Tuesday's LD17 Forum

The East Valley Tribune sponsored a candidate forum Tuesday evening, held in the chambers of the Tempe City Council. The moderators/questioners were Lee Templar and Mark Scarp of the Trib.

As the official purpose of the forum was to let the Trib's editorial board get to know the candidates, the format did not allow for questions from the audience. The Clean Elections forum on Thursday will.

Note: Because I covered the pre-primary Clean Election forum for the State Representative candidates in July, tonight I will focus on the statements and answers of the State Senate candidates, Meg Burton-Cahill and Rose Crutcher.

And the fireworks between the State Rep candidates. :)

The format involved the two moderators asking questions and getting answers. Individual questions might have intended for a specific candidate, but the others could respond to the question, or to what the first candidate said.

There was a lot of that going on. :))

Also, the program was separated into two halves - one hour for the State Senate candidates, one for the State Rep candidates.

Rose Crutcher (sorry, but I can't find a campaign website for her) started off the program talking about her background. She's lived in Tempe for 17 years. She is vice-president of the Tempe Elementary School District Governing Board. She also has experience as a legal assistant/paralegal.

One of the panelists brought up the fact that while people in Arizona cannot hold another elected office while serving in the legislature, there is one exception – school board members.

He asked Mrs. Crutcher if her presence on the school board would cause “divided loyalties.”

She conceded that there could be conflicts, but she assured them that she was good at “juggling” and that she has the full support of the school board and administration. She did state, however, that if necessary, she would resign from the school board.

[Note: I bet she does have their support. Their own personal senator? They’ve got to love that idea.]

Rep. Meg Burton-Cahill was asked about the low number of bills that she has been able to shepherd through the legislature. She responded by noting that the Republican leadership (yes, Jim Weiers, that’s you) blocked legislation from Democrats in competitive districts to undermine them come campaign time. She also talked about her behind-the-scenes work at getting the $440 million biotech bill through, even though her name was not on it.

The candidates were basically in agreement on the issue of Scottsdale’s photo radar speed enforcement experiment on a stretch of Loop 101 in Scottsdale.

Burton-Cahill admitted that radar was not her first choice, more DPS officers was. However, she wanted to see the results of the study. If it works, fine.

She stated that while DPS desperately needs more officers, DPS funding and resources shouldn’t be allocated based on “zip code” or “income demographics.”

[Speaking as a south Scottsdale resident, I whole-heartedly agree with that sentiment, and not just about DPS allocations.]

Crutcher added that DPS is “stretched to the limit” and supported adding officers. She also wants to see the results of the study.

The candidates were asked about ASU, its expansion, and President Michael Crow’s vision.

Both talked about things like traffic congestion in Tempe (Crutcher) and the fact that ASU has reached its “saturation point” in Tempe (Burton-Cahill).

Crutcher expressed support for ASU’s expansion, calling it “wonderful.”

Burton-Cahill praised President Crow for bringing “very positive energy” to the University.

On immigration, Crutcher stated that “we cannot let our guard down” and that she would sponsor a bill to set up a guest worker program if elected. She also supports the use of radar and other technology at the border.

Burton-Cahill note that employers who hire illegal aliens should be held responsible, but that “accountability is a two-way street.” We need to provide the tools that employers need to perform timely, effective checks on prospective employees.

On what they see as possible issues with the state budget for the next two years, Meg Burton-Cahill expressed concern that the current surplus is due to a temporary revenue bubble from taxes received due to the real estate market.

She supports raising the salaries of state employees and noted that there are a number of areas that the state should invest in for the future.

Crutcher doesn’t believe that there is any issue that can’t be addressed by a tax cut to “stimulate the economy.” She does think that education funding is “woefully inadequate.”

On the talk of a light rail spur line into Scottsdale, Burton-Cahill thinks that light rail is worth the headaches now (referring to the construction woes) and that she supports the spur into Scottsdale if “that is what Scottsdale wants.”

Crutcher took the opportunity to laud the Tempe bus system and state that if Scottsdale wants the spur it should be discussed.

On the propositions, they were asked what one proposition they support the most and which one they oppose the most.

Burton-Cahill – Supports Prop 201 (Smoke-Free Arizona Act) due to the dangers from secondhand smoke. She called it a bi-partisan issue.

Opposes Prop 107 (the anti-same sex marriage and unmarried couples act).

She also criticized the number of issues brought to the ballot by the legislature to avoid the Governor’s veto and to confuse the voters.

Crutcher – joked about supporting Prop 302 (legislative pay raise) for her husband’s peace of mind (lots of laughs here), before going on to express strong support for Prop 301 (No probation for meth users).

She opposes Prop 204 (Humane Treatment of Farm Animals) because it hurts businesses.

She blamed the Governor’s vetoes for the number of ballot measures.

In her closing, Rose Crutcher reminded people that there are no incumbents in the Senate race and stated that she wanted to be on the committee that oversees school vouchers to promote “accountability” before asking for us to vote for her.

Meg Burton-Cahill talked about her record of fighting hard for the district before asking us to vote for her.

Evaluation: Both candidates presented themselves well and were very civil to each other. They may not have changed the minds of those who have already made up their minds, but undecided voters were given a lot of information to help them make their choices.


