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October 25, 2004

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
· District 1 Democratic challenger Paul Babbitt;
· Pre-Election Maneuvering
In-Studio Guests:
· Fred DuVAL, public affairs consultant and former senior staff member in the Clinton White House;
· Wes Gullet, political consultant and long-time advisor to Senator John McCain

>> Michael Grant:
Tonight on "Horizon", we'll talk to the man who wants to replace Arizona District One Congressman Rick Renzi. And a close presidential election could mean a repeat of the litigious environment that characterized the 2000 election in Florida. Those stories in a moment.

>> 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. Presidential race tightening in Arizona. The latest KAET-ASU poll has been released. It shows the race in a statistical dead heat. 47% of those surveyed said they will vote for President George Bush. 42% say they will vote for Senator John Kerry. Tomorrow night's "Horizon" will present its regular poll coverage and we'll take a look at those numbers.

Arizona's district one covers nearly half the state and is home to more than 640,000 people. Many of those people will be going to the polls November 2nd to choose a Congressman. Republican incumbent Rick Renzi is running for reelection. He was elected to the office in 2002. His Democratic challenger, Paul Babbitt, has been a Coconino County supervisor since 1986, and previously
served as mayor of Flagstaff and on the Flagstaff city council. Unfortunately, Congressman Renzi's schedule did not permit him to appear on the program this evening to share in this discussion with his Democratic challenger, Paul Babbitt. Mr. Babbitt, glad you're here.

>> Paul Babbitt:
Thank you, Michael.

>> Michael Grant:
Tell me why the voters of district one should vote for Paul Babbitt.

>> Paul Babbitt:
I'm committed to the small towns of rural Arizona. I've lived and worked there all my life. I've been a county supervisor, mayor of the town, town counselor, for 27 years. I think that experience will stand well when I take that experience to Washington.

>> Michael Grant:
You have been critical of Rick Renzi as effectively a carpetbagger and absentee Congressman. They counter with the fact that Mr. Renzi went to Northern University Arizona, knows a lot about northern Arizona. Is that a fair allegation on your part?

>> Paul Babbitt:
I think it is. If you look at what the opposition is saying, first of all, that he lives in Arizona. And he doesn't. We all know that for the past 18 years he has raised his family, lived in Virginia. I just can't stand by and let that stand. Secondly, he says he was raised in Arizona. He was not. I went, had the information from Annondale, Virginia, opened up a high school yearbook and there's Rick Renzi as a high school sophomore. So he was raised in Virginia. And all of that only comes to the point of how well you tell the truth. It seems to me those two points lack greatly when it comes to the truth.

>> Michael Grant:
I don't want to belabor the point, but to the extent that voters in rural Arizona really face that issue in 2002, and they did, and certainly a number of us said this is kind of ironic, rural Arizona fights for a rural district and then proceeds to basically nominate your party elected in outlander, as well, hadn't it gone beyond that issue?

>> Paul Babbitt:
It hasn't. I hear time and time again that it gnaws on people, that somebody from Virginia, in many people's opinion, came to town, paid a big price, he ran a very expensive campaign, that feeling does not dissipate.

>> Michael Grant:
Rick Renzi says you are an extreme environmentalist who is out of touch with reality. What's your response?

>> Paul Babbitt:
I've worked across the district. We've described congressional district one, including most of the pine forests in Arizona and I have a very long and very productive work history working with all sorts of agencies, interest groups to deal with the ecology and with the natural wonders of the district. I'm not extreme by anybody's count.

>> Michael Grant:
For example, certainly the White Mountains and other areas in the state going through significant forest fire problems in the past two or three years. Is there a role for a renewed logging industry?

>> Paul Babbitt:
There is. But if you look at the forest today and compare that to the forest of 80 years ago, which by and large is the objective, the practices over those 80 years, including logging, including grazing and other activities, led us to this condition. So we know that we cannot rely just on those practices to get us back to the position that we want to be in. We have to take new approaches, and I'm a great supporter of the new technology that is coming on. For instance, in the pine forest industry, there's a lot of work on laminates, using ponderosa pine as flooring. Just as a couple of examples. Those are the kinds of things that I want to get behind and really support in this move. But above all, we certainly have to look at the communities in and around the forest and make sure that whatever measures we need to take, we take to fireproof those communities.

>> Michael Grant:
Forest service says that they should be able to cut long term, at least five year logging contracts. Do you agree?

>> Paul Babbitt:
As long as those contracts meet the standards. That is all that's being asked for. Meet the standard that returns the forest to the healthy condition that has been described. That forest that we had 80 or 100 years ago. Dr. Covington at NAU is a well-known proponent of that.

>> Michael Grant:
Proposition 200, what's your position on it?

