Sen. Mitzi Epstein might not be running for the Legislature again, but she plans to stick around in politics. 

You might see her around the Capitol. Or the Maricopa County Stadium District Board. Or advocating for fair taxes. Either way, Epstein, D-Tempe, who served six years in the House and four in the Senate, most recently in Legislative District 12, is still talking politics. 

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

What first sparked your interest in running for office? 

Education has been the focus from the beginning and always. I was looking at how things were going for my kids and all the other kids, and I was very active in creating advocacy groups of parents and teachers and retirees and so on to support public schools. I kept noticing, “Oh, the bottom line here is the funding from the state is inadequate.” 

School funding is still an issue 10 years later. What’s your response to that?

Folks in my generation need the younger generations to be all that they can be, and if we’re not funding their schools adequately, then we’re doing ourselves a disservice. 

We have had some good steps forward. Red for Ed – I am never going to forget how great it felt to stand with 75,000 people at the Capitol – parents and teachers and retirees and grandparents and students to say invest in education. 

When I was minority leader, I simply said, “Look, we need $300 million just to catch up with inflation for K-12.” The education community agreed, the governor agreed, and we did get $300 million in the budget to try to address the gap between how inflation has grown so much faster than our funding per pupil has grown. 

What impact did you bring to your district? 

When I was elected, we turned our district from red to blue. I think that our community feels very strongly about education. They prefer to bring money to all the kids in the state, more than fix this one pothole or create a fish pond or various other kinds of projects I’ve seen over time.

How have politics changed from when you started to now? 

I’ve been a Legislature watcher for much longer than that, and there was a time when every speech on the floor and every committee speech started with, “I respect all of you so much, and here’s something nice about everybody,” and then go on with your explanation of what you want to be different. 

It’s frustrating to hear certain legislators who seem intent upon winning points for their political party and denigrating, insulting and making wild accusations about the other party. Even worse is when they stand up and make wild accusations that are completely unfounded about everybody on the left. That is just plain bigotry and prejudice. It needs to stop. 

What can the legislature do better as a whole, regardless of who is in power?

More transparency and time. Giving us an amendment and saying, “Vote on this in five minutes,” is ridiculous. There’s no time to vet it. 

We need time to avoid mistakes. Every single year in recent times, we pass budgets, and we always have to do supplementals the next year. Never mind the dollars and cents, just changing the words because we were in a hurry, and the Republican Party wanted us to rush it through, so they’re full of mistakes, and we have to go fix them. When there’s a law that has a mistake, that affects people’s lives. 

We need to raise the [legislative] salaries. It’s hard to recruit smart, hardworking people who also need a full-time salary. Our salaries haven’t even kept up with inflation since the 1990s.

What is your proudest accomplishment while in the Legislature?

In 2024, when I was the Senate Minority Leader, I felt like the coach, responsible for a whole team whose job was to get the torch across the finish line after the other Olympians had carried it to the stadium. They had done all the talking to get this groundswell of public support to repeal the 1864 ban on abortion, and we in the Legislature had to actually make it happen. 

Our pitcher was Sen. [Priya] Sundareshan, and our quarterback was Sen. Anna Hernandez. With a brilliant staff, we planned many different chess moves and used set plays to create a strategy for whatever punts, strikes, and foul balls the opponents might throw at us. Each of our caucus members took a turn with a speech here and a point of order there, and lots of conversations about the importance of this freedom for women to determine their own lives.

What will you miss most about the Legislature?

I will miss not having a microphone to write the wrongs in society. In my first year on the House Ways and Means Committee, I saw a legislator share information that was wrong. It was really frustrating to hear people say things that were just wrong. I can’t do anything about it sitting in the audience, but it suddenly dawned on me: I have a microphone. 

I’ve used a microphone to correct mistakes and to right wrongs and to speak up the way that I know my constituents want us to speak up on the floor in committees and press conferences and conversations with great reporters. 

What won’t you miss?

This goes back to those insults that my colleagues would make from time to time, where they just broadly say everybody on the left is mean to puppies. It’s prejudice, and I will be glad to be getting away from that.