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April 5, 2002

Host: Michael Grant
Topic: "The Journalists' Roundtable"
In-Studio Guests:
Robbie Sherwood, Arizona Republic;
Scott Thomsen, Associated Press;
Barrett Marson, East Valley Tribune

>> Michael: It's Friday, April 5, 2002. In the headlines this week, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio finally makes his big decision announcing he will not run for governor. There were new developments in the Arizona Cardinals stadium situation. The team's fate may rest with the state legislature as two different stadium bills are being discussed that could determine the future of the new stadium. And state lawmakers once again in special session to deal with the issue of the Indian gaming compacts negotiated by the governor. Good evening, I'm Michael Grant. This is the journalists roundtable. Joining me to talk about these and other issues are Robbie Sherwood, political report for "The Arizona Republic"; Scott Thomsen with the associated press; and Barrett Marson, with the East Valley Tribune. Maricopa County share you ever Joe Arpaio ended months of spectation this week when he announced he will not run for governor this year. Reporter Robbie Sherwood predicted months ago that Arpaio wouldn't run.

>> Mike Sauceda, Reporter: The sheriff was asked at the press conference by capitol media services Howie Fischer about a promise made by "Arizona Republic" reporter Robbie Sherwood last year.

>> Michael: Joe Arpaio maybe not going to run -- I'm not sure.

>> Robbie Sherwood: I'll shave my head if Joe Arpaio runs.

>> Do we have that on tape, excuse me?

>> Robbie Sherwood: I'll be looking like chip Scutari.

>> How much did Robbie Sherwood pay you not to run so he would not have to shave his head on "Horizon."

>> Joe Arpaio: It cost me out of my own money, I don't want anybody to indict me for using taxpayers' money, I went out and bought five razor blades and I delivered them to Robbie and I said, just in case. So I'm sure he's very happy he doesn't have to have a haircut.

>> Michael: Robbie, now -- good having hair.

>> They were cheap razor blades, I understand.

>> Robbie Sherwood: They didn't even have an aloe vera strip on them. He probably confiscated them from an inmate hiding them from God knows where.

>> Michael: Why didn't the sheriff decide to run for governor?

>> Robbie Sherwood: Sounds like he had some more sheriffing to do, that he wanted to ride off into the sunset Oz share and you have not governor. He hasn't even caught those Duke boys yet, so...

>> Michael: Are we through with this exercise, Scott? We had gone through it four years --

>> Scott Thomsen: I think that after two rounds of this, you have to be done with it, because it's kind of like the boy who cries wolf. If he toys with this idea of pay attention to me, I might run, I think people have already had two doses of it and aren't going to take it serious lay third time.

>> Barrett Marson: I heard that this time around. Why don't you guys listen to him. He did this last time around. It's different -- I think next time he'll do it again. I think we'll all be there to listen.

>> Robbie Sherwood: When I made the bet, I felt at that time he was saying witness a wink and a nudge and we were hearing it back that he was winking. At some point he stopped win King and got more serious and that's when I think people started to think he might do it.

>> Michael: He started meeting with pollsters, started getting briefed on state issues --

>> Robbie Sherwood: Getting speech coaching, making a lot of moves. Frankly, making me nervous. But -- and -- I'm not thrilled that he didn't run. I mean -- I get to keep my hair, but there goes by Pulitzer. This is the train wreck everybody would have turned out to watch.

>> Michael: What about his political future? What's he planning on doing?

>> Scott Thonsen: My understanding is that he's planning to run again for sheriff in three years. That's his immediate plans. He described himself as a front line Warrior and that that's his job. The other piece of this, I think, is as Robbie was pointing out f you look at this seriously, I think Joe was looking at this thing seriously towards the end. I think getting into this kind of race sets him up for being attacked by some of the people that he considered himself -- considers his friends, and that would kind of teardown this entire vision of the toughest sheriff in America that he has worked so hard to build up. I think that that's the one thing that reamy kept him from getting in.

>> Robbie Sherwood: I agree. That was central to my cynicism. I think Joe loves the love and as soon as you step into that race, a certain number of people who profess that love before will instantly turn against you because they will support another candidate and he had nowhere to go but down and I think he gets to maintain his popularity level now.

>> Barrett Marson: And who gets his 25 or so percent support? Does that go to BETSEY or Matt?

