Other transcripts

Transcripts

October 27, 2004

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
· Proposition 200 ruling;
· Legislative Races
In-Studio Guests:
· Julie Pace, co-chair, "No On 200" committee;
· Randy Pullen, chairman, "Yes On Proposition 200" committee;
· Robbie Sherwood, legislative reporter, "The Arizona Republic"

>> Michael Grant:
Tonight on "Horizon," supporters and opponents of proposition 200 meet in court today over a crucial word on the ballot petitions. Plus on November 2nd, you will also be voting for your state lawmakers. We take a look at the candidates and campaigns for the state legislature. That's next on "Horizon."

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

>> Michael Grant:
Good evening, I'm Michael Grant. Proposition 200 is a controversial measure that has gotten a lot of attention and today had its day in court. The plan has two key elements. It would require that people prove citizenship when registering to vote and show identification at the polls. And the focus of today's court hearing, the measure would require proof of citizenship for public welfare benefits. But the ballot language official states public benefits. Opponents of the measure challenged that wording in Maricopa County superior court today. The very future of Prop 200 could hang on the discrepancy. Judge Margaret Downie heard arguments from both sides of the issue and also from witnesses. Mike Sauceda reports.

>> Mike Sauceda:
Those for and against proposition 200 packed the courtroom of Superior Court Judge Margarate Downie this afternoon. Those against Prop 200 filed a lawsuit claiming that the addition of the word "welfare" circulated by pro 200 forces invalidates almost 90% of the signatures gathered to put the measure on the ballot. They say it violates a constitutional requirement that the petitions contain a full and correct copy of the ballot language.

>> Chuck Blanchard:
I think the difference is remarkable. If you look at the language, it says "state and local public benefits." That's the correct language. Those words are defined by federal immigration law to mean a broad range of services. So the initiative as it is very, very broad. When you put the word "welfare" in there, that broad definition no longer becomes applicable and then you have an argument that all is entitled is title 46 services. I think this makes all of the difference in the world. This is not a minor difference. Every debate there has been there has been a dispute about this section.

>> Mike Sauceda:
At the hearing today Blanchard called to the witness stand David Williams, an attorney for the Arizona Chamber of Commerce who has been working to defeat proposition 200. He discovered the word welfare on the petition. Lisa Houser, an attorney for the pro 200 side asked Williams how he could believe that the addition of the word "welfare" was fraudulent.

>> David Williams:
It's inconceivable that I think that somebody could have inadvertently made a mistake of such massive proportions. Secondly, the language that was altered is the critical language in this whole issue.

>> Mike Sauceda:
At times, the exchanges in the courtroom became tense.

>> David Williams:
I believe that news group was responsible for the circulation of most of the petitions --

>> Judge:
I didn't ask you your belief. Excuse me, excuse me --

>> THE COURT:
Stop. We're not going to have a hearing like this. First of all, I know it's difficult to be a witness, especially for a lawyer, but you are getting argumentative and that's not appropriate. You are not an advocate. You are a witness. You asked a very broad question which he jumped right into. You might want to narrow it a little bit. Let's start with another question.

>> Mike Sauceda:
Judge Downie is expected to rule by noon. After that there is a chance that the case will head to the Supreme Court.

>> Michael Grant:
Joining me now to talk about today's court hearing on Prop 200, are Julie Pace, co-chair of the "No On 200" committee and a plaintiff in this case and Randy Pullen chairman of the "Yes On Proposition 200" committee. Both of you had a busy day in court.

>> Julie Pace:
We did.

>> Michael Grant:
I understand.

>>> Michael Grant:
I want to get to the issues in court, but first, Randy, what happened here? Why did some 90% of the petitions that were attached or the language that was attached to 90% of the petitions read differently than the language of the ballot measure?

>> Randy Pullen:
Well, I'll -- let me start by saying the version of the petition as it is, the proposition on the ballot is the correct version. So what's being voted on on Tuesday is the correct version of the proposition. I think that's been somehow clouded in this whole thing. I don't really know how that happened. All the petitions I personally passed around and got signatures on, I personally got over 1300 signatures on petitions myself, plus worked with plenty of other volunteers. They all had the correct language on them. I got them personally, directly from the Protect Arizona Now committee. They were handed to me directly by Kathy McKee. I read the language on them. It was the correct language that we handed out and that I got signatures on. So I really don't know how it happened.

>> Michael Grant:
But the yes on 200 committee is not contesting that in fact the vast majority of the language attached to most of the petitions in fact had language discrepancies with what is on the ballot; correct?

