Always judging a bill as to whether it’s good public policy, Sen. Robert Blendu, R-12, also is a stickler for parliamentary procedure and civility on the Senate floor.
And after 11 years in the Legislature — four in the Senate — he’d like to be the top dog — Senate president.
Mr. Blendu, who served as majority whip in the House and is Senate Rules chairman, is a staunch ally of law enforcement and has pushed for increased funding for transportation this session.
A stockbroker, the 63-year-old senator lives in Litchfield Park and is fluent in Spanish.
No one else had filed for his Senate seat.
Mr. Blendu was interviewed May 22 in his Senate office, mainly about illegal immigration.
Do you think your colleagues evaluate legislation on the same basis as you do — as to positive or negative effects on state policy?
Not all the time, but that’s what makes the Legislature.
With hundreds and hundreds of bills each session, how does a legislature guard against unintended consequences?
I wish we could, but unintended consequences define it. A lot of times we think we’re doing good work, then we find out that life has a way of getting around it, and we have to fix it, and that’s what keeps us busy.
Is much of the legislation fix-it legislation from maybe a previous session?
A lot of it is for some of those reasons. Life is not perfect and to think that you can sit down with paper and pencil and carve out laws and legislation that’s going to work perfectly is just a flawed premise, and I think you have to be ready to make those adjustments.
With the complexity of illegal immigration, do you worry about or do you see the possibility of unintended consequences no matter what legislation comes out of the Legislature this year to deal with the issue?
With respect to illegal immigration, I think our very country is at stake. And I think that we are going to have to define what being an American is, what being a citizen is and at this particular point, no one can tell me the advantage of being a citizen over being an illegal alien. In print, there’s supposed to be some differences, but I haven’t seen them in real life.
Tell us about the Hispanics in your family and what influence, if any, they have on your feelings and votes on immigration.
I think the Hispanics in my family look at themselves as Americans. They understand and they are proud of their culture, but make no mistake about it, they are Americans, through and through, and they do not understand why when Mexicans come here illegally, they expect us to put everything in Spanish for them.
What family members are Hispanic?
My wife and all of my relatives from her side of the family, of course. The way I view it is Spanish blood runs through the veins of my children and grandchildren.
Do you support sending the immigration package to the ballot?
An immigration package on the ballot would be a flawed one. You just can’t put that much language on the ballot. As public policy makers, we are the ones who should be held accountable for the immigration language. My personal feeling is that if the federal government is not upholding their end of the bargain with respect to protecting our borders, that does not relieve us of our responsibility. If they won’t build a wall, we should.
Predictions are that Arizona will be 50 percent Hispanic by 2010. What will that mean for state government?
That depends on the decisions that we make now. In 1776, our Founding Fathers voted that the English language would be our national language. That won by one vote. We missed speaking German by one vote. They knew then that people would be coming from different parts of the world to immigrate here, and that a common language would unite us.
There’s not a single society that ever existed with multi-culturalism or multi-ethnicity —everybody divided culturally — no society has survived. It’s our unity that has made us great; it’s not been our diversity.
Would you agree the state is not prepared for the culture shock ahead and will it result in discrimination?
I think the culture shock should be of those who come to immigrate here. I don’t think we should change our culture to accommodate them. They should come here and assimilate into out culture. If that’s not what they want to do, then they need to reassess why they’re coming here.
Speaking of assimilation, 14 percent of the Legislature is Hispanic. What will the percentage be in five years?
I can’t predict that. My hopes are that we will remain the same citizen Legislature doing what’s best for the whole state. I think our problems are deeper than that. If you look at the legislation and the way we’re going, we’re developing two classes of citizens in Arizona — rural and urban. If you look at the differences between services in rural Arizona versus urban Arizona, there’s dramatic differences. That disturbs me.
Let’s turn to the budget. Is there enough in it for freeways and other transportation projects?
