Before his next role as the chief operations officer at Christian Family Care, former House Chief of Staff Michael Hunter sat down with the Arizona Capitol Times to discuss his career at the House and at the state government level after he stepped down as the House’s top policy adviser on Feb. 14. 

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

Can you walk me through how you got your foot in the door for your near 30-year career in government and policy affairs?

I’ve always been attracted to the idea of public policy problem-solving exercises when things don’t work. That attraction got me into being a political science major and I got a graduate degree in political science. My job at Arizona Tax Research, I answered an ad from a Tuesday of the Arizona Republic in the classified ads. This is old school. I circled it, called and got an interview. I think that interest in being helpful is probably why I was attractive to different organizations. I worked at Arizona Tax Research for eight years and was then recruited by the Arizona Board of Regents. They wanted somebody who could speak conservative but advocate for the university system. I then went to the Arizona state Senate, served under two presidents with very different policy objectives and perspectives, [Tim] Bee and [Brenda] Burns. I think I was of interest to Gov. Jan Brewer’s administration because I was the kind of person who could roll up my sleeves and help solve public policy.

What is your approach with policy?

There are lots of words that begin with ‘p’ in our environment. There’s power, there’s politics, there’s policy and there’s passion. But one that gets overlooked is process. If you want to find a really bad public policy outcome, I’ll show you a bad process that led to it. If you’ve got a lot of people with a lot of passion with different power differentials; you know, elected officials in the House of Representatives versus the Senate versus the governor’s office versus the judiciary, how do you bring that energy into some good public policy outcome. We’ve got to define a process that gets you there. I’m a natural advocate for that and to some success, I suppose, in being able to accomplish that.

What is the challenge of managing 60 different personalities in the House?

When a member doesn’t understand another member from another part of the state, I’ll just ask, have you ever gone to that person’s district and gone to a pizza joint on a Saturday night? You’ll find often that the members that come from their districts are a very fair representative of that district. There’s a lot of diversity in different areas of the state. Queen Creek is different from Tempe. So you shouldn’t expect that every member is going to understand each other. I think it’s helpful to have people understand when they’re looking at somebody that they don’t really like or agree with, praying for that person’s well-being is a helpful starting point because it’s hard to dislike somebody when you’re praying for their well-being. I wear my faith on my sleeve so I think of human beings as created in God’s image. If it’s true that people are created in God’s image, they’re worthy of respect. They’re worthy of dignity and, whether I get them or not, isn’t the important thing. Members are going to have this political passion, but I would always tell the staff every opportunity I got, you’re here to serve the members. It says the Arizona House of Representatives on the side of the building, not the Arizona House of Staff. While they can be really intense, it’s not our job to be intense. Our job is to be a force for the integrity of the institution and that means order and process. It means decorum.

Former Speaker Ben Toma often spoke about the process at the House and talked about the excellence of staff. What would you say about House staff and how do you achieve excellence?

They are very talented people. Occasionally, some people join staff where it doesn’t really work out for them. It takes a certain type of person who would want to work at the Arizona House or the state Senate. You kind of fit into a culture there or you don’t. There’re many people who’ve done quite well in their career where the House wasn’t exactly the right fit for them. I’m honored that Speaker Montenegro has made the decisions that he’s made with staff. Speaker Montenegro will be making his decisions about staff and the ones he’s made so far in bringing Matt Specht who was my deputy chief of staff. That’s exactly the right decision. You’re not going to find somebody more knowledgeable about how things run at the House and more dedicated to the job than Matt Specht. My recommendation to the speaker was to keep every single one of them. Keep your department heads. You’ve got the non-partisan offices, the rules office, the clerk’s office, and the research staff who work closely with the committee chairmen. I have a great deal of respect for the leader of the Democrat staff, too. Lisette Flores is a wonderful person.

What makes a good speaker? 

I think servant leadership is the primary thing that makes a good speaker. I’ve been blessed to work for a lot of good speakers. Some of the best in my view, and they know how to tap into the creativity of staff and the energy that staff has. They have a sense of good public policy, but they don’t come in with an oversized agenda of their own. The result of their speakership is channeling the energy of the caucus or of the body into something that moves the public policy needle in the right direction. You certainly have a lot of common interest in generalized things. Republicans certainly are advocates for tax reform; for school choice. But what people mean by those terms can vary a lot. So a speaker is able to channel that energy and turn it into an opportunity to accomplish something. It’s about addition not subtraction; bringing things together rather than sort of tearing things apart in order to build something. I’ve seen people run for speaker where their agenda is to tear the institution down. They’re running for speaker, which is a popularity contest, but they are very critical of the people that they’re trying to gain votes from. The good speakers that get elected speaker, first of all, you’ve demonstrated a skill for pulling together at least a majority of the majority.

Several members have spoken highly of the working relationships they’ve built with you. How important are those relationships to you?

That has been one of the treasures. Thinking about the big policy accomplishments, people will name the tax reforms that I’ve played a role in or school choice or other kinds of things that are a big deal to people. They are a big deal and I am proud of the time I spent working on those issues. But it’s the individual relationships. It’s one-on-one conversations. It’s when a member feels comfortable walking into my office and sharing burdens that they’re feeling or seeking some kind of advice or counsel or just somebody that they can talk to. There’s a reason I keep a tissue box close to my desk because sometimes that’s needed. I have heard from many members how much they value that time that they’ve spent with me just just talking or working through a problem one-on-one or in some small group to the extent that many many members of both parties come in and chat with me. Sometimes they want to pray with me. Whether or not it ends up in explicit prayer, I always believe where two or more are gathered, that God is present. I believe the divine is present in that and so that makes it very special.

What are you most excited for with your next role at Christian Family Care?

There are times when government is trying to figure out how to talk to Christians about the care for family or the care for children or especially children in distress. So what does that look like in our modern culture? That’s the path that my wife and I took when we were waking up to the need to become foster parents. In the same way that I have a desire to strengthen the House of Representatives as an institution, I have a desire to strengthen families as an institution. How do you speak into a modern culture with wisdom and love? Some Christians, they’re speaking into the culture, but it doesn’t sound wise or loving. That’s one of the biggest motivations I have for this opportunity at Christian Family Care. 

Any final thoughts?

Every job I’ve had in the last quarter of a century has been in the same circle more or less. Now I’m in a different circle, but my hope is there’s [such] a strong bridge between these two circles that my friendships remain friendships. There might be some people who want to be a friend of the chief of staff at the Arizona House of Representatives; not necessarily be a friend of Michael Hunter. They want to be a friend of the institution and that’s okay. But I do hope that many of my friendships will transfer to whatever job I’m doing and that I won’t become a stranger at the Arizona Capitol.