>> Randy Pullen:
No, we're not contesting that whatsoever. I mean, I personally went over when I heard that there was a discrepancy and looked at the propositions just to see the difference, because I had never seen one of the bad propositions. I wanted to see what it looked like.

>> Michael Grant:
Here's an explanation that I heard. The petitions -- the petition version that was sent out of state to the FAIR committee, contained that earlier language. Is that true?

>> Randy Pullen:
Well, I know there was an earlier language. Clearly I had conversations with Ms. McKee over a year ago where she related to me that there was a change in the language and she couldn't give me petitions at the time to begin to get signatures on them because she is waiting for the correct petitions to get on. So, I waited and I got what I believe were the correct petitions before we started the process.

>> Michael Grant:
Julie one of the arguments being made here procedurally is effectively you guys are simply too late. You missed the bus about. This is an argument that -- a defective flaw that should have been detected in July and august, not mid-October, two or three weeks into the early voting process. What do you say to that?

>> Julie Pace:
Yeah, lots of things. One, as Joe Kanefield who is the state elections director testified today, this has never happened before where a true and accurate copy of the petitions weren't attached to the voter signatures pages. This is the first time it's ever happened. Number two, the Secretary of State's office actually separates the petitions from the signatures and when people are certifying after someone submits an initiative, they have to go through and validate the signatures. We're used to that process here in Arizona. Petitions are supposed to be by law accurate. It's in our constitution for them to be accurate. No one has had this happen before. It's not something that would have come up. The government didn't know about it either, its a fraud on all of us to some degree, whether it was done by negligence or fraud, it's a mistake, and it doesn't change the fact that 90% were bad. And this wouldn't be on the ballot had it been noticed by the Secretary of State or at this point in time, and we're still timely in proceeding before the election to pursue it.

>> Randy Pullen:
You used the word fraud, are you accusing me of fraud, Julie? Is that what you are doing?

>> Julie Pace:
I don't know what role you had in all of the signature gathering. I do know there was 90% that were bad and it was negligence or fraud to do it incorrectly and its our constitution to uphold the integrity in a democracy to make sure these things are accurate. That's what these initiatives are all about.

>> Michael Grant:
Randy, if the petitions violated the constitution, why does it matter when you bring the point up? If you haven't done it correctly, and if in fact -- here would be the presumption. A lot of voters in signing the petition were misled as to the contents of what they were putting on the ballot. Why does it matter if I bring that up in July or if I bring it up in mid-October?

>> Randy Pullen:
That's a great question. Let me answer that. It's easy to answer. For those who have not actually gone out and collected a lot of signatures on petitions, they might think that that's the case, but the truth is that if you look at one version of the proposition and the other version of the proposition, just looking at the front of it, you can't tell the difference. In fact, one of the no on 200 committee people today in fact said he couldn't tell the difference by looking at them. The truth is when you are collecting these signatures, no one ever reads the petitions. Of all of the signatures I collected, not once did anybody read the actual proposition. All of the volunteers I worked with over several months collecting signatures, not once to about a half dozen I've spoken to now, ever had anybody read the proposition.

>> Michael Grant:
Randy, certainly as a practical matter, I wouldn't disagree with you at all, but I think the fundamental legal principle is, at least from a constitutional standpoint, you ought to have the opportunity to read what it is you want to make a decision on, yeah, we ought to vote on that or no, I hate that idea, I don't even want that to go on the ballot.

>> Randy Pullen:
I understand, but for them to hold the point that someone sat there and read four pages and then was misled by that, that didn't -- that didn't really occur. The situation is here that there was a period of time when they were turned into the Secretary of State that they had to challenge these. No challenges were made in a timely basis between the time they were filed, and we didn't file them, they were filed by Protect Arizona Now committee, but between the time they were filed and between the time that the ballot language actually was created and pamphlets were sent out. It was never challenged by the no people. Therefore, they don't have standing. They should have gone and looked at it. The fact that they didn't do, they just missed it. It's a technicality.

>> Julie Pace:
A couple of things, what Randy would have us believe, it's okay to deceive the voters and violate the constitution on a technicality because between July 1st and August 4th when there was no "no on 200" committee, someone was supposed to go and do something different than has ever been done in the state and go look at petitions that are supposed to be under the law correct and legal, which are supposed to be under the constitution and figure this out. That is just not something -- it's something the Secretary of State doesn't do. No one would have known. And that's just not a fair characterization to say we as voters should allow that to happen, especially on a significant point. Signing a petition -- if Randy had come to me and asked me to sign a petition to stop welfare fraud. That's one thing. To ask me to sign what's on the ballot that it could be any public benefit that we have big legal disputes over hunting licenses, and is it library access, and is it all of these other things, that's a different question for a voter.