>> Robbie Sherwood: Could be a dogfight for that. There's so many things happened this week that we'll talk about. We'll see writ falls.

>> Scott Thomsen: Who he comes out to support later o he could still be an influential play inner this race by saying, hey, I'm going to back -- pull a name out of the hat.

>> Michael: Incidentally, at the news conference, he said, I haven't decided who I will endorse or for that matter whether I will endorse. Why don't we handicap this this thing. I think -- we have the major candidates in the field now. We've obviously got Matt Salmon, the former congressman, Betsey Bayless, Secretary of State, Carol Springer, current state treasurer and Randall Gnant, the Senate President. How do you think it loads up right now?

>> Robbie Sherwood: At the beginning of the week, it would have been clearly a clear path for Salmon to fill that void. He had such a good start to his week. He had a fund-raiser with Steve Largent, the Oklahoma congressman running for governor, Hall of Fame wide receiver, raised about $100,000, minus expenses, probably a lot, but a nice bump. Napolitano was taking torpedoes from Matt over her handling of the Arthur Andersen deal. He was scoring points with that. That was a real liability. And Arpaio stepped out of his way and let him be the clear front-runner.

>> Scott Thomsen: At least Matt declared himself the front-runner upon Joe's announcement. In fact, basically handed himself the nomination, apparently, which can be a little bit dangerous to play that kind of presumption because some folks actually like you to run in a primary before you declare yourself the winner.

>> Barrett Marson: Especially after weeks saying we're running like we're 10 points behind. That's been their mantra. We're running like we have something to prove. All of a sudden they stepped up and took the mantle.

>> Robbie Sherwood: Yesterday, it was uncovered by the republic that Matt Salmon took immediately $500 from enron. What's important about that is that Matt had declared he hadn't taken any money from enronest and and was beating the tar out of Janet Napolitano in press releases and on radio program for taking $100 from enron. And I don't believe that Matt -- may not even have known that he had taken it. He probably had a research assistant look back, the records only go back to about 1996, this happened in '95 and he's had to eat some crow, has been apologizing all over the time.

>> Michael: You say the records only go back to 1996, in terms of being computer loaded?

>> Robbie Sherwood: Right, the SEC website only go back to '96. This obviously bear add little more checking before you open fire on your opponent. He actually took five times more than her and so therein -- when they should be riding a wave of -- for the reasons I stated before, they're now in damage control and you might even see some heads roll within his campaign.

>> Scott Thomsen: This isn't just a question, though, about whether or not Matt is apologetic about attacking Janet on this issue. Clearly there is a problem here. You don't go out and make those kind of accusations that there's something wrong in trying this smear campaign by associating an opponent with a company that is complete disaster for all of its investors in suggesting it was wrong for her to take money. If you haven't done the kind of checking you need to make sure you didn't. Because he just cast those same smears upon himself five times over because he took five times the money that Napolitano did.

>> Michael: Now, the classic wisdom, Barrett, would indicate, well, number one, it is a Republican primary. That usually brings out the more conservative elements of the party. So that's going to favor either Matt Salmon or Carol Springer. On the other side you've got, however, Betsey Bayless and Randall Gnant, perhaps arguing over what's left of the spectrum.

>> Barrett Marson: I think that the -- first of all, Matt's going to have a much easier time staking out that because he will have more moneyed to it with, at least in the beginning. Carol, she's yet to get her 4,000 $5 checks to get the state funded match for campaign money. So Matt's going to have the money to get his message out, and Betsey will be able to stake out that middle ground, I think, as she has done most of her career.

>> Robbie Sherwood: And particularly with what happened this week, Betsey unveiled her business plan before the chamber. It was by all accounts a pretty good speech. And with -- and Matt and Janet, who is the front-runner for the democratic party, and slightly the front-runner overall, Duking it out, Betsey might be quietly gaining some ground. I think Betsey probably improved by doing nothing or just by staying out of it this week.

>> Michael: And, in fact, Robbie, the recent polling data has indicated that, has it not? I mean, it has shown Betsey Bayless gaining some ground and Carol Springer and Randall Gnant, at least in the polls I have seen, oftentimes almost not registering.

>> Barrett Marson: Another thing, I think, Matt Salmon remained pretty much equal, whereas Betsey Bayless had been coming up.

>> Robbie Sherwood: I am curious to see polls that don't have the Arpaio factor. I think Matt's theory has been those are people that will vote for me in the end because Joe won't be there.

