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November 12, 2004

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
· The Journalists Roundtable
In-Studio Guests:
· Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services;
· Barrett Marson, Arizona Daily Star,
· Bart Graves, KFYI radio

Michael Grant:
It's Friday, November 12, 2004. In the headlines this week, Attorney General Terry Goddard today released his opinion on the ramifications of Prop 200. It appears Arizona voters may be asked to approve a constitutional ban on same-sex marriages in 2006. And Arizona Democratic Party chairman Jim Pederson has the distinction of being the top donor in the United States to a state political party. That's next on"Horizon".

>> Underwriter:
"Horizon" is made possible by the friends of Channel 8, members who provide financial support to this Arizona PBS station. Thank you.

>> Michael Grant:
Good evening, I'm Michael Grant and this is the Journalists Roundtable. Joining me to talk about these and other stories are Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services, Barrett Marson of the Arizona Daily Star, and Bart Graves of KFYI radio. This afternoon, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard released his opinion on the impact of Prop 200, the Protect Arizona Now ballot initiative approved by voters last week. Howie, glad you made it to the show from the press conference. So, what did the attorney general conclude on what about what public benefits means?

>> Howard Fischer:
Well, after taking 12 pages and a week of legal research, he is not quite sure what it does include but he knows what it doesn't. He said it's very clear when the people crafted Proposition 200, they put it into title 46, which is the state's welfare code. So he says, All the other stuff folks are talking about -- hunting licenses, fishing licenses, getting your vehicle inspected, motor vehicle is not included. He also said the Arizona health Care Cost Containment System, health insurance for the poor, is not a title 46 program because of the fact it doesn't fit in there.

>> Michael Grant:
10 titles away.

>> Howard Fisher:
He said these are out. Then he said the cost section 6 to define state and local public benefits doesn't include those paid for and mandated by the feds. You take out temporary assistance to needy families. You take out some of the programs like food stamps. Terry, wait a second. What's left? He said, well, I'm still working up; I think general assistance and maybe a few rental and housing programs. That's what he is doing over the last week.

>> Barrett Marson:
He says they could have crafted an initiative with broader implications to state and local public benefit, but they didn't. They put it in title 46. He has construed it very narrowly to just title 46 of the state law -- which, by the way, there will be a quiz later about all the different titles in state law. He said, If they wanted a broad reach they could have done it differently. He is saying they wanted a narrow reach of this.

>> Howard Fischer:
One of the interesting things, Kathy McKee, the organizer of Protect Arizona Now, is pleased with the decision because she says it does what we want it to. She said, Our lawyers said yeah, we could have put it all throughout the statutes, but every time when you change the law then it's going to affect something else and sort of this butterfly effect. She said, we're happy, this is a starting point. Even in terms of that she had wanted it to apply to AHCCS, she said from a practical standpoint, it does. The reason is, when you go to the Department of Economic Security, you're applying for WIC programs, you're applying for food stamps, and you're applying for AHCCS and everything else. And if anything you're applying for fits into Prop 200, we've got you. You're going to have to prove that you're in this country legally and the employee who checks you out -

>> Michael Grant:
Fail to report.

>> Howard Fischer:
You're subject to a, misdemeanor charges, $750 fine and four months in a jail; and B, any citizen can file suit against you as a public employee or your agency for failing to do this.

>> Michael Grant:
Now, Bart, this week Randy Pullen said, No, it really does have a very broad reach to it, and I thought it was interesting how the Yes on 200 forces and the No on 200 forces had just all of a sudden switched places.

>> Bart Graves:
They pretty much had. You have to remember that the folks that got 200 on the ballot had split. They were fighting among themselves, in court suing each other. There's the Kathy McKee group, there's the Protect Arizona Now group that Howie mentioned. There's the Randy Pullen aligned with the national group that was pushing this issue nationally. And they don't like each other, they don't agree. He decided, I'm going to define the law. It covers this and this and this, it covers everything. What I thought was interesting about the news conference that Terry Goddard had today, first of all, I want all of the bad information and the rhetoric in the campaign, saying that if you're in an automobile accident, the paramedics can treat you unless -- excuse me, I know you're barely dying, but you can show me ID first.
Michael Grant: Right.

