UpClose with Adam Driggs 

Adam Driggs grew up in a world where high-profile Arizona political figures were family friends.

When Driggs was a child, his father was mayor of Phoenix, his family went on vacations with Sandra Day O’Connor, and Sen. Barry Goldwater frequently wrote letters to his family. Also, astronaut Buzz Aldrin is his uncle.

His office in the House of Representatives is adorned with photos of these and other famous Arizonans. It’s like a who’s who of modern state history.

Driggs, an attorney by trade, talks about ski trips with the O’Connors, missing a family visit to the Nixon White House and his “Forrest Gump” moment on a house boat.

What was it like growing up with a father who was mayor of Phoenix?
My dad was mayor when I was in first grade. He served two two-year terms – a total of four years. So, from first grade to fourth grade, my father was the mayor of Phoenix. I didn’t grasp the significance of that.

I do remember some campaign events. I got to sit with my dad in a lot of parades, and it was a fun time. I remember once somebody at school made reference to me, saying, “Oh, Driggs, you think you’re cool because your dad’s mayor.” My response to him was, “Isn’t your dad a mayor?” I didn’t realize there was only one mayor in Phoenix. There was never any sense of feeling special, but it was a great experience for our family.

You have at least three Abraham Lincoln sculptures in your office, plus that picture, which I’m assuming your son colored. I take it you’re a fan of Lincoln?
He is my favorite president.

This (souvenir of the Lincoln Memorial) right here, my parents got for me. They went back to Washington, D.C., with my three older brothers because my father had some meetings with President Nixon. I wanted to go, but they told me I wasn’t old enough. They brought this back for me in 1971. It’s been on my shelf ever since, and that was probably the start of my appreciation for Abraham Lincoln.

I really regret not being on that trip, because my family has a picture in the Oval Office with my father, my mother and my three older brothers, together with Nixon. I’m not in it.

Of course, your walls are covered with pictures of you with other prominent Republican political figures. There’s Sandra Day O’Connor. What’s the relationship with her?
The friendship between the Driggses and the O’Connors goes back initially to Stanford University. My father went to Stanford with the O’Connors, and they became friends. The O’Connors have three sons who are the same ages as my three older brothers. It was just a natural fit and a lifelong friendship between the two families.

Ever since I was a young kid, we’d go on ski trips with them, we’d go to the White Mountains with them. They had a cabin in Iron Springs that we’d go to.

One significant trip was in 1979, when my father’s brother-in-law was Chief Justice Warren Burger’s chief of staff. Chief Justice Burger was going to be in Flagstaff attending a national convention of state supreme court justices, and they contacted my father to see if there were any other fun things he could do while he was in Arizona. My father asked if he liked to go fishing, and the chief justice did, so we decided to take him to Lake Powell for about four days.

My parents wondered what they would talk to the chief justice of the Supreme Court about for four days on a houseboat on a lake. So they called John O’Connor – he and Sandra were attorneys, and Sandra was a Maricopa County Superior Court judge – and asked if they’d like to come on the trip. And John said, “Would we ever!”

That became a perhaps pivotal moment, as Chief Justice Burger and then- judge O’Connor became fast friends and really hit it off. The next summer, he invited Judge O’Connor to accompany him with a delegation of other judges to the United Kingdom for a tour of the judicial system there.

Within a year, she was appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals. A year after that, she was nominated by President Reagan to be on the U.S. Supreme Court.

So, basically, we can thank the Driggses for getting Burger to put a good word in President Reagan’s ear about Sandra Day O’Connor, right?
I don’t know how significant it is, but it was what I consider a “Forrest Gump” moment.

One of the best photos in your office is the one of a teenaged Adam Driggs on the houseboat with the top judge in the country.
I’m a 14-year-old kid in that picture.

You grew up to be an attorney. If you could go back to that time, what would you ask him?
I’d probably ask him if he thinks I should go to law school.

You’d hate it if he said no, though.
Looking back on it, I probably would have taken advantage of that relationship by asking for a little more guidance: What should I be doing to prepare myself for a career in law? Or, after law school, should I try to become a clerk for a judge?

Did you know you wanted to be an attorney back then?
No. I wanted to be in the NBA, but I hadn’t realized I was only going to be 5-foot-8.

