Editor’s Note: The Arizona Capitol Times has reestablished its Q&A that will feature people in the world of Arizona politics and government. You’ll get their take on current and past events, their jobs and organizations and learn a little about them as people. This is the first one since March 2020 and will be a weekly feature. 

After eight years serving in the House of Representatives, former Republican state Rep. Regina Cobb now finds herself as the Arizona Dental Association’s executive director, carrying her knowledge and experience of lawmaking into her lobbying position. In a recent interview with the Arizona Capitol Times, Cobb discussed her experience at the Legislature as a House Appropriations Committee chair and how it differs from her observations of current lawmakers.

The questions and answers have been edited lightly for style and clarity.

Do you miss being in the Legislature at all?

There are times I miss it. I love policy. That’s what I really wanted to do, was to represent my district, and I love the people of my district. I still get to do some of that policy part because I’m our chief lobbyist so I work with some of the issues in medicine and in dentistry.

What got you initially interested in public office? 

From the time I was 18 years old, it was more exciting for me to get my voter’s registration than it was actually to get my driver’s license. My parents were really involved in politics. Not physically involved but always knew the issues, knew who was running and talked about politics within my family. What got me probably thinking about running for office was I saw a need of my state representative. She was also a patient of mine at the time. She’s no longer alive. I saw the slate of people that were going to run, and I felt like I could do a better job than any of them. It wasn’t good timing. I had thought about doing it later on in my career, but not something at that moment. That opportunity happened at that moment and I decided I was going to take it.

What’s your favorite moment while you were at the Legislature?

I was really excited to get KidsCare passed. I think that was a goal of mine when I first started in the office. When the cuts happened, it shouldn’t have happened. I’m a children’s advocate. It was a difficult moment for me because I had to go against my party. I probably gave up political capital for about a year, which is fine. I kind of got a year where I can get my feet beneath me again and kind of regroup.

What’s budget season like as Appropriations’ chair? Walk me through that process.

It’s hectic all year long if the Appropriations chair is utilized the way they’re supposed to be utilized. I know the last few years it hasn’t been that way. Speaker Toma and President Peterson have pretty much done all the negotiations. During the summertime, I would meet with all the agencies and the departments and go through their budgets. I also met with lobbyists and different organizations to get the lay of the land. Probably in September or October was my time that I would spend mostly with the members as they start filtering in at that point. In January, you hear what the governor’s preliminary budget is.

One thing that probably irritated me more than anything is the governor’s budget would always come out before the House’s budget came out. When the governor comes out with a preliminary budget, it’s setting everybody up for failure. They keep saying “this is what we’re going to get.”  The normal negotiations shouldn’t be that way. That is a sore spot for me because one of our priorities, and especially the first year that I was in the Appropriations chair, was to pay down the debt. When the governor refinanced instead of paying down the debt, I got a little irritated with that because that took away one of our priorities. We did end up doing that a few years later. (Sen. John) Kavanagh was the chairman in the Senate and he probably had more time negotiating with me as a vice chair in the House when I was there than he does as a chairman in the Senate now. That’s sad because he has a lot of knowledge and brings a lot of history to the process.

Do you think that’s a product of the direction the Legislature has been headed toward or is it due to operating under a divided government?

I think it’s because they’re operating under a divided government. The House, the Senate and the Governor’s Office all want that control. I think that that’s how it changed, because we weren’t divided before. We all knew we were playing a dance and we knew we were going to have to dance with each other. They don’t necessarily feel that way and they feel like they could get a budget done, but they’re not going to get all the things on either side that they want. 

What’s the toughest part of being a legislator

Making decisions and being able to look at yourself in the mirror the next day and know that you’ve made the right decision, even if it goes against what everybody else believes you should do. I’m representing not only my constituents, but I represent myself too. Sometimes what was difficult is making those really tough decisions and knowing at the end of the day that I’m going to receive some type of punishment. If I go against my party, then I’m going to have to answer to my party. 

We’re about to get a new wave of legislators after the election. What would be your advice to someone who’s just been elected to the Capitol for the first time?

Sit back and watch for a while. I took this advice – sitting back and observing the situation without going in and thinking you know everything. I knew dentistry. I had been doing it for 30 years. Negotiating the bills, figuring out how to get them passed, the chess game that you play to get your bills passed was all a learning process, and it took me probably two or three years before I really learned that whole process of how it goes. One of the best things I did was I told myself, I’m only going to sponsor 10 bills for the first few years, and I actually kept that.

The only reason I would go over that in the latter years is because being the Appropriations chair, I always had to sponsor all the appropriation bills, and I always had some technical corrections in my pocket. But if you look at my first years, you’ll see that I only would usually sponsor right around 10 bills. Also time management – that was such a big deal with me. My first year gave me an unreal expectation of how long a session really lasts. I think, was like 56 days or something and ended around the beginning of April. That’s two to three months ahead of where they’re ending sessions now. 

It must be maddening now with some of these little breaks lawmakers are going on later in the session. How do you plan around that?

You were not allowed to even schedule anything. It was told that right in the beginning you are going to be on the floor, and you better not schedule your vacation until after June.  Now they’re scheduling vacations like in May  and I’m thinking, this is not what our Legislature is supposed to be. They’re supposed to be there at all times. I mean, one of the reasons that they do this legislative immunity for traffic things is to make sure that our legislators made it on time. Now you’re taking vacations for two or three weeks. This is ridiculous. I mean, it shouldn’t happen. I wish they would get back to where they were before, because I don’t think we missed days.

What kind of insight do you have now after being a lawmaker and having been on the other side of committee rooms?

I started on the other side with the dental association. My job is to evaluate bills, figure out what we want to accomplish, who could speak during committee. Who do we get as a sponsor, those kinds of things. My predecessor, Doris Goodale, sponsored one of my bills for me. It’s actually easier this time because I understand the process a little bit more than I did the first time around when I was doing it as Government Affairs chairman. I think this job takes every one of my talents and kind of mounts them into one. It has dentistry, has administration, it has the legislative experience, PR experience – all those things are things that I’ve done throughout my career.

What are you hoping to see from the Legislature over the next year?

For one thing, I’m hoping we see a positive budget. I know last year we were making up for mistakes that they made the prior year. Going forward, I think they … say what can we do differently to where we can at least get a neutral budget, if not a positive budget – and that we’re not cutting services. I would like to see some of the things that were cut over the last few years restored.They swept $80 million of board funds, not just our board, but all the boards. I think that that’s a problem when you don’t give control to the boards for their own appropriations. I’d also like to see some actual collaboration on getting things done. Hitting each other over the head is not is not conducive to getting progress.