Rep. Kirk Adams, a Republican from Mesa, will provide new leadership in the House, taking over as speaker in January after only one full term. He will replace Rep. Jim Weiers as the top-ranking legislator in the House.

Even over the phone, you can sense Chuck Daggs’ pride when he talks about Rep. Kirk Adams. The way his voice exudes delight about Adams’ rise to prominence at the Capitol, it is impossible not to envision his face glowing with excitement.
“I’m as proud of him as I am one of my sons,” said Daggs, a former legislative district chairman in Mesa. “He’s a remarkable person.”
Daggs would know. He is one of the people Adams credits with helping him grow politically and teaching him what it meant to be a Republican when the House speaker-elect first dipped his toes in the political pool about a decade ago.
President Bill Clinton was in his second term, and Adams, who was in his mid-20s at the time, began to notice the country was moving in a direction with which he wasn’t comfortable. A call to the Republican Party resulted in a district chairman recruiting him to be a precinct committeeman.
“And I said, ‘What’s a precinct committeeman?’ He simply said to me, ‘Don’t worry about it. We’ll make you one and fill in the details later.’ I said, OK,” Adams recalls.
His party work evolved into volunteering for a gubernatorial campaign, becoming chairman of a legislative district and taking on leadership roles in the state party.
His reputation prompted calls for him to run for a legislative seat. In both 2002 and 2004, he spurned the requests in favor of focusing on his young family and growing business.
In 2005, Adams relented and filed the necessary paperwork to seek office the following year. He had no idea that he would get an expedited trip to the House of Representatives.
Death and politics
While early-American President John Adams is a strong influence on the Mesa Republican, it is the visage of the lawmaker’s towheaded son, also named John Adams, that is in a framed 8-by-10 photo on the wall of Adams’ legislative office. It is right next to the door, at eye level, and the toddler’s face is the last thing he looks at as he leaves each day.
The photo, which is one of several family pictures around the office, is a constant reminder to Adams of how quickly life can change. His son was only 11 months old when he pulled a ladder on top of himself on Feb. 6, 2006, at the family’s home and died.
Five weeks later, Sen. Marilyn Jarrett died. Rep. Chuck Gray, who was already planning to run for Jarrett’s seat when she retired at the end of the year, was appointed to replace her, which opened up a seat in the House.
Adams was a natural fit, as the only declared Republican candidate in District 19.
But the recent family tragedy hung in his heart and on his mind. He had been grappling with the sacrifices every legislator makes when it comes to family, the prospect of long days stretching into long nights.
Jarrett’s death meant Adams and his wife, JaNae, would have to make a decision in the middle of their grief.
“I seriously considered not accepting that appointment. In fact, for three or four days, that was the single thing that my wife and I discussed,” Adams said.
In the end, they decided he needed to follow his calling to public service — not that it was easy.
“My first session in here, I was, as you can imagine, very distracted,” he said.
Later that year, he was elected for the first time, and Adams returned to the Capitol in 2007 having learned about the legislative process on the fly the previous year and ready to jump in with both feet.
Showing up on the radar
By the time the tumultuous 2007 legislative session ended, people were starting to take notice of Kirk Adams. It was late June, and House Republicans had just swallowed a bitter pill. A budget drawn up by Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano and Republican Senate President Tim Bee had just been approved, even though it didn’t reflect many of the priorities of the House majority caucus.
Many in the House believed Speaker Jim Weiers had walked out of the bipartisan budget talks earlier in the year, thinking Bee and Napolitano couldn’t strike a deal that would gain approval from lawmakers.
When word leaked out in May that an accord was near, Weiers and other House leaders rushed out a budget that ultimately failed on a floor vote. The Senate version already had passed, and it was tweaked to throw a few insignificant bones to the House Republicans to curry their favor.
The result was the passage of the modified Senate budget, despite the opposition of two-thirds of House Republicans. The vote was a statement of the caucus’s dissatisfaction not only with the budget, but also with its leadership.
Adams was one of several disenfranchised caucus members who rounded up votes to oppose the budget and draft one that was more representative of the group’s priorities.
Even before the session ended, there were whispers of a leadership coup, with Adams being mentioned most often as the person who would be installed as the new speaker. Nothing came of it, but he was clearly identified as a person to watch in the upcoming year.
Steve Yarbrough, who will serve as speaker pro tem for the next two years, worked with Adams to unite opponents of the budget and walked away impressed.
“He’s got a very calming effect. He’s very thoughtful and very bright,” Yarbrough said.
It didn’t take long for Adams to enter the limelight. Shortly after the session, he and Tucson Republican Jonathan Paton announced they would hold public meetings to examine the role of Child Protective Services in the deaths of three Tucson children.
What came out of the hearings and hundreds of hours of behind-the-scenes research and meetings was the very thing that will make Adams a successful speaker, supporters say.
Policy over politics prevails
For many years, CPS was a target for Republican lawmakers, who questioned its methods and effectiveness, given what seems to some policymakers as a steady stream of reports about children who died, despite CPS involvement.
