A legislative panel balked at naming a room in the new state archives building after a deceased senator who spearheaded the project amid concerns the idea was inappropriate.
But the family of Sen. Marilyn Jarrett, who died unexpectedly in March 2006, says they were promised that a reading room at the still-under-construction Polly Rosenbaum Archive and History Building would be named in honor of the late senator’s work on securing funding for the building. Not doing so, Jarrett’s daughter LeAnn Arganbright says, would be disrespectful.
“It’s kind of important to us as a family that she get remembered that way,” she said. “This is a better memorial plaque than her gravestone.”
Lawmakers at the Dec. 3 Legislative Council meeting were expected to vote on naming either a conference room or a reading room in the new building after Jarrett, but several legislators said they were uneasy with the idea.
“I’m concerned with the precedent setting of naming a room after a particular legislator,” House Majority Whip John McComish, R-20, said.
He said he feared such a move could lead to an “edifice complex” among lawmakers.
“We [could] get into contests about naming of names,” McComish said. “A lot of lawmakers served many years and are no longer [alive].”
But Senate Majority Leader Thayer Verschoor, R-22, said the Legislature sets precedent all the time. Further, he said naming a room for Jarrett should be considered precedent.
“We can name the building after someone, but [not] a room?” he said.
McComish says he is uncomfortable with the idea because there is no procedure in place to allow Legislative Council to name a room after a lawmaker, which has never been done.
“If we are going to be in the naming business, we ought to have some kind of policy or procedure for doing it,” he said.
Arganbright says she is frustrated lawmakers are unwilling to recognize her mother’s zeal in fighting for the project, despite heavy opposition from some lawmakers who did not want to provide the more than $35 million in funding needed to complete the building.
“I really don’t understand what the issue is,” she said. “We were told — even by other lawmakers — that she really, more than anyone else, ram-rodded this through. And she would not let it drop…
“Frankly, if she hadn’t, I don’t think it would be funded now.”
After Jarrett’s death, Arganbright says then-Senate President Ken Bennett and Library and Archives Director GladysAnn Wells committed to honoring Jarrett by naming a room after her.
“I was told that it wasn’t even a question, I was told that they were going to do it,” Arganbright says.
But Bennett and Wells remember the conversation differently. Wells told Legislative Council she remembers Bennett mentioning the idea but making no commitment, and Bennett related similar recollections to the Arizona Capitol Times.
“It was a comment in passing,” he said. “Their response was just very gracious…but it was not a commitment in any way.”
However, Bennett thinks it would be “absolutely appropriate” to honor Jarrett with a room in the building, given her dedication to the project and her untimely death before it came to fruition.
Jarrett sponsored the original legislation, S1079 (Laws 2004, Chapter 194), which appropriated $2 million to begin design and construction of an archives building to be named after Rosenbaum.
She also opposed a 2005 effort led by House Republican leaders to not fund the construction and to move the building and alter its plans to include covered parking for House members and space for legislative staff.
The committee opted to not vote on dedicating the room to Jarrett, and Senate President Tim Bee said the panel may address it again in a meeting next year.
Although the legislative oversight committee did not name a room after Jarrett, it did opt to include her name — and the names of other former Legislative Council members in 2005 and 2006 — on the plaque dedicating the building.
Rep. Bob Robson, R-20, said he thinks honoring Jarrett on the plaque is a more appropriate move, as it memorializes her in the context of a lawmaker, and doesn’t imply she only accomplished or worked on a single issue at the Capitol.
Calling naming a room after a lawmaker “stepping into uncharted territory,” Robson said he would be more open to the idea if it was not the decision of the 14-member Legislative Council, which is comprised of seven lawmakers from each chamber. Rather, he would like to see the entire Legislature approve the name, as it did when the building was named after Polly Rosenbaum, a political luminary who served in the House for 54 years.
“Then it’s an official recognition of both bodies instead of a few individuals,” Robson said.
But Arganbright says the only right thing to do is honor the promise made to the family.
“I kind of had my heart set on this,” she said.