>> Bart Graves:
It doesn't cover this. You're fine. You can use your library card, use your regular ID. You can get your kid inoculated. All the gloom and doom is that the anti folks say the public is just baseless.

>> Michael Grant:
On the other hand, the Yes on 200 forces, Barrett, now arguing for the expansive definition of public benefits which the attorney general rejected in this opinion.

>> Barrett Marson:
That will have an uphill battle because usually judges take into account things that were said during a campaign, they'll take into account the publicity pamphlet, the remarks from legislative council in the publicity pamphlet. They will take that stuff into account when determining the intent of the voters. That will play against the Yes on 200 folks if they try to make this more expansive.

>> Howard Fischer:
I think Randy figured it out, I talked to him tonight. He said, I don't think I'm going to go to court with this. What he plans to do is go back to the legislature in January. He is going to say, this thing passed 56-44, wide margin. Many people in Arizona feel that people not here legally should not get public benefits, what I want you to do as the legislature, which you're free to do, is take Prop 200 as a starting point and expand on it, take in all these other programs. He might be able to get the vote. This goes to the governor's desk.

>> Barrett Marson:
You know, unlike so many other measures that Republicans are threatening to send up to the governor's office to embarrass her before an election, this one, they truly can argue this is the will of the people. We saw a wide margin support this, a lot of people want to see this type of, people prove that they deserve these benefits, so they can expand it to things like AHCCS or getting your car registered or other services.

>> Michael Grant:
In fact, Bart, as a political strategy, re: 2006, may not be a bad political strategy by a Republican legislature that would just as soon, obviously, minimize Janet Napolitano's chances for being a two-term governor in 2006.

>> Bart Graves:
How politically astute you are to mention that. I wasn't going to mention this because I was off duty, but I'm a member of a fraternal organization and our guest speaker, which I did not arrange for, was state representative John Allen, a very conservative member of the House who said that he supported Prop 200 and he said that we expected it to be probably struck down by the court. In this legislative session since, we have more muscle, we may float some things to enact parts of 200 if we're struck down by the courts just to embarrass the governor.

>> Howard Fischer:
That becomes the next step on this, too. This measure will be formally certified on November 22. The governor has -- it doesn't specify in the law how many days, forthwith the governor is supposed to certify it, sign the proclamation. So sometime before the 30th it will become law. Danny Ortega represents MALDEF, Mexican American Legal Defense Education Fund. He is going to have ready and be standing on the steps of the federal courthouse so two minutes later he is going in for a temporary restraining order on this thing.

>> Michael Grant:
The theory being?

>> Howard Fischer:
Two theories. Number one he is going to argue at least as far as the public benefit section, it has impact beyond that on people who are not here legally, that other people who are here legally will face a harder time in getting the services they need.

>> Michael Grant:
Chilling impact.

>> Howard Fischer:
The voting stuff has a second hurdle. Arizona is one of those states, like the old south was, under the federal voting rights act, any change in election law that could affect the voting rights of minorities has to be, quote unquote, precleared by the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice will have 60 days after this thing becomes law, and perhaps an extension, to say does this adversely affect Hispanics and other minorities than the general population. Then we go back, and Danny is going to go ahead and say, No matter what the Department of Justice says, we believe that this dilutes minority voting strength; therefore, it's unconstitutional.

>> Barrett Marson:
One of his arguments is the, this puts the state now into immigration law and defending our borders, something that the state is not prepared nor legally allowed to do. It's a federal government duty to protect our borders. And Prop 200 essentially makes the state responsible for immigration.

>> Howard Fischer:
Make state employees who are required to report, deputies of the INS, which they can't do.

>> Michael Grant:
Has the issue come up with the attorney general as to whether or not the attorney general will vigorously defend against such suits?

>> Howard Fischer:
He insists he will. He is constitutionally required to right now. Let me give you a prime example of this. A number of years ago when Janet Napolitano was the attorney general, there was one of these abortion laws that was challenged in the federal court. Janet, as was required of the A.G., defended it. She lost at the federal court. It went to the 9th circuit, she said, I defended it, the heck with it, and let it ride. That could happen here.