As for the State Rep portion of the program?

[Note: their basic positions haven’t changed since the July forum. Please refer to that report if you want information in that regard. Thanks.]

They were civil to each other, in that they didn’t swear at each other, but they all criticized each other on a partisan basis, directly and indirectly.

Rep. Laura Knaperek was asked about the recent neo-con blog-fueled furor over Arizona’s 9-11 memorial and why she thought that calling a special session of the legislature was necessary to address it. [Note: when the candidates started going after each other, it was pretty hectic. I couldn’t keep up with everything that was said, but I think I was able to capture the essence.]

She said that she never called for a special session, only said that it was a tool that the legislature could use to address the issue.

Senator Ed Ableser cut in to state that the furor was just election year “grandstanding” and to wonder why a special session was necessary for this and not for immigration.

Knaperek countered that the Governor vetoed a bill that had employer sanctions and went on to say she wasn’t sure the 9/11 commission used good judgement.

David Schapira noted that the memorial was paid for by private money and that the commission was non-partisan, with members appointed by two governors of two different parties (Hull and Napolitano.) He wondered aloud that if the uproar was not politically motivated, why couldn’t any special session wait the 35 days until the election was over? He also thought it would be more appropriate for any special session to address the state’s woeful funding level for education (50th in per-pupil spending.)

Dale Despain expressed disappointment at the “lack of focus” and that the memorial should have reflected a time when “we all came together.”

The rest of the debate continued in this manner for a while, with one candidate stating something, another rebutting it, and then one of the candidates refuting the rebuttal.

Essentially, the Republican candidates’ default position was that anything that ails the state is due to the Governor; the Republicans in the legislature did a wonderful job.

The Democrats’ position? “Bullshit.”

[OK, they didn’t actually say that, but in the interests of brevity, I summarized. :) ]

The Republicans like giving money to private schools in the form of vouchers (it helps improve the quality of education) and dislike giving money to candidates for public office in the form of Clean Elections money (it’s unfair).

The Democrats dislike giving money to private schools (it hurts the quality of public schools) and like Clean Elections (it makes for a fair and level playing ground for all candidates.)

[Note: All four candidates are running as Clean Elections candidates. For that matter, I think they were all educated in public schools.]

On the ballot measures –

Despain opposes Prop 202 (minimum wage hike) because of its complications for businesses.

He supports a lot of them, but singled out Prop 201 (Smoke Free Arizona.)

Schapira opposes 206 because it would override and weaken Tempe’s existing anti-public smoking ordinance.

He favors Prop 203 (First Things First) because of its dedication to improving early childhood education and health care.

Knaperek opposes Prop 205 (automatic vote by mail) because it isn’t “good for the democratic process.” She also expressed opposition, for similar reasons, to Prop 200 (voter lottery.) [I actually agree with her on Prop 200.]

She favors Prop 107 as essential to society.

Ableser opposes Prop 107 as strongly as Knaperek favors it, not least for the reason that it usurps Tempe’s and Scottsdale’s domestic partner benefits laws.

He supports Prop 203 for the same reasons as David Schapira.

Oh, and though most observers though it was going to happen earlier in the program, in their closings both Knaperek and Despain took shots at their counterparts' youthfulness by touting their own "experience." It was an indirect shot, but was lame nonetheless.

Overall, this was the most interesting forum that I’ve attended so far, and yes, it was because of the open, though civil, conflict between the two sets of candidates. I've come to the conclusion that while civility is a necessary component to the political process, it's time to stop "turning the other cheek" to the Republicans' contempt for anyone who dares to question them. It just gives them a fresh target.

Speaking as a partisan observer, it was great to see some fire from Ed Ableser and David Schapira. We need them, and more like them, in the legislature. I know that many of the legislative campaigns this year have been run on the theme of “uphold the Governor’s veto,” referring to the need to keep the Republicans from gaining enough seats to override it.

To hell with that.

The theme should be “take back enough seats so that the Republicans can’t arrogantly ignore the voters of huge chunks of the state because they dared to select Democrats to represent them.”

With representatives like Meg, Ed, and David, LD17 won’t be ignored.

One other observation: no matter how many fingers the Republicans point at Governor Napolitano, when Len Munsil looks back at his candidacy and wonders where it started going wrong, he should point his own finger at the very Republican leadership in the lege that is blaming the Governor for everything.

If they spent more time trying to actually represent the best interests of the whole state instead of constantly sending garbage to the Governor’s desk because it appeases their ideological extremists and big campaign contributors, they might have looked better.

As it stands, even if someone doesn’t like the Governor, [for the record, I think she’s the best thing to hit AZ politics since I moved here 13 years ago. Like that shocks anyone. :) ] any reasonable person will admit that next to the legislature, she is a paragon of professionalism, competence, and reason.

You may not agree with her positions on many issues, but she has not brought shame to the office or to the state (see: Symington, Fife and Mecham, Evan). Jane Hull may have left her successor with a huge budget shortfall to deal with, but at least she wasn't indicted while in office.

The Clean Elections forum will be held from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Tempe High tonight.

Last note: David Schapira and Ed Ableser have joined forces to launch a website together, EdandDavid.com.