Will the 2009 legislative session see the Democrats in charge of the House? Minority Leader Phil Lopes hopes it will and he thinks the 2008 session could play a role in his party’s ascension, as it will allow Democrats to showcase what he believes are ideas and attitudes shared by most voters in the state.
The most pressing issue, of little surprise, is the budget deficit, which is estimated to be nearly $1 billion by legislative budget analysts. Lopes says voters want the state to balance the budget, but not to drastically cut services and programs designed to help children and the poor — a view shared by Democrats and Gov. Janet Napolitano.
Lopes spoke with Arizona Capitol Times about the budget shortfall, his hopes for the session and the possibility of Democrats picking up the four seats they need to take control of the House.
Let’s start with the top priority for all legislators right now: the deficit. In June, you said fiscal year 2009 would be a “short year,” but did you imagine the budget you passed last year, for fiscal year 2008, would overestimate revenue by so much?
No, I didn’t. I didn’t anticipate that. It was a surprise to me. But, conceptually, it’s not a surprise, because we have these cycles. We’ve been going through them since the early ’90s. They last two or three years and they bounce up.
How does the state best address an almost $1 billion deficit for this year and at least $1.7 billion for fiscal year 2009?
We have to do it judiciously and not in a knee-jerk way. We cannot stop building schools or stop building roads, stop providing education and services to children and vulnerable adults. The governor’s plan seems reasonable to me. There are some parts of it that may be somewhat objectionable to some in my caucus, but for the most part it (is good). And it doesn’t violate any of those things: it protects older people, vulnerable people, kids. It makes sense.
All indications are that House Republicans will involve your caucus in budget work from the get-go. They’ve said as much to you in the past, though, and I don’t think anyone would argue that it actually happened, certainly not in the manner you were hoping. Do you have faith that things will be different this year?
I do, because this is not just the House Republicans that have extended this invitation — it’s the Senate Republicans. My understanding is that we’re going to continue the process that we stopped with last time, in 2007, with all four caucuses together negotiating the budget. That gets my caucus at the table, as well as all three of the other caucuses, and I’m very pleased with that. Hopefully we can do things judiciously and expeditiously.
Other than solving the budget crisis, what are the top priorities for the House Democrats this session?
We’ve got several. One, we have a category called improving access to health care. We want to solve the Healthcare Group problem in a way that does not leave 25,000 people without health insurance and in a way that not only protects those people, but expands opportunities for small businesses to get health insurance.
We think Science Foundation Arizona works, and we’d like to continue that.
That’s going to be a tough one this year.
Yeah, that is going to be tough.
We’d like to set some standards for greenhouse gases from power-generating entities. We’d like to reward people for conserving energy. We’re going to do something on improving our laws on identity theft. We want to do something around water policy — we’re not quite sure what. We’re waiting to see what happens with the state trust lands effort, because state trust lands in many places, including Pima County, have a severe impact on what they can do in turns of land use planning. Transportation infrastructure is another area we’re looking at.
And we’re not going to have bills on all of these. We’re probably not going to have bills on water policy, we’re probably not going to have bills on transportation, but we’re going to have position papers and be ready with our thoughts on (the issues) so that, as legislation comes down the pike, we can shape it, if not lead it.
On the issues where you won’t have bills, will you try to get Democrats involved in stakeholder groups and work behind the scenes with the members who are carrying the bills to craft the legislation?
No. For those things, like transportation, we’re working with stakeholder groups now. We don’t anticipate that there will be a bill. What we’re doing that for is for the ’08 (election) cycle, because we want our candidates to go out and say, “This is what we feel about transportation planning and the future of transportation. This is what we feel about water policy and growth.”
When we chose these eight priorities, it was with the view in mind that some of them would turn into bills — and we need to be prepared to shape legislation, but if that doesn’t happen, we at least need to have position papers for our candidates.
Reducing class sizes is another one that we probably will have a bill for, but the bill will be not to solve the class size issue, but to have a group take a look at the factors around class size.
What’s going to happen with employer sanctions this year?