A special legislative session in 2003 resulted in more money for CPS, but the news stories about children dying were no less frequent.
When Adams and Paton said they wanted to investigate the deaths of the three Tucson children, Democrats and other CPS advocates were skeptical.
But Adams and Paton identified a number of changes they wanted to see made in the statutes governing CPS, they worked with the stakeholders and came up with seven bills that significantly reformed how the state protects children. Those bills were signed into law before the session ended.
Paton gives Adams the credit for having the vision and resolve to get those bills through the process.
“It was the perfect situation for things to get out of hand and he didn’t let that happen,” Paton said. “The end result was solid legislation that was real reform.”
Paton, who is a bit of a firebrand, said the CPS issues had him angry. He served under Adams as the vice chairman on the Government Committee, and he bounced his ideas off Adams, who tempered them, serving as “the sober sounding board” for what needed to be done, Paton said.
Compromises were made along the way, but Paton said they weren’t made at the expense of Adams’ convictions.
“He seems like a mellow, easy-going guy…
but there’s stuff the Governor’s Office wanted (to change) and he said, ‘No way, it’s too important.’ And he was right,” Paton said.
Adams uses the CPS legislation to illustrate one of his bedrock philosophies: Policy trumps politics. Rather than react to situations for political gain, an effective majority needs to craft public policy that is good for the state.
“We worked very hard in a very open and inclusive process to get the policy right. The politics then became irresistible because the legislation was so good,” he said.
Rebuilding the GOP majority
Near the end of this past summer, Adams, 35, announced his intentions to run for speaker of the House. He produced a 16-page glossy booklet — it was more like a business plan — that detailed the changes he wants to make so Republicans can use their majority effectively.
The cover of the booklet prominently displayed an architectural drawing of the state Capitol to highlight some of the notable features of the building, such as the copper dome, the victory statue at its peak and the stone from local quarries used on the outside walls.
But there were also some subtle additions to the drawing, as Adams included four elements he hoped would be a hallmark of his tenure as speaker: Strong Foundation, Pillars of Strength, New Beginnings and New Viewpoints.
The policy-before-politics approach is the foundation on which all legislative success is built, Adams said. The pillars are formed by an open and transparent process, which he says gives Republicans the moral authority to advance policy.
“People, I think, are craving an honest and an open government,” he said. “The legislative process is far from perfect. It can be messy and there can be all kinds of personal agendas that come into play, but, ultimately, the more open we can be, it strengthens our position.”
The new beginnings are marked by his election to speaker, which provides an opportunity to change how the House operates. The new viewpoints, he said, wrap it all together and constitute a change in perspective from past leadership.
“I’m not out to get the governor. I’m not out to get the Dems. I’m out to promote and push good Republican policy,” he said.
“I think as a body, we are, as Republicans, very happy to engage in that debate and do it in a respectful and straightforward way, because we think our policies will be better for the state of Arizona.”
Chief among the changes in approach and procedure, he said, will be to alter the way state budgets are crafted. He opposes having an Appropriations Committee that has virtually no say in what the final budget looks like because the details have all been hashed out in secretive, closed-door negotiations.
Instead, Adams is pledging to reinvigorate the appropriations process. To do so, he says the bulk of the budget work will be done by the committee, with leaders only stepping in to mop up the final few details.
Adams and the Democrats
Republicans instinctively grow nervous when one of their candidates has Democrats rooting for him. After all, that usually indicates someone whose philosophical hot-button issues line up with more liberal views.
So, when Democrat Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, whose liberal record causes some conservatives to see spots, calls Adams’ ideas for running the House “great and wonderful,” there’s some understandable uneasiness in GOP circles.
But Paton attributes that to Adams’ affability and deportment, which allows him to work well with Republicans and Democrats.
“I think it’s more of his demeanor and (way of) doing things than that he agrees with them all on policy,” he said.
Sinema agrees, saying the work she did on the CPS legislation showed how Adams approaches problems and gets things done. Although he was personally invested in the issue, she said, he never took setbacks or objections personally.
“It’s good to work with him, because he’s never going to start screaming in the middle of a meeting,” she said, noting the same cannot be said of other lawmakers.
Political consultant Chuck Coughlin said Adams is one of the most civil lawmakers at the Capitol.
“He’s a graceful politician and his instincts are to treat (everybody) with respect,” Coughlin says. “It helps with the comity of the body that Republicans and Democrats alike have a speaker they believe they can go in and talk to.”
Plus, he always follows through, said Paton.
“I never had to worry if he was gong to follow through on something with CPS,” Paton says. “That’s like the gold standard at the Capitol.”
Adams chalks it up to a genuine fondness for his legislative colleagues, one that harkens back to legislatures of past decades, when lawmakers would argue in committee and on the floor, then retire to a nearby restaurant for dinner, a few drinks and a some laughs.
“I like people,” he said. “I like my Dem colleagues on a personal level. I just think they’re very wrong on a lot of issues. Sometimes JaNae thinks I’ve got it wrong. It’s a natural part of life: We’re not going to agree on everything.”
