In this day and age of term limits, tenured lawmakers like Jack Brown are a rarity. The District 5 Democrat serves in the House now, having made the switch from the Senate after being term-limited. Except for a 12-year break to rear his children, he has served at the Capitol since 1963.
Mr. Brown spoke with Arizona Capitol Times by phone on June 28 to discuss the path the 164-day session took and its spot in the state’s history.

This was probably one of the craziest sessions we’ve ever had down here, even in all your years at the Legislature.

In all my years, I never saw one quite like it.

Looking at the session as a whole, now that we’re finally out of it, what is the one thing that stood out for you most?

The thing that stood out for me most was how hard it was for the leadership to get agreement among themselves, how bad they had to argue and fight until they could finally get on the same page.

Is that something that you’ve seen down here before?

I’ve never seen the majorities have that much trouble to come to some kind of agreement. I’ve seen times when they and the minorities had to fight quite a long time and had a pretty hard time to decide what to do, but usually, the majority can get together easier than they did this year.

What do you think was the root cause of that?

I think the root cause is they’ve got too many people in there that are anti just about everything you want to do, that are ultra, ultra conservatives. They don’t want to look forward, they just want to try to just stop the progress of spending any money for anything for anybody.

Do you think that lawmakers like that are indicative of voters in the state and how they want government to be?

I think they’re indicative of a certain group, but I don’t think people back home realize what kind of people they’re sending down here. Up in my area, I find people just don’t really keep track very good of what I’m doing. They like it because I’ve always represented them well, but they just say, ‘Jack, you go down there and represent us. If we don’t think you’re doing good after a few years, we’ll kick you out.’ They just haven’t done that yet, so they must think I’m doing pretty good. But a lot of people just don’t know that their representatives are doing as poor as they are in trying to make this old state grow and have some progress.

What can be done to get people more involved and make sure they are aware of what state government is doing?

That’s a hard question. I guess it’s just that we’ve all got to do better and when we run for re-election, we’ve got to let people know what we think and what the opponent thinks and what the opponent is for or against, if they’re an incumbent, and show them that some of these people, you can’t hardly work with.

You’ve been down at the Capitol for more than 30 years, all told.

Yeah, something like that.

What’s been the biggest change you’ve seen in the way the Legislature operates from the time you first came down here until today?

Well, two things. One is term limits have made it so you’ve got self-styled experts the day they get here. And they want to be a big wheel and make things happen. When I started down here, the unwritten rule was you don’t do anything your first two years. Your first term you don’t even talk – you just kind of listen and learn. That’s changed considerably.
The other thing is that, in this day and age, we’re just not as friendly as we should be. We have more bad, ill will toward the other party. When I first came down here, we had a coalition for four years, and then the Republicans took over. But we still got along well. We worked well together, and for the first years I was down here, we got along well.
I was down here 12 years and then I went home and helped raise my kids for 12 years. When I came back for the second stint, it had got quite a little bit meaner and not such a camaraderie of working together. It just kind of got worse every year since then, until this year shows a classic example of flat out refusing to work with the other side. I don’t care who the minority is, they’re all elected and they’re all here. This year, I felt like I had very, very little input on the important, big issues. Now, we did get quite a few things through in the final analysis, but that was because we had a Democratic governor.

Do you think that, had Governor Napolitano not been in office, the Democrats would have been completely marginalized and shut out?

Yeah, I think that’s right. I think we would have been out to lunch when the decisions were made. I just think that, once you’re elected, they need to consider everybody and if they out-vote you, at least you had input and they don’t have a stupid rule that it takes a majority of them on any issue or else they don’t even bring it up.

Do you see that as a failing of the Republican leadership?

Yeah, I think so. I don’t know who else you’d have to blame. It’s always been so that, on some issues, you’d change and you’d have a few of them who won’t vote for it and a few of ours that won’t vote for it and you take that big group right out of the middle – the more moderate kind of people on both sides of the aisle to get the job done.

