. It's very -- one dogs and lights message that didn't resonate with people.

>> Howard: And the other piece of it, this is more important at the lower level races like a legislative city council, an endorsement from the 800-pound gorilla, meaning the "Arizona Republic" really helps. I don't think endorsements mean a lot for governor or even necessarily for mayor, but where people are not necessarily sure, moving down the ballot, they say how do my friends at the "Republic" vote.

>> Mary Jo: One other note on your comments, Howie, about the campaign that Pullen waged, I guess to underscore that voters didn't buy it, he got 28% of the vote. He also lost in his home precinct by the exact same margin that Gordon beat him city-wide, 72-28. And Gordon won every precinct in the city and the closest Pullen came to challenging him was 15 points.

>> Robbie: You wonder if he was a sacrificial lamb running up against a candidate who has been running for this office for, I don't know how many years it's been, but Phil Gordon has laid the groundwork for this campaign for a long time.

>> Howard: That's a wonderful point. You just reminded me of something. We had this once before where the Republicans, running as a Republican, put up a sacrificial lamb. It was Burt Kruglick who ran for mayor and it was against Terry where the Republicans felt we need somebody there to prove that this is a Republican town and Burt Kruglick never became mayor either.

>> Mary Jo: And Burt Kruglick endorsed Phil Gordon this time around.

>> Michael: Just out of curiosity, do you think it proves it's a Republican town if you run as a Republican and the Republican loses, or should I leave that as a rhetorical question?

>> Howard: That's probably best.

>> Michael: All right. I was reading your follow-up story, Mary Jo, and I had not heard before that Tom Simplot would like to take Proposition 301, the .2 of a cent sales tax back to the voters for fine tuning?

>> Mary Jo: Right, he thinks it needs to go back to the voters. Gordon didn't think it would need that necessary. Simplot would like to expand the use of it to investigators and civilian investigators who can get after property times, which don't have a real high clearance rate in the city.

>> Michael: The theory being you can get better bang for the buck if you weren't limited to hiring only police and firemen?

>> Mary Jo: Correct.

>> Michael: Avondale had an election.

>> Mary Jo: Avondale did. They returned Ron Drake as mayor for another four-year term. And through their three council seats that were up on the ballot in two runoffs, a lot of candidates vying for seats on that growing city council.

>> Michael: Oh, I forgot, cycling back to the Phoenix election, the council gets a big pay increase.

>> Mary Jo: The city council gets a 43% pay increase. They will get $51,500, starting with new year, thanks to the voters of Phoenix.

>> Michael: Robbie, what do you think, do you think we'll see more and more legislators running for Phoenix City Council?

>> Robbie: For their retirement jobs, because there are only so many justice of the peace slots out there, so you might see more of that. That proves your theory that it's not a Republican town.

>> Michael: Let's go down to Tempe. Well, let's come here. Hugh Hallen has announced for Tempe mayor.

>> Mary Jo: Neil Giuliani's term is limited, so his term will be up next year. Hallman is getting into the race. He is a one-term councilmember from Tempe, and he's probably going to get a challenge from Dennis Cahill, a Tempe councilmember.

>> Michael: An interesting twist to that one, Hugh Hallman was positioned to run -- I'm losing track of time here -- last year but then the court came down with its decision saying no, Neil is serving a four-year term.

>> Howard: Well, he is the mayor-in-waiting, shall we say. It's going to be interesting in terms, you know, Hugh versus Dennis, in terms of the old businessman and what's the image for the future of the city. Same thing we saw in this election where Tempe has prided itself in terms of thinking -- of seeing itself as a forward-looking city, and who they believe can carry it forward. I think that the recall, the failure to recall showed essentially that they like this sort of progressive direction that the city has taken, and who do they think is going to follow with that?

>> Michael: Well, who do you think Governor Napolitano is going to endorse in the presidential primary thing?

>> Howard: She put her finger up in the air, couldn't feel the breeze and so she decided no one. The Governor decided that it's in her interest to just sort of stay out of it. And I think part of it is that there is no clear front runner. I think she has some sentiments for some of the folks, you know, perhaps, Lieberman. She's staying out of it.

>> Michael: But I mean --

>> Howard: In terms of who she likes? I think she likes Lieberman. I think that there's some feelings in there, particularly her link with Mario Diaz who has gone to work for the Kerry campaign. He was either pushed or voluntarily left the 9th floor, urged to leave. You know I think she looks at some of the other folks probably like a Dean and says Howard is very nice and very attractive and makes a good speech, but he could become, you know, the McGovern for the party where he could get the nomination and then lose.