Politics aside, Sinema said the reason she and most Democrats wanted Adams to become speaker is that he is fair and inclusive, something they felt Jim Weiers, the speaker for the past four years, hasn’t been.
While Adams had pledged to work in a bipartisan manner, that was before Republicans added to their legislative advantage and before it became apparent that Napolitano might leave Arizona to take a position in Obama’s Cabinet, turning over control of the executive branch to Republican Secretary of State Jan Brewer.
“He doesn’t have to (include us) anymore. I think a big leadership decision he has to make is, what does he want to do?” Sinema said.
By all appearances, Adams will work with Democrats when he feels it’s appropriate. He’s already said that the Appropriations Committee will reflect the balance of the chamber and the political beliefs of each caucus.
The policy direction will still be very much Republican, but it won’t be done in an unfair way.
“You can’t do that in a heavy-handed manner and you can’t do that excluding 25 (Democrat) members who were also elected to this body,” he says. “They will have their opportunities to speak out against Republican proposals. I hope those disagreements will be done respectfully, because, ultimately, we all serve the same citizens of Arizona.”
Eating the elephant in pieces
If Adams were a baseball manager, he would thrive in the National League, where the designated hitter is anathema and strategy is emphasized. That’s because he calls himself an incrementalist, believing swinging for the fences isn’t the only way to score a run.
“It’s difficult to eat the elephant all in one sitting, sometimes,” he said. “We’re not always going to get our way.”
So, when working on an issue, the starting point needs to be the common ground.
“Grab that first. Get there as soon as you can,” he says. “Then battle it out over your disagreements in a respectful and cordial manner. I think that is the type of institution everybody wants to be part of.”
Adams has been successful in large part because he employs a listen-first attitude, Coughlin said.
“He’s very much interested in listening to other people’s opinions,” he said. “It’s a rarity you find elected officials so committed to listening. Most would rather hear themselves talk.”
And while ideological rhetoric has a place in politics, Adams wants to limit its role. He said it can be counterproductive.
Paton said Adams’s reluctan
ce to take political shots at opponents was on full display earlier this year when The Arizona Republic published a story detailing e-mails between the governor’s top lobbyist and Democratic lawmakers in which the Governor’s Office was lobbying for one of the CPS bills to be killed as the vote was taking place.
The opportunity was there, Paton said, but Adams didn’t utter a peep. Instead, he wanted to focus his energies on fine-tuning bills and getting the votes to pass them.
“There are people down there who do things that are spiteful and mean,” Paton says. “I don’t see that in him.”
Already this year, Yarbrough sees Adams’ desire to neutralize political rhetoric evident in how the speaker-elect is approaching the massive budget deficits. While Republicans generally clamor for reduced government spending, those calls have gone unheeded in recent years. The deficit leaves little doubt that state programs will be trimmed significantly, if not slashed to the bone.
But Adams cautioned lawmakers and small-government advocates at a recent tax policy conference to restrain themselves and not appear jubilant that government spending will be cut.
“No matter what we do…I believe it is important for our success that we approach these decisions in a way that does not come across as gleeful,” he said, adding that “there are people who will be affected” by the budget cuts, and lawmakers cannot appear to be insensitive to those ramifications.
Yarbrough said that kind of thoughtfulness convinces him Adams will be an effective leader.
“I think he truly cares, and that’s a plus. I’m really fired up,” he said.
That approach to governing, Paton said, is what will make Adams successful. It’s also what would have made him the Republicans’ best chance to out-maneuver Napolitano, who has generally run circles around GOP lawmakers since she was elected.
“It’s almost unfortunate that the governor’s not going to have to experience Kirk Adams as speaker. It’s one of those, careful what you wish for things,” he said. “He’s dangerous because he does stick to the policy.”?

Ideology aside, Adams’
trajectory similar to Obama’s
By Jim Small
jim.small@azcapitoltimes.com
If you look closely, the speaker-elect of the Arizona House of Representatives and the president-elect of the United States have a lot in common.
Sure, Kirk Adams and Barack Obama would disagree on most every policy position you could throw at them, but that’s to be expected: Adams is a fiscally conservative Republican, while Obama is a liberal Democrat from a Blue State.
Their stories, however, share similarities that underline just how much 2008 really was a year of change. Both are young, energetic family men who had meteoric rises and quickly rose to positions of power, defeating political veterans along the way and overcoming what seemed at times like steep odds.
Both advocate relentlessly for an open and transparent government. Both preach of changing the way business was done to better serve citizens and voters, Obama through his shunning of lobbyists, Adams through calling for a more inclusive budget process.
Both men are regarded as thoughtful, sensible politicians who spend more time listening than talking, men who are willing to seek expert opinions and thoughtfully deliberate matters instead of acting rashly.
And the two men will each learn the pitfalls of their respective positions in the glare of the spotlight, with the inevitable successes and failures magnified by public scrutiny. But neither would have it any other way.