>> Michael Grant:
Yes, it is, but that's a debatable point, I guess, given the fact that this amends the welfare code. Let's don't go there because that's a long discussion.

>> Julie Pace:
Randy has agreed it's broader --

>> Randy Pullen:
That's the language on the ballot is what we're talking about.

>> Michael Grant:
Julie, here's the counterargument and it's been recognized by the courts a number of times. At some point you have to have finality. There is a whole lot of things that could go wrong in the process, but at a point in time, you have to say okay, we're going to votes on this or not, and that ship sailed a while back.

>> Julie Pace:
Absolutely right. The time period as Chuck Blanchard made good arguments today and cited the case law today, it's before Election Day. Those were the cases in our current precedents in Arizona. As long as it's before election day, before the vote, before the canvassing of the results and before the proclamation by the Governor, you can challenge deficiencies like voter -- if you want to call it fraud, negligence or deception, whatever it is, it's been uncovered and it even happened once after the election to look at here.

>> Michael Grant:
Randy if I violate the constitution, why can't a court step in and say hold it, this thing got on the ballot incorrectly? And people voted on a proposition they shouldn't have voted on.

>> Randy Pullen:
Because then it would be anarchy. There would be no finality to anything. Anything could be challenged at any time, any place, and that's not what we want. We want an orderly process. Was there different versions? There were. Were voters deceived? That's what Julie believes. I don't believe voters were deceived. I think the voters no exactly what they are voting on come Tuesday and they will be voting on this by the way, I don't think there is any question about that. And I think that what they are really trying to do on the no side is they are really trying to confuse the issue. They are really trying to raise questions in the minds of the voters so they'll vote no instead of yes, because this is favored 2 to 1 to pass.

>> Michael Grant:
The polls have showed continuing support although it's been eroding over the past couple of months. Is this a desperation move?

>> Julie Pace:
No, I think a couple of things. One, as time has gone on, voters are looking at this. It's very controversial. It has a lot of legal problems with the merits of Prop 200, regardless of the new information that's come out. I think any time you are going to put a law into effect in Arizona, why would we want to start like this with it being tainted that it was not supposed to be there in the first place. And I think as time goes on, more and more people are really taking a look to vote no on it. We have time against us, there is no question, but when you -- again, a fourth generation Republican, when you see something like this happen, you can't sit back and say oh, they made a mistake and it's a major one and it's in violation of the constitution in a major way, because what does this to our process every time. If you have to attach a true a correct copy to every petition when you are doing an initiative, it either means something or it doesn't in our society. If it doesn't mean something, then we need to pull that out of our constitution.

>> Michael Grant:
The judge is going to rule on this procedural Ishii promised by tomorrow morning. Let's just say illustratively she wants to go to the merits and whether or not this was a substantial discrepancy and there was a problem. Isn't the term "public welfare benefits" significantly different than the term "public benefits"?

>> Randy Pullen:
I, I don't want know if it is or not. Our lawyers don't believe that it necessarily is. I think that's going to be argued out in court. I think there will be some other issues that come up, if it gets that far Friday -- or Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. Obviously clearly this issue about fraud is going to have to be addressed. Julie knows that. They are going to have to show that state of mind was that -- after all, I'm the one that told them, if you think there is something wrong with these petitions, by all means, go to the Secretary of State's office and check them, okay? So they are going to have to be saying I somehow was playing some Machiavellian game and I knew they were wrong.

>> Michael Grant:
You think the addition of the world welfare was not a material addition?

>> Randy Pullen:
It depends on how you look at it. If no one of read the -- let me put it another way. If less than -- if 122,000 people read this -- signed this petition legally, and none of them ever read the proposition itself, then how were they deceived? They weren't deceived. It becomes an issue of substance.

>> Julie Pace:
It's absolutely the subject of the debates, because people who say they would support it, support Prop 200 if it only covered welfare, do not support it if it covered all of these other government benefits. It's absolutely material.

>> Michael Grant:
If you are amending, though, title 46 of the statute, which is the welfare code, can't you make a very, very reasonable argument that in fact implicit in the term "public Ben quits" is public welfare benefits?