>> Paul Babbitt:
I'm opposed to it for a lot of reasons, including what it does to the public in terms of their notion of what public service is about. Proposition 200 requires citizenship proof for a variety of governmental activities. In addition to that, proposition 200 seems to me to be almost putting a chill on the ability of government workers to facilitate their services.

>> Michael Grant:
President Bush says an expanded guest worker program is the answer. Senator Kerry says that amnesty, coupled with the crack down on illegal hiring practices, is the answer. Which is the answer in your view?

>> Paul Babbitt :
I think there's pieces of all of that. First of all, we surely have to look at the border and find the holes in the border. We have heard right along 75-mile stretch of the border that happens to be an Indian nation. Characterized that people can walk back and forth across that border at will. That's not what we have to do, and the federal government has a great role in securing that border. But beyond that, we have the signs out, jobs available in this country. Particularly in two industries, tourism and agriculture, and we have done that for generations really. And we have to insure that we don't defeat the purposes of that advertising when we bring people to this country.

>> Michael Grant:
Coconino County supervisor Paul Babbitt, thank you very much for joining us. Best of luck on the remainder of the campaign.

>> Paul Babbitt:
Thank you very much, Michael.

>> Michael Grant:
The election is about a week away, but already both parties are positioning themselves to take advantage of the outcome. Democrats are determined not to repeat what they see as mistakes they made in the 2000 election. Republicans are determined to hold on to the White House. Waiting in the wings are countless lawyers in several battleground states, preparing for litigation should it become necessary. Larry Lemmons shows us what we could see again if the election is close.

>> Katherine Harris:
Before we proceed, I wish briefly to review why we're here tonight. It was and it remains my opinion that the appropriate deadlines for filing certified returns in this election are those mandated by the legislature. And it remains my opinion that the proper returns in this election are the returns that were certified by those deadlines. The Florida Supreme Court, however, disagrees.

>> Larry Lemmons:
Who can forget the images from Florida nearly four years ago?

>> Craig Waters:
By a vote 4-3 the majority of the court has reversed the decision of the trial court in part. It has further ordered that the Circuit Court of the Second Judicial Circuit here in Tallahassee shall immediately begin a manual recount of the approximately 9,000 Miami Dad ballots.

>> Larry Lemmons:
Who can forget the infamous butterfly ballot? Certainly not Democrats who are preparing to deal immediately with voting irregularities, should any occur. In Phoenix, Democrats are training lawyers and other volunteers to be poll observers.

>> Scott Bales:
If there is an effort to intimidate voters at a particular polling place, we want to make sure that is stopped immediately. If there is confusion in a polling place about, for example, which voters can cast provisional ballots, we want to make sure that is dealt with promptly. The goal is to make sure the process goes as smoothly as possible so that there isn't the day after type of turmoil or confusion that we saw in the 2000 election.

>> Larry Lemmons:

Republicans will have observers, also.

>> Jaime Molera:
We want to make sure that the poll workers are fair. If there's a question as to whether or not somebody believes they are registered to vote and they are not on the rolls, the process they go through to make sure they're treated in a way that hopefully gets to the bottom of it, equitably, whether Republican or Democrat. Those are the kinds of things, want to make sure the process is fair for both sides and people are given the same information.

>> Larry Lemmons:
Republicans say the Democratic effort to train poll observers is going beyond precaution. They point to this document from the Kerry-Edwards campaign in an explanation on how to combat voter intimidation. The document states, if no signs of intimidation concerns have emerged, launch a preemptive strike.

>> Jaime Molera:
We're hoping it works the way it should, get folks out to vote, for the right reasons, argue why their candidate is the best candidate, but just to say and have it in your manual as the Democratic National Committee does, to say even if there's no irregularities, if there's nothing wrong, nothing illegal being done, we're going to say something is in order to make our case, just in case there might be that couple hanging chads. That, to me, is the antithesis of any kind of Democratic process. It is a blatant move on the part of the Democratic party to try to manipulate the system and get media support for their particular efforts.

>> Larry Lemmons:
Democrats don't see it that way.

>> Scott Bales:
All I can speak to is, in Arizona our goal is to insure that the people who desire to vote and are eligible to do so have that opportunity. That there's not any interference with voters, which is a crime under Arizona law. And if by giving voters information and by making sure that if a problem arises it can be addressed quickly, if that's a preemptive strike, that's the kind of preemptive strike we should make.

>> Larry Lemmons:
At the Arizona Secretary of State's office, logic and accuracy tests are being conducted in preparation for election day.

>> Jan Brewer:
The optical scan and auto mark will be a pilot program here in the State of Arizona. We have hired technical people and temporary people and our regular elections people to get everything in order to make sure everything is up to snuff and there will be no glitches in the Arizona election.

>> Larry Lemmons:
Brewer says there will be no tolerance of voter intimidation.