>> Robbie: People look at Dean like every other Democratic politician looks at Dean, as sort of an inspiration and a blueprint to energize parts of the electorate who weren't there. Generally she has really good things to say about them, but none of them amount to any sort of clear endorsement. I think once the field narrows considerably you may see her take a plunge, but I don't think she wants to be wrong on this one.

>> Michael: Within a couple of weeks, a report expected that could lead to the impeachment of Arizona Corporation Commissioner Jim Irvin, however, a story this week suggested Irvin may resign first. Robby, you wrote the story. What's the basis?

>> Robbie: Well, the basis is, Corporation Commissioner Marc Spitzer, chairman Marc Spitzer is the lead source. It is his belief that he will step down. Buried beneath that is that you can't say in a news story unless people want to go on the record and say it, are weeks of swirling rumors saying that this case is mounting up to be very bad for him, very expensive, very hard on his family, very ugly. And you see things that even happened just today that showed that this is not just about Jim Irvin. This is about his wife.

>> Michael: In fact, let's get to that development. The House Judiciary Committee meeting today and authorizing a subpoena on Irvin's wife's attorney?

>> Robbie: Right. This is an attorney that while I mean, may or may not have been her attorney, but this is an attorney who brought evidence forward in the trial that the judge thought was spurious and fake, notes that his wife allegedly wrote recording a conversation between Irvin and his co-defendant Jack Rose, indicating that Irvin wasn't involved in this. At the trial Jack Rose couldn't stand up and refute that because he took the 5th Amendment. He waived that right or he was given immunity by the legislature, and he's singing like a canary apparently and is not backing up his version of the events. So the investigation is steering into this mode. It's become a separate count, from what we can tell, in this impeachment, perpetrating a fraud on the court. It's a very serious count. You can see that this is going a way that, you know, that the pressure is mounting. He may not resign. He's -- any normal thinking politician would have resigned a long time ago. It's clearly not bad, I guess. And so, you know, we don't know what he's going to do, but -- you know, wouldn't you? I mean, wouldn't you quit if -- it's just not looking good.

>> Howard: But here's the problem. Nobody wants to say that Jim is just not right, but he's very egotistical. He ran for Secretary of State against Jane Hull back in 1994, and almost won, just threw a bunch of money into it, and can you imagine that we could have had Governor Irvin?

>> Michael: Came within a point as I recall correctly.

>> Howard: He got elected to the Commission, you know, based on some interesting, perhaps misinformation that was put out at the time. He believes that he is the consumer's friend. He believes that he's been wronged. He believes that somehow if he gets to explain his case, particularly about the Southern Union case where he said I went to try to talk to other regulators, other states, because I thought that the competing bid from another company was a better offer for the consumers of Arizona. And he believes he can get that across. Now, if he tried the same thing at the civil trial, the jurors who heard that case, not only didn't believe him, but in levying a $60 million punitive for misuse of his office said we would bounce him out of office if we had the power. He hasn't gotten the message. The other message that maybe somebody needs to get him is, look, we've counted noses in the House, there are at least 31 votes for a Bill of Impeachment, and there may be 20 votes in the Senate, the two-thirds of the Senate to actually oust you.

>> Michael: Mel McDonald, all indications, still on delayed schedule to give his report to the House toward the end of the month?

>> Robbie: Right, he's still at work, as we saw today, but I think his goal is to get this -- his draft of the report to the legislature by the end of the month. And what's interesting about these hearings that they keep coming forward with the House Judiciary Commission, wanting to get the permission to interview Mrs. Irvin's attorney, and the other one to get a waiver to go after Mr. Rose, is that Mr. McDonald gives you kind of peeks into how this investigation is progressing. And you can tell that he is going after this in a very aggressive manner.

>> Howard: Yeah, and there are a couple other things. We're talking about whether there was fraudulent documents that were being offered in the case, which while his wife prepared them, the judge said there was evidence that perhaps he knew about it. Because there are three other key things going on here. One is the whole Southern Union afair with Southwest Gas where the question is did he misuse his office to undermine a bid. The second is related to that. That he harassed Jim Fisher, who is a Corporation Commission employee, because Fisher had blown the whistle on him, and in fact, there was an out of court settlement on it. And then the third piece of that is whether he improperly interceded in a case involving the brother of a campaign worker. I think that there is enough in there to at least get to a malfeasance question.

>> Michael: Now, Mary Jo, you were saying to me there is a Phoenix City Council angle to this?

