Rep. Phil Lopes had his hands full in his first session as House minority leader. Facing a Republican majority in both chambers, Democrats were not substantively included in budget discussions. They battled several dozen bills they felt targeted immigrant minorities, struggled to get their bills heard and accused Republicans of trying to push bills through by suppressing debate.

On top of that, with the Republicans enraged about the governor’s veto of a critical budget bill, next year is shaping up to be even more difficult for the party that represents slightly more than a third of all Arizona voters.

The District 27 Democrat, though, said he has learned much. And, since he is only halfway through his second term as a lawmaker and intends to be caucus leader until he reaches his term limit in 2010, he said he plans on being around to have a significant impact on his party’s standing at the Capitol.

Mr. Lopes sat down for an interview in his office June 6.

You’ve gotten your first session as caucus leader under your belt — how do you feel it went≠

If I was a teacher and I was grading my performance, I’d probably give myself a B-minus. We had some successes bill-wise: we stopped TABOR [Taxpayer Bill of Rights, HCR2029], we stopped some nasty consumer bills, we stopped the cable bill [H2563]. So, we had some successes on issues in which we partnered with some Republicans.

As far as the work of the caucus, we did okay — and that’s where my grade is coming from. How effective were we as a caucus, and, therefore, how effective was I in making our caucus more effective≠ And I’ve still got a ways to go; that’s why I got a B-minus. I’ve got more to learn. The management stuff I can do okay, the strategy stuff I continue to need to rely on other members of my caucus.

Do you think that it was this being your first time in leadership and your lack of experience running an entire caucus and all the things that go along with it that impacted that≠ Do you think that you’ll learn from that for next year≠

Oh, yeah, I will learn. I already leaned and will continue to learn. I was on a steep learning curve — the learning curve now is not quite as steep, but it continues to be an upward learning curve.

One of the things that will be different next year is that many of the people that I rely on within my caucus will also have an additional year under their belt and that will be more useful as well, and more helpful.

Before the session started, you said you planned to lean heavily on the other two members of your leadership team — Assistant Leader Linda Lopez and Whip Pete Rios — because this was your first experience in leadership. What did you learn from them≠

Well, one of the things I learned from them — and I probably should have [already] known it — is what their experience brings — especially Representative Rios — is real expertise in things like the DES budget and things like labor issues and Hispanic issues. I mean, I’m not sure I will ever — no, I’m fairly certain that I will never — get to the point that he is, knowing the details about those kinds of things. I’ll never get there.

So, it’s that kind of thing that we as a caucus and we as legislators have to learn to live with because of term limits. I mean, there aren’t going to be very many Representative Rioses around with term limits and on whom are we going to depend for that kind of detailed information. It won’t be there. So, yes, I’ve learned a lot from them.

Republican leadership, back in the early part of the session, said they planned to include the Democrats in the budget process. Do you feel that happened≠

No, it did not happen, but I don’t want to sound like a whiner about it. It did not happen and not only did it not happen, but with the Republican leadership’s requirement that they have 31 Republicans on the budget, it was just another way of saying to us that, “We don’t need you, you’re not important.” They told me to my face: We won the election, we’re the Republicans, we’re in charge — we don’t need to involve you was the message.

That is totally unacceptable. And it ought to be unacceptable to the citizens of Arizona because the Democratic caucus represents about two million people. Do Republicans who hold this opinion think that two million people’s voices should be shut down≠ That’s not the way it’s supposed to work. So, that sort of stuff is very troubling and certainly not acceptable and I will continue to work hard with the Republicans and others to try to change that.

During session, there were times when members of your caucus complained that the Republicans were using procedural tactics to shut them out of discussions or end debate. Do you feel that the Republicans abused the procedure to stifle debate≠

Well, abuse is in the eye of the beholder, and as the speaker and the speaker pro tem remind me, they are the enforcers of the rules. If a vote is left open for an inordinate amount of time so that an additional vote can be garnered, that’s within the rules because the chair enforces the rules.