>> Barrett Marson:
I think Terry Goddard would take a risk in doing that, considering he is up for election also in two years. This is a very popular move. He has to defend this, I think, vigorously.

>> Michael Grant:
In fact, Bart, the Phoenix City Council got a little taste of a little bit of that this week, they passed basically a message that said to their city employees that, We will defend you if you get in trouble, and they got a lot of E-mails from locally and around the country, as I understand it.

>> Bart Graves:
How dare you do this. Remember, they acted two days before Mr. Goddard issued his opinion and he went to great lengths to tell us today that this opinion is for state agencies, he is the state attorney general and what he says does not really apply to cities and towns. Mayor Phil Gordon, in the case of Phoenix, said one of our employees could be prosecuted for denying benefits to people or, on the other hand, they can go after him for making calls to not deny when he or she should have, so we're not going to leave them in the lurch, we're telling them we're behind you all the way until we figure out what the courts are going to do.

>> Michael Grant:
In some fairness to the council, it is fairly standard form for any government entity to say to its employees, If you faithfully follow our policies, we will defend you from the consequences of having done so.

>> Bart Graves:
The mayor obviously campaigned vigorously against 200. He and many other mayors in the valley. And I think they wanted to make that clear.

>> Michael Grant:
That's the political point, Barrett that you were making.

>> Howard Fischer:
Here's where it gets real interesting. Its very clear cities can defend employees from civil suits. Prop 200 has a citizen suit provision in there. Any person can go into any court and try to enforce the law. There's also criminal penalties. The law is a lot less clear if a city or county employee is accused of criminal misconduct, can the office pay for it? Generally speaking, no. I mean, we're going to talk later about Kevin Ross and his legal problems. The county is not defending Kevin Ross. Once criminal charges are brought, then you can't go ahead and pay for it.

>> Barrett Marson:
It's a misdemeanor.

>> Howard Fischer:
Still a crime.

>> Barrett Marson:
Still a crime, but a misdemeanor, and I can't see it being a federal case for some of these employees.

>> Michael Grant:
Proposition 400 follow-up. City council passing some impact assistance for local businesses?

>> Bart Graves:
As we'll talk about later in the show, the governor was out of the country all week so there is no news from the capital, so everything came from the city of Phoenix. The city council, in a thing called a consent agenda, where they just kind of slip this piece of paper onto their policy session? All in favor? We looked at that carefully and found they voted to spend another $2 million to mitigate lost business to businesses along the route of the 5 year long construction of light rail. Primarily businesses on Central Avenue that are going to be adversely impacted by the fact their customers won't be able to get to them. Some have said they may have to close down. They voted $2 million to help these businesses. A lot of people think they're going to need a lot more money.

>> Barrett Marson:
Think of the millions of people who will ride light rail each and every day.

>> Bart Graves:
It will pay for itself.

>> Howard Fischer:
This isn't aimed so much at the business on Central, it's aimed at the next leg, they want to go from Christown, Spectrum or whatever they're calling it now, up to Metro Center. If the merchants on Central and on Camelback end up getting shafted by the process, the other merchants from the northwest link are never going to cooperate. They have to show some good faith they're going to do something about that.

>> Michael Grant:
Back to the legislature, looks like maybe moving a constitutional amendment on the same sex marriage ban next session?

>> Barrett Marson:
There were 11 states on November 2nd that approved it. They all approved it by wide margins. Some states not as conservative as Arizona. Now, I'm also surprised it wasn't on the 2004 ballot, Senator Mark Anderson will seek to put it on the '06 ballot. This is something that doesn't need to get Janet Napolitano's signature, it just it has to pass out of a very Republican legislature. I don't see a problem with that, and we'll see how they construct it, but I would expect to see a big debate over whether Arizona should also define marriage as between a man and a woman.

>> Howard Fischer:
I think it's easily going to get out. It only failed by one vote in the Senate last time whey they were trying to ask the federal government to amend the federal constitution and some of the Republicans who voted against it at that time said, Well, we shouldn't make a federal issue out of it. Now we're talking about somebody defending our own law. There already is a law on the books saying that marriage is limited to one man and one woman. This simply takes it to a new level and says constitutionally you cannot enforce any sort of gay marriage in this state. If you're Democrat Senator Ken chevron, just kind of like the Proposition 200 thing, where we could use it for political advantage, he says this really is all about getting Republicans elected. If you put that question on the 2006 ballot, when Democrat Janet Napolitano has to run for re-election, you're going to bring out that same group we saw last week, the religious conservatives.