As a caucus, we’re not going to do anything at this point. The law is in place; let’s wait and see what the impact is. There’s a report out now that says it’s going to improve the wages and job situations of Arizonans — that’s interesting. We’re going to wait and see what the courts do and we’re also going to wait and see what (House Speaker Jim) Weiers does. He had that blue ribbon committee, it had stuff they were saying needed to be done. Is he going to do it? We think it’s their bill. If they want to fix it, go ahead and fix it. Now, there may be some individual members of ours that, for reasons that are purely their own, that may do something. But it won’t be as a caucus.
How are things in the minority caucus after last year’s dustups over committee assignments and Democratic support of the Republican budget during an Appropriations Committee hearing? There was some very bad blood to begin and end last session.
As I think I’ve said before, my definition of a united caucus is that we vote together most of the time and that we not beat each other up in public, in the press. I think last year, for the most part, we did very well on the first characteristic. There was a split on employer sanctions, but that was not something we thought as a caucus we needed to [oppose]. People were split on that, because, on the one hand, we had introduced employer sanctions bills [in the past], so we’re not against employer sanctions as a concept. And some people felt they had to vote for it because of their own situations in their districts. Others of us, myself included, just thought it was a bad bill. I don’t object to employer sanctions, I just thought that was a bad bill.
But that wasn’t a problem, because it wasn’t a caucus position. Where we did hang together was on tort reform. That was a tough one. So, we hung together.
But there continues to be an occasional dustup in the press, and my preference would be not to do that, not to have that. I’m doing what I can to prevent it, but as my dad would say, we’v
e got bigger fist to fry. It’s important that we tackle the budget, that we tackle ELL (English language learners), we deal with employer sanctions, and that’s where I’m going to be concentrating my time.
How will this legislative session impact the 2008 elections?
It could — and I’m not prepared to say whether it will at this point — but it could impact it. If we Democrats don’t hang together during this session, do everything we can to protect our incumbents, we could be in trouble. But we’re going to do that. We’re focused on protecting our incumbents and doing everything we can for them during this session to improve their chances. That goes for the entire caucus. To the extent that our candidates are an extension of or are considered a part of a caucus, if the voter views the caucus positively, then that’s better for the candidates. There’s also the Republican side. They’ve got to be concerned about what they’re doing, so it could be a downside for them. But we’re still looking very optimistically for ’08.
You are targeting, I’m sure, not just protecting your current seats, but picking up the four additional seats you need to control the House.
Four more in ’08, that’s going to be our mantra.
Any guess on how it will turn out? Will I be interviewing Speaker Lopes when the next session begins?
Let me just put it this way: We haven’t been in charge of this place for 42 years. It’s time for a change. That’s unrelated to me. I think you know me well enough — I’m not a big power guy. So, getting to be speaker as something to feed my ego is not a big deal to me.
But there are things that, if we were in charge, we would do differently. And many of those things that I have in mind would improve the institution.
You’re talking process more than policy?
I’m talking about the process and things like proportionality [on committees] and fairness. Fairness! I think [they are] things that would improve the public’s perception of what we do. I think that’s important. I think an institution that’s so important to the state, for it to be viewed with such disdain, I don’t think that’s healthy and I’d like to make my contribution to change that.
What would you do to change that perception? How do you get the public to change their opinion of the political process?
One thing I think you do is you play fair with the opposition. You give them proportionality. You say, “Listen, you’ve got 45 percent of the body, you ought to have 45 percent of the committee seats.” That’s fairness! The public understands that. When you don’t do that, that’s not fair. People say, “What the hell are they doing? Just playing games?” Well…
Likewise, the public’s participation. We would do that differently. That doesn’t mean to say that everybody who wants to come here and harangue would be able to do so, but we would have a process that all committee chairmen would abide by, that the public would understand and they would know how it is and they would come here and do that. The objective is not to have any resident of Arizona walking away from this place saying, “Aren’t those a bunch of boobs? I came to talk, they didn’t give me a chance,” and bitching and moaning. That’s the super-ordinate goal we’re trying to address.
Things like how many votes does it take on a discharge petition? I think it ought to take 31 — that’s a majority here. Why does it take 34? Because it gives [leadership] a little bit of an advantage. That’s not fair! Thirty-one is fair. It’s those kinds of things I would certainly do if I was in charge of this place.
Thank you, as always, for your time.
No problem.