>> Jan Brewer: As the chief election officer for the State of Arizona, I'm very concerned everything that the integrity of our voting process is followed. First and foremost, I want people to feel comfortable that they'll be able to go to the polls and vote without any kind of intimidation. We have spoken and sent out letters to the election officers in the state of the requirements and procedures they are to follow. If there's any breakdown, which I don't anticipate, the right procedures will be taken at that point. I want to assure everyone they will be able to go and vote at the polls without voter intimidation. We feel very confident that each and every county within the State of Arizona will follow all the procedures and that there will be no difficulty.

>> Larry Lemmons:
Nationally, some observers are predicting a repeat of the 2000 election, seeing evidence of another litigious event.

>> John Dean:
Unfortunately, I see a number of potentials for litigation again in this election. We have a situation where there have been signs of Republicans trying to disenfranchise Democrats. We have a very clear statement by Democrats this time that they are not going to roll over, they are going to fight these things tooth and nail. We have something like 10,000 lawyers rolling to the swing states where they are looking for potential violations and prepared to take them to court. This could result in rather protracted results after voting on 11/2.

>> Larry Lemmons:
Some allegations made against Republicans have been directed at former Arizona Republican chief, Nathan Sproul. The actions today of both parties are clearly the result of the 2000 experience. There is no water under the bridge for either party.

>> John Dean:
When the Supreme Court of the United States reaches into the process, as they did in 2000, where we now know from the recount, from the consortium that was put together by a number of news organizations that clearly show had both the 0 votes and undervotes, as they called them in Florida, had been counted, that Al Gore would have overwhelmingly won the state, that's not a good practice. They stopped the counting in Florida when they really didn't have to. They didn't fulfill the role of the constitution in letting the process run in 2000. Hopefully, we will this time. If there's a tie, for example, in the electoral college, it automatically goes to the House. If it's litigation that results in bringing it, it could well go to the Supreme Court. We have a lot of precedent for it going back to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court hurt itself badly with the politics of the 2000.

>> Jaime Molera:
The heart of that argument is that they didn't like the outcome last time. Even though there's been independent analysis to show the president won that state, now they are trying to win it by nefarious means. They are trying to win it by saying, just in case anything happens, we're going to get the public to say there are all kinds of irregularities going on. That really hurts the process. It makes people feel, why should I vote if there are going to be both parties playing shenanigans and slinging mud. The best thing is for both parties to try to get people out to vote, to argue why our particular candidate needs to be president of the United States. If they're going to come out and state without any kind of reason whatsoever that this is illegal or there's something bad going on, even though they know there isn't, I think it hurts their credibility.

>> Larry Lemmons:
The ability of both parties to mount a prolonged battle in the courts, reminiscent of the 2000 election, could be affected by a decision to be made by the federal election commission later this week. They will decide what kind of money federal and state parties can raise to finance a recount. Nevertheless, at least one high-ranking legislator has little respect for the FEC.

>> Senator John McCain:
We need to subject 527 in the same campaign contribution which everybody else, and that's because we have a corrupt federal elections commission and we've got to fix it.

>> Larry Lemmons:
And it's possible considering the proliferation of 527 committees which can raise unlimited funds that a loophole can be found around any decision.

>> Michael Grant:
Joining me now to expound on those points, Fred DuVAL, a public affairs consultant and former senior staff member in the Clinton White House, and Wes Gullet, a political consultant and long-time advisor to Senator John McCain. Federal election commission is corrupt? What did he mean by that, Wes?

>> Wes Gullett:
I think he means that they're corrupt.

>> Michael Grant:
How so? I mean --

>> Wes Gullett:
527, the FEC took a pass on 527. They said, well, we're not going to say they're political speech. They are, and 527 should be regulated as political speech. They are a manufactured organization. And 527, I hope in Arizona that next year we pass some laws that regulate 527. There's arguments whether we can or can't do it. I think to have sort of rogue political organizations that don't have any responsibility to report who they get their money from, how they're spending it and can go out and make vicious attacks on political candidates is crazy. It's probably a function of corruption of the FEC.

>> Michael Grant:
Fred, do you want to weigh in on the FEC corruption issue? 527 has benefited Democrats.

>> Fred DuVAL:
They've certainly been well funded. The real, I think Wes is right, the corruption of the political process exists because the 527s are setting the tone and the issues and the style of these campaigns.

>> Michael Grant:
No candidate control whatsoever.

>> Fred DuVAL:
We are electing images and themes created by people who are not accountable after the election.

>> Michael Grant: Let me go to this point about, Can you use FEC money, for example, post election on ballot challenges, those kinds of things. Do you think regardless of what the FEC rules you can still do that?

>> Fred DuVAL:
Yes. There are two answers. The first is that there is a fund in law called GLAC, a legal and accounting fund, used for just this purpose. As we learned after Florida, the parties have lots of loophole opportunities to raise money for the challenges and will.