The one thing I’ve found out about transportation is that money is the easy thing. If someone tells me we have to do a two-year environmental impact study to put a lane on I-10, there’s something crazy along with that policy. We’ve got to address that. Along with that, cement. We find out the reasons we have a cement shortage and have to import it from foreign sources is because our people, our environmentalists, won’t let us dig our own cement that we have right here in Arizona — mountains of it. I believe we have an environment we can use and preserve.
The money we have in transportation [in the proposed budget] is probably more than we can use in the next 12 months. For us to put a billion dollars in transportation does not assure us we’re going to have more roads, but I am assured that we are going to have more than enough money that we will need for the next year.
You often say the Legislature’s number one priority should be public safety. Has it met your standards in that respect?
No, it has not. In the years that I’ve been down here, since 1995, we find out that our Highway Patrol has the most antiquated radio system in the state. It’s shameful and it really disturbs me we have done nothing about that. This year we are finally making some improvements on that, but to send out guys out there in a single car on mean roads and some can’t even call for backup is inexcusable, as far as I’m concerned.
You’re a stockbroker, so how much of state spending do you regard as sound investments?
I don’t think you can compare those two. One is a political process, one is a sound investment process. People refer to investments in the future, and I’ve not seen any returns on those.
The governor, however, likens education spending, to be specific, as an investment in the state’s future. Is she misusing the word?
No. I think it could be. Just because you spend money on something, doesn’t mean it turns out to be a good investment. Our challenge is to make sure it’s a good investment.
Did you think about running for governor this year?
No. I’ve had friends and family ask. I guess everybody has that group of people around, and I’m flattered by that. Not really.
Whom do you support for governor?
I’m going to wait and see what shakes out.
The Rules Committee is the gateway to the floor and thus puts you in a powerful position. How often have you held a bill for other than reasons of constitutional problems and what were the reasons?
Like every other committee, every chairman is allowed — the rules permit them to hold a bill for whatever reason they want to. I’ve tried not to inflict my own personal opinions on that, but there have been times when other people have made it personal. If I held bills I didn’t like, we’d be doing half the work around here.
You’ve run some health care bills over the years and are a free-market guy. What do you see as solutions for reducing the number of uninsured and the costs of health care?
One of the numbers we’ve got to clear up with uninsured is we have people like Bill Gates who show up in the uninsured numbers because he doesn’t need insurance. Neither does Warren Buffett. We’ve got to scrub those lists down to the people we’re actually talking about.
I don’t believe in free health care. Somebody pays for everything. For us to provide AHCCCS [the state’s Medicaid program] to people who contribute nothing in taxes and for them to have a better health care system than the people who pay for everything is just a little bit disturbing to me. One of the things we haven’t done is cross that bridge between socialized medicine and the free market.
One of the things we can do for the people who pay for everything is not tax them on their insurance premiums at the federal level and the state level. I don’t know why a corporation can write that cost off, and an individual cannot.
There are some personal animosities among members of the Senate, and they sometimes spill onto the floor, such as was the case last week on the immigration bill. You appear upset when that happens. Should firebrand remarks be banned?
No. We have an open government, and you’re permitted to get angry and say things in the heat of the moment that you might not mean later. Where we cross the line is when we start getting insulting and start moving beyond what we may disagree about into something personal.
As the parliamentarian, I am discouraged to watch the process deteriorate over the years, and I think term limits are a big part of that. It’s been horrible for this institution. I was a supporter of term limits, but I’ve seen the damage it’s done, and I’m no longer a supporter.
Two years ago, you ran for majority leader, then withdrew your name when the votes weren’t there. Do you think you can get the support of your caucus to elect you president?
Time will tell.
Who would you say has the inside track?
If anyone has the inside track, it would be evident, and I think it’s evident that no one has an inside track. We have a deep bench. I think that’s good.
How would your leadership and management styles compare to current and past presidents?
The first thing I would do would make sure the Senate gets it own budget out. I believe that this process of meeting with the House continually for months has led to nothing but a June budget. There’s no reason we can’t get a budget out in 60 days.