>> Howard Fischer:
She is also on record that she does not believe in gay marriage. So she has taken a position on this, too.

>> Barrett Marson:
But it still brings out a base of supporters who may or may not have voted to begin with, but now they are going to come out.

>> Howard Fischer:
I don't buy it. Prop 200 was supposed to bring out a base of supporters, prop 400 was supposed to, and we didn't end up with a better turnout than two years ago.

>> Michael Grant:
The all day kindergarten funding effort was expected to percolate at the legislature next year, and that's already starting to occur.

>> Barrett Marson:
The legislature said earlier year that, We're going to implement the first year of a five year phase-in and put together a committee to study the next four years how to phase it in the next four years. The committee hasn't quite started that yet. In fact, they're really more arguing about whether we should have all-day K over the next -- whether we should implement over the next four years. Not really their mission, but they sort of made it theirs. And they had John Hoopenthal, tried out a study which he's talked a lot about, that shows that kindergartners who go to school all day aren't any better off and, in fact, are worse off in some cases by the time -

Michael Grant:
By the time they reach third grade?

>> Barrett Marson:
Yes. They talked a lot about that and they ended up taking public comment, after deciding not to, they did change that to hear from the public who almost overwhelmingly support the endeavor.

>> Michael Grant:
Arizona Democratic party chairman Jim Pederson ranks first when it comes to individual donors to state political parties in America. Barrett, how much has Pederson spent to elect Democrats in Arizona? Barrett, it was a chunk of change.

>> Barrett Marson:
Janet Napolitano and Terry Goddard are really happy that Jim Pederson has forked over $6 million to the state party in the last three-plus years. They ought to name it the Jim Pederson party. He's accounted for about 47% of the party's total money since he became chairman in 2001.

>> Howard Fischer:
Given the year's outcome at the legislature, he helped get Janet elected although she theoretically ran with public money, and helped get Terry Goddard get elected who also ran with public money. Given the fact the Democrats lost ground in the Senate, picked up two seats in the House but still only had 22 out of 60, what does $6 million buy you?

>> Barrett Marson:
I'm not saying he shouldn't ask for a refund.

>> Bart Graves:
The redistricting thing that we all --

>> Barrett Marson:
That was another 640,000 that he blew.

>> Michael Grant:
In fact, Bart, one of the perhaps sharpest disappointments for Democrats in the election cycle last week was they had used some of these funds to put an effort on the ground game geo TV sort of efforts on the ground and produced so few results.

>> Bart Graves:
They lost the presidential vote by 11 points in Arizona and ended up doing no better than they did in 2000.

>> Barrett Marson:
There are so few legislative districts that either side court target, and when you look at how they did in northeastern Arizona in Speaker Flake's district and out west Phoenix, the Democrats couldn't claim victory in neither of what should have been tight races.

>> Michael Grant:
Jim Pederson stepping down as chair of the party, is he going to step up to a Senate run in 2006?

>> Bart Graves:
He gave an interview to the Republic saying that he had arranged with the party to step down as chairman. He served during arguably a growth period for the state Democrats. It suffered for a long time from geriatric leadership, Jim Pederson gave it a lot of Adrenaline, if nothing else, and a lot of money. He is very interested and doesn't make any bones about it taking on John Kyl in 2006. Let me remind you, should that happen -- if you thought you saw a lot of the president this year, you're going to see him almost on a weekly basis for his friend John Kyl.

>> Howard Fischer:
This becomes real interesting. On what basis -- let's see, The last developer we had run for office, wasn't he indicted and had to leave his office? White-haired guy, Esplanade. All that stuff.

>> Michael Grant:
I'm drawing a blank, Howie.