>> Julie Pace:
No, you can't. We've looked at that. It's interesting that it got changed to remove welfare once the out of state interests got involved. I'm suspicious on my own of that issue. Once you use public benefits and add local governments in there, what else does local governments do in that code? I mean, you have to start looking at it. They forgot to put in the tight until that section? They didn't use the wording that normally would follow and flow in title 46. They use terms that are undefined even though there are very clear definitions at the beginning of title 46. They didn't use those. I think it's using our state as a battleground for other interests outside, and they did that somewhat deliberately.

>> Michael Grant:
Julie Pace, thank you for joining us. Randy Pullen, our thanks to you as well.

>> Michael Grant:
Most of the races for Arizona's 90 legislative seats were decided in the primary election. But there are still several interesting remaining races. District 7 in the northeast valley, District 8 in Scottsdale, and District 12 in the West Valley are just a few. Here to talk about some of those races, Robbie Sherwood, legislative reporter for "The Arizona Republic."

>> Michael Grant:
Robbie, let's go to earn Arizona and district 5. The senate and house race you've got this interesting musical chairs ruin teen going on between the house and senate.

>> Robbie Sherwood:
There is a term limit tango going on between Jack Brown, Democrat and leader. And House Speaker Jake Flake, a republic, both have term limited, both running for each other's seats and facing challenges. Flake is running against Cameron Udall, a Democrat from St. John's. It's the battle of the big political names. Udall and flake carry a lot of weight up in that area.

>> Michael Grant:
Right. It's gotten a little tense there. The Democratic party sent out a mailer calling attention, for example, to Speaker Flake's -- I think he was then pro tem speaker, the money spent on remodeling in the house and a couple of other things?

>> Robbie Sherwood:
I took issue with them with that because I broke that story, and you know, that was on House Speaker Jim Weiers' watch. Flake was only tangentially attached to leadership at that time. They had other issues, though, about some of the things that he wanted to cut or was supporting cuts to rural healthcare, rural economic development, that sort of thing, which I thought was a little bit more fair game from the last couple of budgets. But the house furniture thing, I don't know about that one.

>> Michael Grant:
What do you think about Jack Brown's chances on the house side of that race?

>> Robbie Sherwood:
You know, a few months ago, I would have thought it would be impossible to be. He's been running and winning in that area for a long time,

>> Michael Grant:
A long time.

>> Robbie Sherwood:
Longer than I've been alive personally. But he is facing a challenge from Sylvia Allen, an all planks Republican a term we learned during the primary, who has some single shot type support for her to -- and is getting a lot of help from outside of the district from Maricopa County, lawmakers like Eddie Farnsworth are knocking on doors, campaigning for her. It's put brown on the defensive, some recent poll that has we've seen out of there have shown him actually running third slightly. Now, you've got to take those polls with a grain of salt because they don't touch on the two Apache Indian reservations in that direct and those people are 100% Ds. They are brown people but it's going to be close.

>> Michael Grant l:
The other Republican and brown have been running as a team.

>> Robbie Sherwood:
They really have. Allen has been working to get in there.

>> Michael Grant:
To bust that up?

>> Robbie Sherwood:
She has some resources. She is the head of the Navajo County Republican party. She has been at least. Her brother Louis Tenny has run for congress and has been running radio ads and TV ads that have run afoul of the Clean Elections commission because the spending wasn't reported.

>> Michael Grant:
In west Phoenix, another district we're paying close attention to is district 12 and Kathy foster wants to get back into the legislature against bob Blendu?

>> Robbie Sherwood:
Yeah, we have four swing districts in the state. That's one of them. Republicans have a 5-point registration advantage on paper. So the Democratic Party again putting heavy resource there is to try to pick off Blendu. It's much easier said than done, though. The West Valley's population trends, people have moved in there in the last five years have trended more Republican. Foster has some issues on Blendu. He held a couple of bills, one a bill that would have equalized the penalty for spousal rape and -- it's a lesser penalty for spousal rape. He held it arbitrarily as the rules chairman and had not had any resistance up until it met him. That's the sort of thing that they are hitting him on. That far down the ballot, people, you know, just vote their party. I would be surprised actually if he loses.

>> Michael Grant:
District 17, I hear basically in the Tempe area, again another person wanting to come back in the legislature, Laura Knaperek. What do you think?

>> Robbie Sherwood:
I think she has a real shot. It's -- but there is a lot of fur flying. The Democratic Party is doing everything it can to protect its candidate there. Meg Burt tan Cahill and another young guy who is also challenging, and mark Thompson, who is the incumbent there may be the victim in this if Knaperek gets more votes. A lot of negative campaigning, cross-accusations of lying and so forth. You know, too much to go into right here, but it's turned really bitter in that area.