>> Michael Grant:
Wes, I want to go to a large issue here and maybe we'll ratchet down to a couple sub issues. Every poll seems to be indicating this is a close race. How likely do you think it is in 2004 we get a replay of 2000, not necessarily in Florida, but wherever?

>> Wes Gullett:
I think it's very likely. And I wish it wasn't going to be that way. I wish there was going to be a margin of victory that was large enough to say this person won or that person won. I think we may see a situation where the president wins the popular vote this time but doesn't win the electoral college vote. I think then we're going to have the flip side. Republicans are going to be the ones, and my party, who are mad about this being taken from us because it's so fluid. And we're seeing this in Ohio, you know, where you've got everybody positioning, lawyers and polling places and -

>> Michael Grant:
Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin.

>> Wes Gullett:
Unfortunately, we passed a law, Help America Vote Act, it wasn't help America count the votes act. If it would have been that, I think we would have a clearer picture. This provisional ballot thing, we're going to be up for weeks counting ballots.

>> Michael Grant:
I thought one provision of HAVA, though was to at least get us in the main away from, for example, the punch card systems and to more modern systems.

>> Fred DuVAL:
Yes, which in and of itself has brought on new problems. 50% of the voters will now vote on electronic screens, most of which don't have paper recount potential, so there's no paper validation after the fact. That has one set of potentials. That's the Florida potential outcome. Ohio, 72% of the precincts are still on the punch card. Ohio, which is sort of ground zero in this presidential race, we could have a chad issue.

>> Michael Grant:
We are going to have to see that video again.

>> Fred DuVAL:
We may, but I think to Wes' point, I think the provisional ballot portion of HAVA is going to be the chad of the 2004 election.

>> Michael Grant:
Explain that to me. Why is that a flash point?

>> Fred DuVAL:
Any voter who goes into a polling place and has the slightest difficulty, their registration isn't quite up to snuff, they're not allowed to vote, they've got some reason to think they are supposed to be voting there, can cast what they call a provisional ballot. It is then sent to the county recorder's office and counted later. There's a wide number of issues as to what the standards are going to be for what gets counted and what doesn't get counted. The one being litigated around the country is if you vote in the wrong precinct but your registration as a voter in the State of Arizona is undisputed, does your vote count. Some state courts have said yes, some courts have said no.

>> Michael Grant:
Isn't there a federal lawsuit going on in relation to that right now?

>> Fred DuVAL:
Yes, in Michigan. Now in Arizona, the law says you cannot count the provisional ballot if you are not in your own precinct. There are issues about whether information on your voter registration doesn't match and does that provisional ballot get counted.

>> Michael Grant:
We know about the voting rights act issues going back to the '50s and '60s and those kinds of things. Now I go to voter intimidation and that kind of activity, does Arizona have a factual history of that, let's say in the last 10 years, the last five elections?

>> Wes Gullett:
I was involved in a very controversial, close election in 1994. And there were all kinds of potential issues. We had lawyers standing at the ready, we flew them up to Holbrook to make sure they counted the ballots right, had lawyers making sure that the county recorder counted the ballots correctly. Symington and my friend Eddie Basha. It was intense, but there were no allegations that anybody intimidated anybody in the polling places. I think in Arizona we're very sensitive to that. I was involved in a voter intimidation situation in San Luis, Arizona, and the justice department oversaw the election and they ordered a reelection, and the Republican won in a 2-1 Democrat district. We didn't have voter intimidation.

>> Michael Grant:
I hate to do this in the 45 seconds remaining, but is this good for the process?

>> Fred DuVAL:
No. It will be a crying shame as we try to institute democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq that we get it wrong twice and have a disputed election. It will be a sad moment for the country and have ramifications for a long time for us domestically in terms of the bitterness that will exist in the country and our international standing.

>> Michael Grant:
Is it possible to get a voter backlash?

>> Fred DuVAL:
Yes. If Bush wins the popular vote and the Kerry wins electoral college, we will then revisit how we select our president, as well.

>> Michael Grant:
Thank you for being here. Good to see you again.

>> Wes Gullett:
Good to be here, Michael.

>> Paul Atkinson:
KAET-ASU polls show President Bush's lead in Arizona is slipping. Will Senator Kerry's boost be enough to win Arizona come election day? And support for proposition 200 drops, but more people support it than not. Candidates for congressional district two square off Tuesday at 7 on "Horizon".

>> Michael Grant:
Continuing our lead up to the general election, on Wednesday, join us as we take a look at the state legislative races this election year. Thursday, we'll bring you a primer on the fundamentals of voting. Friday, the journalists will be here at this not so round table to preview the general election next Tuesday. That's the rest of the week on "Horizon". Thank you for joining us on a Monday evening. I'm Michael Grant. Have a great one. Good night.

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