>> Howard Fischer:
Here's the problem. What exactly other than a very fat checkbook does Jim Pederson bring to it? I don't question he can get the party nomination, but you're in a state where Republicans hold the edge, the independents while 25% of the state split in the same ratio, as Bruce Merrill has said many times, what does he bring against an incumbent like Kyl? Kyl is a nice enough guy. He may have some leadership positions or something, depending on what happens with Spector in the Senate, what have you got to go against him on? You need something to say, This man is not representing you. And I can't think of anything that Kyl has done so far out of the pail that they could say Kyl is not representing Arizona.

>> Barrett Marson:
Maybe what Jim Pederson has going for him is, John Kyl doesn't have the name recognition like that guy next to him, John McCain. It's usually the two senators from Arizona, John McCain and the other guy. That's about the only thing, is that John Kyl, even though nationally he is fourth in line in the Senate, on the Republican side, and he is being talked about as potentially head of the judiciary, he has that going for him, but people in Arizona don't necessarily know that.

>> Bart Graves: It's not going to depend on how popular the president is in 2006, John Kyl is an ardent supporter of the president.

>> Barrett Marson:
Typically, the party that holds the presidency loses seats in the mid-terms.

>> Michael Grant:
County assessor Kevin Ross, is he still facing charges?

>> Howard Fischer:
Still got charges against him. Kevin, you may remember, was indicted on three counts in May. He took allegedly, and admits to some of this, assessor records generally are public records. They passed a law a couple years ago, voter approved law, that says if you are of limited income and a senior, something link 33,000 a year for a couple, you can get a property tax assessment freeze, which would pretty much freeze your property taxes. Everyone was told that when they applied for this, this would be confidential. Clearly, if you apply, you know something about that person's income. What Kevin did is did a sort on the records and gave those records, the 15,000 records, to a mortgage broker who, according to the indictment, was going to use the records to try to sell reverse mortgages to people of limited income. What Kevin did in a pretrial motion is say, Well, these are public records and how were I to know that they weren't public records? The judge basically said, Oh, give me a break. You told these people this is confidential, you -- this isn't the normal records that you would gather that's got everyone's assessment on it. You basically did a special sort for them, so no, you're going to trial.

>> Michael Grant:
Trial coming up shortly?

>> Howard Fischer:
I think it's scheduled for December. He also faces a third charge of obstruction of justice. According to the indictment, he told the mortgage broker that if the cops come around, quote, act dumb.

>> Bart Graves:
Unlike other sitting politicians in Arizona history, this man was actually voted out of office while on trial.

>> Michael Grant:
Barrett, how did the governor fare across the bond?

>> Barrett Marson:
Tea. Lots and lots of tea. She met with leaders from British Airways, from a group called Rio Tinto, which is putting a big mine outside of Superior, spend about a billion dollars developing this mine. And she met with His Royal Majesty Prince Andrew and other officials. They said, well, I think we've done a lot of good here for Arizona. We're strengthening ties and hope to make British Airways a 7 day a week flight, instead of right now they take a day off and only do it six days a week. A non-stop night to London. We hope to make that a seven day a week thing. We want Rio Tinto to insure that they actually do spend the billion dollars.

>> Howard Fischer:
Barrett and I asked her, so the governor is in England, so what? Her belief is there when the chief executive of a state goes to a foreign country that it shows the business people -- let's say doing genomics research, because she would like to have some of that transferred, that in fact the state is serious, it's not like sending over your commerce director.

>> Barrett Marson:
And it was only 1500 bucks or so for the entire trip for her.

>> Michael Grant:
You guys didn't get to go along.

>> Bart Graves:
One person did, and he shall remain nameless. First name is Chip. Michael: We're out of time. Thanks very much.

>> Michael Grant:
If you would like to see a transcript of tonight's program, please visit our website at www.az.pbs.org. When you get there, click on the word "Horizon". And that will lead you to transcripts, links and information on upcoming shows.

>> Larry Lemmons:
In the first of a three-part series examining medical breakthroughs, "Horizon" will tell you about a Scottsdale man, a triathlete whose life was saved by an artificial heart. The heart was developed by doctors at the University of Arizona. We'll talk to the them and tell you an extraordinary story Monday night at 7:00 on Channel 8's "Horizon".

>> Michael Grant:
On Tuesday, we continue our three-part series on medical break through with a look at what's being done to help people with asthma. Thank you for joining us on a Friday evening. Hope you have a great evening. I'm Michael Grant. Good night.

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