There’s also a lot of Barry Goldwater memorabilia here. What’s your fondest memory of the senator?
It’s interesting, because my dad was friends with Senator Goldwater, and they corresponded often over the years. I recently was going through a number of them, and there was one my father received from Senator Goldwater urging my father to run for mayor. That was neat to read. It allowed me to see how thoughtful and well-thought-of my father was.

Another funny letter that I saw was from 1974. My father was in a crowded field running for governor to replace Jack Williams. My father was coming from a non-partisan mayoral post into the world of partisan politics, and his first billboard that went up – Vote for John Driggs for governor – did not include the word Republican.

Barry Goldwater, the proud Republican, quickly fired off a letter to my dad, saying, “Why are you hiding the fact that you’re a Republican. You need to put Republican on your billboard,” chastising my father. I asked my father about this and he said, “You know, I didn’t even think about it. I used the same model that I used in my mayoral race. But as soon as I got that letter from Barry, ‘Republican’ went up on the billboard.”

You were a prosecutor in the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office in the 1990s. What was that like?
It was really a wake-up call for what actually is happening on the streets of our communities. There are some crazy things that happen.

This will date me a little bit, but it’s like dealing with people that are on Sally Jesse Raphael or Jerry Springer, but it’s real. You come in contact with some really bad people, and then there are others who are more dumb than criminal.

You’re an immigration attorney now. What misconceptions do people have about what that means?
I think the biggest misconception people have is that, because I’m an immigration attorney in Phoenix, where there are many illegal immigrants, that somehow that translates into me helping illegal immigrants.

Actually, I exclusively help people who are trying to legally come into the United States. It’s primarily family-based, and I deal a lot with spouses of U.S. citizens. We have citizens who have married people from other countries – often in other countries – and they’re trying to come back to the United States after working in Europe or South America or Asia, and they need to bring their spouses here legally. I also deal with citizenship cases for people who are here legally in the United States and want to become citizens.

My clientele are exclusively either U.S. citizens or people trying to come into the country legally. I don’t deal at all with illegal immigration issues.

Your office is steeped in Arizona history. It’s very obvious your family has deep roots in the state. What does Arizona mean to you?
I’m fifth-generation Arizonan. One side of the family came to Arizona in the 1870s, the other in 1921. What I can appreciate about their stories is they came to Arizona because it was the land of opportunity. I think I try to carry that rugged pioneer spirit of what has made Arizona great.

My great-grandfather Driggs sold everything he had in Idaho to move to Arizona. He bought 340 acres of cotton crop out by Chandler. That was the year we had the great cotton crash, where cotton went from one dollar a bushel to 25 cents. They literally lost the farm.

His motto was, “Work hard, be honest and don’t learn any tricks.” He told his kids they needed to get to work. My grandfather and his four brothers all got jobs after having lost everything. They worked hard and made something of themselves. I think the lessons that we learn from these pioneers who settled the state is that they did it without government programs. They actually did it on their own and were successful.

It is, in the truest sense, the spirit of Arizona. It is the land of opportunity. People are still coming here from all over the country because Arizona is a blossoming state to this day. We need to let that individualism and love of freedom take hold.

I can’t end this interview without asking you about the special guest at your fund raiser last fall. Tell me about Buzz Aldrin.
My father’s sister Lois is married to Buzz Aldrin, so he is my uncle.

It’s been a very unique experience for me to be around him and hear the stories.

The first question I ever remember asking him was, “Did you really drink Tang?” The commercials all said it was what the astronauts drank.

My kids really love having an Uncle Buzz. They think that the Toy Story character Buzz Lightyear is their uncle.

UpCloser…

What is your biggest pet peeve?
When people will spin something to give the impression they’re pushing for something that they’re really not. You see it whenever you watch any political show. Both sides of the aisle do it. I wish we could be more like Barry Goldwater in that sense and just say what’s on our mind.

Do you ever Google yourself?
I actually have a Google alert for Adam Driggs. I have found my name come up in some odd places. The oddest was some international weight loss Web page. I had no idea how my name got there. Maybe it’s some other Adam Driggs.

How many hours of sleep do you get on average?
I would guess about six. And that’s not six straight hours of sleep.

Six straight happens once a week. I still have a one-year-old that I spoil. While my wife sleeps, I get him some milk around 1 or 2 each night. I know I shouldn’t, but he’s my baby and he’s my last one, I think, so I’m going to savor these times.

Would you rather live without music or without television?
Television. I practically do already. I don’t have time to watch TV.