If it were me, I would not do that. If it were me, I would try very hard to be fair and I would say there would be some time limit. It would be two minutes or three minutes or five minutes or whatever it is and I would adhere to it.

Likewise, I would give specific instructions to my members that they are not to stifle debate, they are not to stop debate. And we had that happen on the floor this year for, I’m told by others who have been here longer than I have, for the first time in memory. They shut it down so they wouldn’t have to answer our questions.

So, for me there’s a qualitative difference between shutting down debate and saying, I’m tired of answering your questions. Any individual has the right to say, I’m tired of answering your questions. But to shut down debate is a quantum leap that should not be acceptable.

[Editor’s note: On March 14, Rep. Colette Rosati, R-8, made a procedural motion during Committee of the Whole debate of H2030 to end discussion of the bill and bring the measure to a vote. Mr. Lopes accused her on the floor of “jeopardizing” democracy.]

Only 33 of the 159 Democrat bills this session received action in committee and only seven got the governor’s signature. How can your members work to get more of the legislation that is important to them through the system≠

That’s a question we are struggling with ourselves. We are having a series of meetings over the interim in which we are trying to develop some strategies around questions just like that. I don’t know the answer yet, but we hope to come up with some answer.

Now, all of our bills did get assigned to committee — of course, they didn’t all get heard in committee, but they did all get assigned. So, I’m thinking that maybe our best strategy is with committee chairs because that may well be the best way that we ensure that more of our bills get heard.

You gave yourself a grade of B-minus for the session: overall, how do you feel Democrats fared in the session≠ What kind of grade would you give your caucus≠

I would give us at least a solid B. And I give us a B because we were able to stop some bad things, we were able to help the governor stop some additional bad things, but we do have to continue to work on how we bring our bills, that reflect our values, into the discussion.

We’re looking at our bills by committee to try and see what we might do to improve our hearings in committee. I also have a list of the bills by Democrat sponsor and whether they had a Republican spo
nsor or not, because the conventional wisdom is you improve your chances if you have a Republican sponsor. We’ll see if that’s true.

What are your thoughts on the governor’s vetoes of the corporate tuition tax credit and English language learner bills≠

Terrific, in a word.

What do you think it means for looking forward≠

Well, what I think it means for the tuition tax credit is there are threats to put it on the ballot in ’06, and I think that would be a terrible — I don’t like it because I think it takes resources from the public schools. I hope it’s not on the ballot. If it is on the ballot, I will work very hard to see that it is defeated.

On the English language learner, we just have to do something about that. A whole generation of children have been damaged and we’re still fooling around. We have to get serious and we have to do something.

What about next year, next session≠ The Republicans are up in arms about the vetoes and it will be an election year on top of that. How do you see that going, with respect to getting Democrat bills heard at all≠

Well, I would be deluding myself if I thought that it was going to be anything other than more difficult. But, part of the reason that I ran for leader and, I think, part of the reason that people voted for me was that we needed to have longer tenured leaders. So, next year is not my last year — next year is just another year. And, hopefully, I and the rest of the caucus will learn from that and we will be able to do better the following year. But, next year is going to be a tough year.

A lot of the details of next year are going to be determined by who winds up running for governor. I mean, if we have Bennett and Weiers running for governor, that’s going to be a very interesting session.

So, you’ve heard that Speaker Weiers is thinking about running≠

Oh, yeah, I’ve heard rumors about both of them.

What was your proudest moment of the session≠

Defeating TABOR [Taxpayers Bill Of Rights]. I think that was my proudest moment of the caucus. But my own proudest moment was that I got a bill passed of my own [H2441] that will allow low income housing to be built for Yaqui Indians and I consider that a personal triumph.

What are your hopes for next session≠

That the caucus will be more unified in it’s approach in terms of bills that we get introduced, bills that we try to defeat, bills that we try to pass, our efforts at helping the governor. All that totals, for me, a more effective caucus. And if those things are done based on a set of good, Democrat, progressive values, we will have done something good. We will have made some progress and done something good.

Thank you very much for your time.

You’re very welcome. —