Rep. Mark DeSimone, D-11, owns a bar in Phoenix and has helped many fellow Democrats understand the issues facing the business community.

Mark DeSimone may just be the archetype of future Democrat candidates in Arizona. Soft-spoken and polite, he doesn’t focus much on social issues, opting instead to concentrate on making the state’s tax and regulation policies more business friendly. A business owner himself, DeSimone has a rare perspective in a party that historically has been seen by the business community as more enemy than friend.
But by all accounts, that adversarial relationship is changing. Democrats and business advocates have been working together on legislation that serves the interests of both groups.
Longtime House Democrat leader Art Hamilton, who is now a partner at a Valley public relations and political strategy firm, said he sees business-friendly candidates as a must if the Democratic Party hopes to make gains in areas of the state that traditionally have voted Republican.
“People will be more inclined to cross the political aisle to support candidates favoring (business) issues,” he said.
DeSimone sensed that factor in his 2006 bid for the state House of Representatives in the heavily Republican District 11. He said his stance on business issues and his experience as a businessman was an integral component of his campaign strategy.
“I really played that up,” he said. “I think people — Republicans, in general — are more comfortable with Democrats who have a business background.”
The gambit paid off, as DeSimone, who owns a bar and a restaurant in north-central Phoenix, overcame a 17-percentage point Republican voter registration advantage to capture one of the district’s two House seats.
He is now one of two House Democrats with business pedigrees, joining west-Phoenix Rep. Robert Meza, who works in the business development office for Chicanos Por La Causa.
Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-15, said DeSimone’s experience and point of view have been invaluable to the caucus.
“He’s been a great help to me,” the central-Phoenix Democrat said. “He can explain why a business owner would feel ‘X’ way about an issue, because it’s him.”
Sinema said she and most other Democrats have an inherent disadvantage when it comes to understanding the needs of businesses and the impact legislation can have on the business climate. A quick glance at the employment history of Democrat legislators tells the tale: teachers, social workers and others who work in the social-services field dominate the ranks of the party’s elected officials.
“I’ve been doing civil service my whole life. My experience with business was as a consumer,” said Sinema, a former social worker.
Chamber CEO sees Democratic shift
DeSimone’s ability to enlighten his colleagues is the kind of leadership Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry President and CEO Glenn Hamer sees as a cornerstone to the fundamental shift in the way Democrats approach business interests. He said DeSimone and Sen. Ken Cheuvront, another Democrat business owner, are widely respected in the business community as being pro-business. Their presence, Hamer said, has changed the mindset of other Democrats about business issues.
“It’s a feeling that there’s receptiveness on all areas of the business agenda,” Hamer said. “My expectation is that it will continue to build. The pro-business agenda isn’t a Republican or Democratic agenda — it’s a bipartisan agenda.”
The proof of a blossoming relationship between Democrats and the business community was on full display at the Arizona Chamber of Commerce’s annual legislative preview luncheon. This year, more than 20 Democrats rubbed shoulders with business owners and advocates at an event normally attended by few Democrats, if any showed up at all.
The crowd also warmly received speeches by Senate Minority Leader Marsha Arzberger and her House counterpart, Phil Lopes, who both praised many of the chamber’s legislative priorities for the year. Lopes even closed his speech with a call to arms for his brothers and sisters in the business community that was met with a loud applause.
“For the past several years, I have come to this luncheon and I’ve come to say that Democrats and businesses share a common ground. And we have demonstrated our support for your agenda in the Legislature,” he said at the Jan. 8 event. “Now I call on you, the business community, to recognize that we are partners. I call on you to join us in pushing an agenda that delivers good jobs, sound fiscal policy and economic prosperity for all of Arizona.”
The Democrat attendance and Lopes’ and Arzberger’s remarks pointed toward the willingness of Democrats to look at business as a partner, not an adversary — a notion that not long ago was far-fetched.
“That’s a good sign of a strong desire of Democrats in the Legislature and the business community coming together,” Hamer said.
And although Hamer praised DeSimone for fostering an attitude change, the legislator downplayed the role he has played within his caucus, pointing instead to the inevitability of a maturing relationship between Democrats and business.
“I wouldn’t say it was because of me, but I helped facilitate it,” he said. “The change was just waiting to happen.”
Cheuvront, who owns a wine and cheese bar and a construction company in District 15, agreed timing has played a significant role in his peers realizing “that we really have more in common (with businesses) than we have opposed.” The opportunity to dramatically change the relationship with businesses, though, didn’t present itself until lawmakers debated — and ultimately approved — a Republican-backed law last year that allows the suspension and revocation of licenses belonging to businesses that hire illegal immigrants.
“You have some Republicans that are so entrenched in the ideology,” Cheuvront said, “that they’re not supporting business interests.”
Konopnicki: Republicans hurt selves with business
Rep. Bill Konopnicki, a Republican from Safford, was blunter about what the employer sanctions legislation has done to drive businesses into the arms of the Democratic Party.
“Clearly, it’s a relationship of odd fellows, but clearly the Republicans have shot the business community between the eyes,” he said.
Konopnicki, who owns several McDonald’s restaurants and radio stations in eastern Arizona, said the employer sanctions legislation “pushed a lot of people over the edge,” which has severely damaged the Republican Party in the mind of the public. In turn, he said, that has made it difficult for Republican candidates to raise money for campaigns.