>> Mary Jo: There is, anything to get into this segment. There's obviously been a lot of speculation as to whom -- who would replace Irvin if he leaves under no matter what circumstances. And it would fall to the Governor to appoint a Republican and Phoenix City Councilwoman Peggy Bilsten's name is mentioned, along with others. Bilsten crossed party lines to support Napolitano last year in the Governor's race. Bilsten is a Republican and the Governor a Democrat, and Bilsten was just reelected to a four-year term, which will start in January at a salary of $51,500, opening up another vacancy on the Phoenix City Council, in addition to getting a new member in Tom Simplot, there is a recall drive still underway against councilmember Peggy Neely, which will be resolved one way or another next month.

>> Howard: That presumes that Jim will resign or how far the impeachment goes. That's part of the problem.

>> Mary Jo: Correct.

>> Howard: I'm not sure -- one scenario, there is a hearing next week involving QWest and their ability to offer long distance. There is a theory that he will wait until that hearing, go out with a blaze of glory using that as his forum, but as we sit around here trying to predict what Jim Irvin will do, since he doesn't seem to take advice from outside is a losing proposition.

>> Robbie: It looks like he'll either quit or be impeached from the way the case is shaping up. Anything can happen but, there is a lot of political machinations now because let's say he goes one way or the other, his term lasts until 2006, but by law, and the fact these commissioners have these four-year terms, his replacement -- there will be a new election for the seat in 2004. So, this appointee will serve less than a year. There will be a lot of jockeying for that position.

>> Michael: Can you predict what the Department of Environmental Quality is going to do in relation to Kinder Morgan?

>> Mary Jo: It's clear that they are going to collect a fine. A lot of the people are laughing at $25,000, the potential maximum of $25,000 is really going to cripple a pipeline company, but DEQ Director Steve Owen said yesterday that they intend to fine the company.

>> Michael: That is the full fine as I understand it, but now there's also remediation and other things.

>> Mary Jo: Correct, they are requiring them to clean up the spill. They are going to have to document if there is groundwater contamination which gets messier to clean up.

>> Robbie: That's less than a dollar a gallon. We know that gas costs $2 a gallon.

>> Howard: Let's not forget two other things. One other thing that DEQ can do under their environmental aegis is to say we want these inspections. Normally the state has no role, but he's using his environmental angle to say we want inspections. We may want replacement of pipeline, which the state Corporation Commission doesn't have the power to do. Then there is the fact that you have the federal office of pipeline safety which has its own inquiry out there, and they are in a position to do something. So this isn't the end of it. Again, the remediation and perhaps fixing the pipeline, sections of which were built in 1955, I mean, that really is more important in a lot of ways than the $25,000 fine.

>> Michael: Let's say just hypothetically, you are working a window at the Motor Vehicle Division and someone walks up to you that has a government accounting office name tag on. Should you be suspicious?

>> Howard: Well, one would think if you are presented with a license from Connecticut, and it doesn't match your book of what a license from Connecticut should look like, you wouldn't give him an Arizona license, but one of the things that GAO found out is that you could in fact go into MVD offices here and in several other states, go up to the counter with fake documents, and a real Social Security number, which they did, because that gets checked automatically, and get a real Arizona driver's license.

>> Michael: But as I understand it, the trigger here should have been the fact that the out of state license didn't look like it should, and it had Donald Duck, for example, on it?

>> Howard: Yeah, but it was a picture of Mickey Mouse on the picture, and it didn't seem to match.

>> Michael: That would be the Florida license.

>> Howard: The GAO said it's just too easy in the states they checked, including Arizona, to get a fake license. It's not just a question of getting the license. It's the question of what you can do with that license, because that license becomes how do you get on a plane? You show a photo ID, an Arizona driver's license. How do you get a gun? You show a photo ID, an Arizona driver's license. I think that was more alarming than perhaps people driving that shouldn't be.

>> Michael: And in the other driver's license related story this week, Governor Napolitano said she would sign a bill if it came to her allowing illegal aliens to get driver's licenses.

>> Robbie: Right, this is a local follow-up story of this issue actually passing in California. Arizona has a habit of following California's lead on a lot of things. This one I'm not so sure about. The Governor can say that because it's something that's not likely to happen as long as this legislature stays in the form it is. So, yeah, if that bill comes to her, she says she'll sign it. It's one of those nonstarting bills that we see every year that as long as you have a Republican majority in this legislature, they oppose that and will continue to oppose it.

>> Michael: She's not necessarily going to expend any political capital on the issue, she's just saying she would sign it if it ends up on her desk.

>> Robbie: She's not sending her lobbying team to push this thing through.

>> Michael: A lawsuit filed over some vetoes by Governor Napolitano heard this week before the Arizona Supreme Court. Howie, give us sort of an overview of what the arguments were like.