>> Michael Grant:
Well, in fact, some people speculate that Knaperek's candidacy was actually aimed more at Thompson.

>> Robbie Sherwood:
She certainly has denied that. I think that -- Thompson was a little nervous about it because Thompson was one of the moderately Republicans who stuck his neck out on the budget. These are the people who all got hits put out on them successfully in the primary. You know, he can't help him if he's feeling a little paranoid.

>> Michael Grant:
Sometimes people are actually out to get you. House district 2 is up in northern Arizona. Sylvia Laughter was elected as a democrat and then a couple of years ago --

>> Robbie Sherwood:
She served as a democrat.

>> Michael Grant:
-- but then shifted to independent. That's a very heavily Democratic district, though. Is she going to survive?

>> Robbie Sherwood:
You don't count her out just because she is a known quantity up there. She is Navajo and running against a woman named Anne Kirkpatrick from Flagstaff. But Sylvia Laughter has fallen off the face of the earth in recent days. She is not campaigning. If you look at her reports, she is broke and late in filing them. I think she owes much more money in fines than she has in the kitty. So she's not running an active campaign up there.

>> Michael Grant:
House district 7, that's basically Robbie, north Phoenix, Scottsdale --

>> Robbie Sherwood:
Scottsdale, Carefree, that area.

>> Michael Grant:
On the house side, what's happening there?

>> Robbie Sherwood:
Well, you have a situation where nobody is betting against David Burnell Smith because of the registration advantage, but he's caught some controversy with the campaign that he ran for primary. He is a Clean Elections candidate. He went up -- there were complaints filed on him because he overspent his war chest by about $6,000. It's a huge no-no in publicly funded campaigns, especially if you end up winning. So you have critics questioning the legitimacy of his win. He had negotiated a settlement with the commission's executive director for a fine of about $2500, but it was spiked by the commission itself in favor of a full audit and investigation that could have much steeper consequences for him, up to and including getting thrown off the ballot.

>> Michael Grant:
House district 15 is basically central Phoenix. It's an interesting four-way race.

>> Robbie Sherwood:
Democratic stronghold, but there are Republicans there that think they have a chance because of the surprise election of a young lady named Kristen cinema. She would be the most liberal firebrand in the legislature if she was elected. So the Republicans are thinking maybe we have a shot with some of the moderate leaning Democrats. The problem there as I see it is there is two of them. One with a hard name to pronounce, and -- and I stumble over her signs all the time.

>> Robbie Sherwood:
If you need a single shot on the Republicans to pick off one vulnerable Democrat, it helps to only have one Republican in the race, not two. So the -- we're not going to vote for Kyrsten Sinema, they are going to split their vote between the two Republicans. I'm not betting against her at all.

>> Michael Grant:
Any other races to keep an eye on?

>> Robbie Sherwood:
You have Colette Rossetti, the controversial Republican representative up there. Says a lot of things that people take offense to regarding social issues, gays, unmarried women, childless women. But again, the same situation there. While she would be vulnerable in the way that Barbara Blewster was vulnerable and lost a couple of years ago, the Democrats have two people running against her, both named Nancy, Nancy Bulow (phonetic) and Nancy Stein. That would be an opportunity for that party that's probably going to be lost.

>> Michael Grant:
All right. Give me a best shot. When all of the dust settles -- maybe sometime ten days from now given sometimes how long it takes us to count votes anymore, what do you think the final splits are, senate and house?

>> Robbie Sherwood:
The senate, I think, is probably going to be about 18-12 Republican. Unless they get Blendu or one of those folks, they could lose that.

>> Michael Grant:
That's basically Jake Flake.

>> Robbie Sherwood:
With only a couple of real died in the wool moderate Republicans in there, you might see a functioning majority of the all planks Republicans at least on a lot of issues that could be big trouble for the Governor of the house. The Democrats are looking to pick up a couple of seats here and there.

>> Michael Grant:
38-22 maybe?

>> Robbie Sherwood:
Yeah, they might even go up to 24, but they might stay exactly where they are at because of some tough race that is people are running in southern Arizona, Yuma area, things like that.

>> Michael Grant:
Okay, Robbie, thanks for the information.

>> Robbie Sherwood:
No problem.

>> Michael Grant:
Thanks for joining us this evening. We'll continue to cover the proposition 200 story tomorrow. I'm Michael Grant. Good night.

Back to the top