The blame for much of the current strife rests squarely on the shoulders of Rep. Russell Pearce of Mesa, Konopnicki said, because he was the driving force behind the employer sanctions law and other policies that have encumbered businesses.
“Russell is just all about headlines and power and control, not about solving problems,” Konopnicki said.
Pearce, a District 18 Republican, said he has become a national figure on the immigration issue not because he wanted to, but because he is “the guy that’s willing to lead the charge and take the bullets” fired by those who want to ignore federal immi
gration laws.
He also said the goal of the sanctions law isn’t to punish law-abiding businesses. Rather, he contends the measure has ample safeguards to ensure that business owners who think they are following federal employment law won’t be punished for making mistakes.
Pearce is quick to point out that not all businesses dislike the law. The East Valley and North Phoenix chambers of commerce both support the measure, he said, as well as the Yavapai County Contractors Association and numerous private businesses.
Pearce said he understands that the law has upset some businesses, and he views any discord caused by that as the complaints of “illegal businesses” that want to continue to break the law.
“Most criminals don’t think the laws do well for them, either,” he said. “My loyalty is to the Constitution and the rule of law.”
Hamer, though, said the employer sanctions measures — the one passed into law last year and the even stricter voter-initiative campaign Pearce has spearheaded — have played a role in businesses warming to Democrats.
“The sanctions issue has probably contributed to the dynamic of a more favorable climate between many in the business community and some in the Democrat caucuses,” he said.
Polarized politics
And Jack Lunsford, CEO and president of WESTMARC, a coalition of West Valley cities and businesses, said the drive of some lawmakers to push ideological proposals clearly came at the expense of crafting sound policy in a world where black-and-white solutions rarely are the best answer.
“We’ve gotten so polarized in our politics that we don’t take the time to see the gray area,” he said.
Meza, who worked in the corporate banking and development industries prior to Chicanos Por La Causa, said the employer sanctions law “exploded” on Republicans and he believes it is the chief reason businesses are expanding their horizons at the Capitol.
The District 14 Democrat said the business community is extremely upset with Pearce. “He’s like the black plague now,” Meza said.
Although most legislative Democrats voted in favor of the employer sanctions bill last year, Sinema said the discussion gave her and fellow Democrats a glimpse of the challenges businesses face in Arizona. Building off of that knowledge, and the desire of nearly all Democrats to lessen the severity and burden they say the new law presents, makes the minority caucuses and businesses ideal partners.
Cultivating the relationship and capitalizing on the momentum will be important now that Democrats have their collective foot in the door, Meza said. He expects to see immediate results of the burgeoning relationship this fall, as business groups will work to elect business-friendly Democrats in place of Republicans who have advocated ideological policies regarded as anti-business.
“It’s a tsunami. It is coming. It is going to be such a huge wave of change in November,” he said.
Meza said the public already is realizing the damage the Republican policies have had on businesses. His trips to the gym, he said, frequently entail having to answer pointed questions about the ramifications of the policies from citizens “who aren’t educated” about state government and public policy.
“When you have the average citizen getting it and the public policy folks aren’t getting it…the citizen is going to say, ‘I have to make a change,’ and they will,” he said.
Hamilton, the former Democratic legislative leader, said the estrangement of Republicans and the business community will ultimately benefit businesses because they are liberated and no longer dependent on Republicans.
“They don’t want to be the captive of one caucus or political ideology,” he said. “Ideology has absolutely overwhelmed the needs the of the business community to do business here.”
Indeed, the Arizona Chamber’s Hamer said one of his goals is cultivating strong relationships with both Republicans and Democrats, which he said will result in “more stable” business-friendly policies.
The best way for Democrats to continue the momentum, politicos and observers said, is for them to push business-friendly legislation and continue to keep the lines of communication open, even when the two entities are on opposite sides of an issue.
This legislative session may provide significant opportunities for growing the relationship, Lunsford said. In particular, he pointed to the need for a comprehensive transportation strategy. Businesses see multi-modal transportation as an economic and commerce issue. To that end, regional business groups and some of the state’s largest businesses have formed an advocacy group called Transportation and Infrastructure Moving Arizona’s Economy, or the TIME Coalition for short.
Lunsford sees the push to develop a statewide transportation plan as a way for businesses and Democrats to join forces. Both groups would like to see the plan consist of various kinds of transportation methods, from freeways to buses to rail lines, while many Republicans — some still stinging from the 2004 passage of a Maricopa County transportation plan that included light rail — derisively called a “trolley” by opponents — will fight for the vast majority of the money to be used for freeway construction.
“If we haven’t seen a sea change (in the relationship) yet, this may be an impetus for it,” said Lunsford.
Hamilton said the ability of Democrats to take advantage of situations such as transportation, will be paramount to the continued rise of the party and the evolution of the relationship with businesses.
“We need to reach out to the business community. They need to know that they have a friend on our side of the aisle,” he said. “I suspect as Democrats really begin…to challenge again for supremacy, the only way to be successful in that is to be a (party) that recognizes the legitimate needs of the business community.”
Republicans will have their work cut out for them if they hope to return to the good graces of the business community, Konopnicki said. He said the Republicans will have to be diligent if they hope to regain the trust of businesses; much like a business must work twice as hard to recapture the business of a former client.
“Unless our party chooses to recognize we are pro-business (and) less government…we won’t ever get them back,” he said. “There’s been permanent damage done to the relationship between Arizona businesses and Republicans.
“We, as Republicans, have left our core — the business community — behind.”