>> Scott Thomsen: I will remind everybody we're still months away from this. The polling at this date really doesn't mean a hill of beans, but what I think this comes down in the Republican primary is a get out your supporters contest, because they have different constituencies. Matt has the very conservative element. That's his cornerstone. Betsey Bayless has Republican women soccer moms and if she can get her supporters out, she makes this a contestable election. Matt has problems right now with the republic women voters and there is this -- there's a little bit of a backlash going on there. The question is, who turns out to vote. If it is the traditional turnout where it's heavily dominated by conservatives and male voters in that primary, you have to think he's got an edge. But if some of the others can bring out their supporters, they stand just as good a chance.

>> Michael: New developments this week in the Arizona Cardinals stadium situation. While state lawmakers talking about a couple of bills relating to the stadium, Mesa may be one step closer to reaching a deal on a site. Barrett what happened in the Mesa stadium side of this equation?

>> Barrett Marson: The Hurley family, which owns substantial land in the area, including a real important 33 acre parcel that would include some of the stadium land, decided that it would give the city -- or lease for a nominal rate about 15 acres of land that is absolutely needed for the city to host the stadium and had been creating a major stumbling block. The Hurleys asked $14 million for this land. The city only planned to pay them about $8 million. They really hold a lot of value for this land. It's been in the family for 100 years. These are people really connected to the land. In fact, they had an opportunity to lend some major development -- land some major development but they refused to set land to the developers, they would only lease it to them. They felt they should keep the land in the family.

>> Michael: On the other hand, by doing it this way, if the stadium lands there, it enhances the value of the rest of the surrounding land owned by the Hurley family in.

>> Barrett Marson: Absolutely. They have -- first of all, the property is worth a lot of money no matter what happens. It's at the intersection of two major freeways, it's pristine farmland, it's absolutely beautiful. And it's ready for development any day. But with a stadium there, attractying a hotel, office park, restaurants. Hurley said, we can't really lose. We only give up about -- not even 10% -- about 5% of their land holdings, and for a good return.

>> Robbie Sherwood: I've noticed that the Mayor, keno hawker, is sort of singing a different tune. He has more optimism. With this new development -- are they still apart on the deal or can they get --

>> Barrett Marson: Keno now, you say he wasn't a fan, it was a lot heavier than that.

>> Michael: Slight understatement.

>> Barrett Marson: Really. Here was a man who just cannot want to -- did not want to work with the Cardinals and now he has found a way not -- he can work with a nice Mesa family man who believes in the land. He can look at private property rights. Can he point to that and say, now we should do this deal because --

>> How far apart are they?

>> Barrett Marson: Six million bucks. Right now, six million bucks.

>> Robbie Sherwood: Well, Michael, why don't you -- we know you got it.

>> Michael: I can't get checks. It's a long story. What about other East Valley communities?

>> Barrett Marson: There was a meeting today with Scottsdale. Salt River-Pima Maricopa Indian community. The Mesa convention and visitors bureau. They're all on board for about $150,000. That would cover the game day expenses. Mesa likes having that cadre of support. The one entity missing is Tempe. I talked to Neal Giuliano today, and he said they still have no plans to join. The seven million the Cardinals owe them could erase any kind of debt the Mesa site would have. But they're not interested.

>> Michael: Meanwhile, back in Congress, they pass a bill, President Bush signs it, that makes people feel warmer and fuzzier about the Gila River Indian tribe. How so?

>> Scott Thomsen: Well, should that $6 million arrive somewhere in the continuing saga of what's happening on over in Mesa, a couple of things are happening to try to clear the way to let some of the tribes get back into this game. President Bush just signed a new federal law that would allow civil disputes on tribal land to be handled by federal courts rather than tribal courts. That's a big issue, for example, if somebody goes to a football stadium and gets beaten up by an Indian tribal cop, where do you go for jurisdiction? It was one of the issues raised by the county prosecutor, Rick Romley, in his --

>> Michael: Or for that matter, contract disputes.

>> Scott Thomsen: The same issue. At the same time, the legislature is starting to take up a couple of different bills, one of which would make it very clear that, yes, tribes can participate on their own without a sponsorship from the county, and that would get Maricopa's complaints completely out of the way, clears the path for the Gilas or fort McDowell to get back in. On the other side of this, there is a second bill that's being pushed in the house by representative Robert BLENDU from Litchfield Park would that put everything to a halt and put the entire tourism and sports authority back on the ballot yet again in September asking voters to say "yes" or "no," do we continue or do we shut this thing down.