This year, there were two unfortunate incidents lawmakers had to deal with. One was Senator Marilyn Jarrett’s death, the other was Representative Ray Barnes collapsing and having a medical emergency on the House floor. Do you remember any time in your service there’s been that much concern over the health of lawmakers?

Yeah, we’ve had some people get sick, but the one I remember the best was a guy who was a popular reporter for the Phoenix Gazette~ a guy named Virgil Hill – Virg Hill, he was called. He was sitting up there at the press tables. I was pretty close – I was the majority leader at the time, the way I remember it, and I was sitting in the second row right there in the front. He all of the sudden just stood up and held his throat and his heart and held his hands over him and started to walk out and he just fell right there, and died right on the floor. I remember that like it was not very many days ago, though it was way back.

How difficult was it for you, having served with Senator Jarrett, to deal with her passing? I know she was well liked and respected by everybody.

I served with her over here in the House, first, and then we both moved over to the Senate, so I served over there with her for several years. She was a stately, nice lady that got along well and did not try to be one-sided on politics. She worked with both sides and just was a good compromising lady. It’s just too bad that she came to that untimely death because she was a good person to have here. She was a friend and I got along well with her. I was sorry to see her die, but she was well prepared to go on to something better.

Looking at the way the session ended, what was the one thing in the budget you were most glad to see actually got through the Legislature?

Boy, oh, boy. There were some little things – like one was to make it so the three counties of Apache and Greenlee and Santa Cruz did not have to pay that out-of-county tuition to the community colleges when their kids went to community college. That was really tough, especially on Greenlee County. That was costing them about $500,000, and to them that was a big, big bunch of dough. That was my own personal best.
Otherwise, I think the things we did for the Department of Corrections officers was one real good thing, then education was another.

As far as full-day kindergarten and teachers’ salaries, you mean?

Full-day kindergarten and the additional money for teachers. I was more enthused with that than any of them because it gave the teachers a little more for staying there and wrestling those kids – I mean, teaching those kids all day.

What was the one thing that happened this session that you were most disappointed to see go through?

Well, I personally hated to see us make the tax reductions that we gave made permanent. I can see them going with the temporary one – one of them, you know kicks out after three years and goes back to the way it is now – I thought we should have done the other one in the same way and made it so we look at it again and see whether we want to continue it or whether we don’t want to. That would make it so we don’t have to have a three-quarter vote to put a tax back in. I’ve learned – in the 90s, we did some things that we never should have done. We made it so we gave a homeowner’s rebate. You know, we pay 35 percent of the tax on your house today, for every homeowner in the state of Arizona. For our taxes on our homes, we’re really getting a good deal here in Arizona, although people don’t think they are. I just thought we shouldn’t make that same mistake again because it takes a three-fourths vote to put it back in and we’re just never gonna do it on that one. I’d just hate to see us get in another thing like that so we can’t stop it, we can’t turn it around without having a three-quarter vote.

Where do you see the Legislature going in the next five or ten years? Do you see things changing or staying relatively the same?

I think it may change a little. I don’t see the Democrats gaining much, although there are a lot of Democrats that are pretty conservative and work well on both sides of the aisle. I’ve always prided myself on getting along with the other side and being able to be a peacemaker rather than a fighter. I just think that maybe it’ll get a little better as people realize we’re better off working together and using all the people in the Legislature, rather than trying to freeze out nearly half of us. Hopefully we’ll get so term limits doesn’t mean quite so much as is does now – you’re only going to be there eight years, so you better get in and get done because you only got that much time. It used to be that’d just get you broken in good.

Thank you very much for the time.

All right. You betcha.

Up closer
Favorite book
Oh, boy. I do a lot of reading, but it’s all those stupid reports and magazines and the things I have to read. I’d say the Bible.

Favorite way to relax
Help on the ranch, move cattle

Any regrets in life?
Overall, I really don’t. I have a good life, I have a good wife, I have a good family.

Favorite food
If you include desserts, they’re all my favorite. I guess it’s good Mexican food.