>> Howard: Well, for the legislature, the question came down to of the 12 remaining issues out there, whether the Governor has the power under her constitutional power of line-item veto of budget items to do what she did. The Governor, of course, says she has the power. Here's where it gets interesting. The Supreme Court, which hasn't even decided whether they are going to take the case, asked the Governor's -- excuse me, the legislature's attorney, didn't you exactly basically bait the Governor to do this? Because normally you adopt a budget, say we've got this amount of money for the agency, and here's the subbreakdown. They did that and then put on separate line below and said, oh, by the way, we want you to cut "X" thousand dollars from the agency. The Governor, being no dummy, said I don't want to cut, I'll just line-item out the cut. And the court said, and in fact, the chief justice said to the attorney, excuse me, you basically invited her to do that, and they are saying, perhaps, we're not sure there's a problem.

>> Michael: And leadership is saying, yes, but we'll never do that again.

>> Howard: Exactly. Basically, we were suckered. And you know, they fool me once, shame on me sort of --

>> Michael: Their cover story or their explanation, is that the executive branch was asking for flexibility. If you are going to whack us by a million dollars, do it in bulk, and let us try to figure out how to squeeze that.

>> Howard: No question. But I'm not sure that that -- that becomes an interesting side light item. I don't know if that's a legal defense. Now, the other side is interesting too, because the Governor not only whacked spending, but she took out some of what we would call, you know, actual policy. For example, the legislature decided we're going to fund AHCCCS at this number. But then they separately took what is under the AHCCCS code, the Arizona Healthcare Cost Containment System and struck out language that says we also provide dental care for adults. They said we don't want to spend money on that. The Governor, under the guise of this is a budget item, whacked the policy change but left all of the money there, and the court said, excuse me, how exactly is this a budget item and poor Scott Bales was left saying, well, it would have been.

>> Robbie: The policy documents, they call them ORBS, that are attached to the budget now have gotten somewhat out of control and that was acknowledged during these hearings that this traces back to the Groscost era in which any failed bill that couldn't get enough support in there becomes an item to throw in the budget in the policy ORB, and what Bales did say is that the original intent of the line-item veto was to combat -- one of the evils it was to combat was log rolling. You have to kill the entire bill in order to get at these pieces. So she's taken a stab at it. Maybe we'll see a new precedent on this.

>> Michael: Obviously you normally think of a line-item veto going to numbers, not going to words.

>> Robbie: Absolutely.

>> Michael: Let me cycle back, Howie, to points made early on. The court still hasn't indicated whether they are going to accept jurisdiction.

>> Howard: Because one of the questions that the justices asked is, this seems to be a political spat over whether you got suckered or something like that. Of course, the argument of the legislature is, it is the role of the third branch of government is to mediate when they can't get along. I'm not sure the court is comfortable with that. I don't know.

>> Michael: They have, however, intervened before, obviously, Rios v. Symington.

>> Howard: Clearly. But this is a different court. This is not as activist a court as the one from a decade ago.

>> Michael: Are we going to have some legislation on Child Protective Services, Robbie?

>> Robbie: You might have competing legislation. There's three different opinions out there. There is a legislative taskforce on CPS which wrapped up its hearing. And I think where they are headed is we want to see CPS divided off. We want to see enhancement to their power to take children away in families that are violent. They want something done. I'm not sure the Governor is entirely comfortable with dividing that agency, and her taskforce is kind of going a different way. You might see some competition there.

>> Michael: In fact, when she was last on the program, she indicated, as I kept after her a little bit, you know, and she said, well, I'm probably leaning against making it a separate agency right now. You wonder if however she would feel strongly enough about it that if the legislature passed it, she would actually veto it.

>> Robbie: CPS is one of those agencies that, you know, something has to be done, but you know, if you push too hard and take kids away, you are in trouble. If you don't take them away, you are in trouble. It's a no-win situation.

>> Mary Jo: One of the arguments of keeping CPS as part of the Department of Economic Security is when you go to remediate a family, DES provides those services so why separate them.

>> Michael: Panelists we're out of time. To share your views or contact us, please visit our web site at www.kaet.asu.edu, click on the word "Horizon". That'll lead to you transcripts, links and information on upcoming shows. Let's see what's on "Horizon" on Monday.

>> Reporter: The American press has a responsibility to protect the First Amendment. Can the press be trusted to do its part?

>> Reporter: Also, there is a less expensive and more natural way to control the threat of wildfires.

>> Reporter: And science can be fun. An ASU program shows you how. That's Monday at 7:00 here on channel 8's "Horizon" program.

>> Michael: Thank you very much for joining us on this Friday evening. I hope you have an incredibly good weekend. I'm Michael Grant. Good night.

 

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