>> Barrett Marson: I find it amazing that in the middle of a war on terrorism and the middle of President Bush dealing with the Yasser Arafat and Sharon, he's got to stop and say, OYE, I have to stop and help the tourism and sports authority out of this mess. I can't believe it's come to that. It's ridiculous the president has to get involved in such a local issue.

>> Michael: What's the frustration level at the legislature? I know there is a strong feeling they would like to pull the pin on this thing --

>> Another understatement.

>> Michael: And lob it out the window. That's fine, but are 16 and 31 votes there to send it back to the ballot?

>> Robbie Sherwood: No. I don't think so. I think that there my be 31 but not 16. And there might be 16 to ratify the tribes but not 31. And so we're heading for mutual gridlock and sounds like the best way out was for this Mesa thing to happen and make it all a moot point. Is that going to happen?

>> Barrett Marson: If Mesa happens, I give up predicting -- if mace -- I predicted Joe wouldn't run.

>> Michael: You're still going to owe Giblin that five bucks.

>> Barrett Marson: First of all, I think that there could easily be a movement in the Senate to get that 16 votes. They're a lot closer to getting 16 votes to get rid of the TSA or put it on the ballot than in the house to get 31 votes for Gnant's bill. There is a real constituency out there that wants to keep this stadium --

>> Scott Thomsen: There's a lot of stomach acid being created over this entire thing because, you know, these folks at the legislature are hearing from constituents over and over again why hasn't the TSA come one a site? Why does this continue to drag on? Why is this the soap opera?

>> Michael: Why did we do this in the first place?

>> Scott Thomsen: Exactly. Now, our community didn't get it, so, forget it, they feel they have been lied to, they haven't been getting a straight deal, there was moves afoot to gear this thing towards Tempe and place it there.

>> Michael: So what's their point?

>> Scott Thomsen: All of that frustration says, shut the thing down, and there are more legislators who are starting to come onboard with that idea and, you know, Bob BLENDU has given them a vehicle to vent that frustration.

>> Robbie Sherwood: Something about a two car funeral that applies here with the legislature and this subject --

>> Barrett Marson: Well, first of all, the TSA and Ted Ferris is counting on the legislature to do something. I thought Ted Ferris came from that culture where nothing gets done quick even when they want to do it quick, so I think they're putting a lot of faith in the legislature.

>> Scott Thomsen: This entire thing, it's pretty clear it was geared towards a site that would have worked but didn't work because of the airport and now nothing fits.

>> Michael: Well, state lawmakers have been dealing with the stadium, they have also been busy with other issues. This week the legislature was called into its second special session of the year to deal with Indian gaming. Scott, any progress?

>> Scott Thomsen: Well, we've gotten started, and that's about it for this week. They set the schedule and really did nothing else this week. But on Monday the Senate government committee is going to take up three bills dealing with Indian gaming, and you ever the governor's plan on the table. You have another one from Senate president Randall Gnant, which would allow the existing horse and dog racetracks to have slot machines of their own. Then you have a third bill from senator Pete Rios, which is more perfunctory. It says whatever you agree to in your negotiations, the legislature has to ratify it in order to put it into place. They're going to hear testimony on all of those bills, take all of the questions, argue about it on Monday, not vote it. That will take place in another week. The Senate is going to move all of this forward before the house even begins to wrestle with this.

>> Michael: There is just a ton of money being bounced around in this stuff. The racetracks fired a salvo with the series of ads at the start of the week. I heard counter-ads by the tribes driving out to the program this evening. Governor's office, of course, saying the racetrack ads are false and misleading. And some of the facts did seem to be a little flaky that were in the racetrack ads, in particular the claim that the money the state was getting from the compacts was going to go back to the gaming operators. How did they mess that up, Scott?

>> Scott Thomsen: Well, if you read through the actual language of the bill Governor Hull hull's plan creates a fund, it's an Indian gaming fund, to accept the money from the tribes that they would get as their cut. It then flows from there into various other pieces of state government, including regulation authority by the department of gaming, oversight activities that are related to casino operations, but another chunk of it goes from there into the general fund where then the state gets to spend it.

>> Michael: In fact, I think about, what, 88% of it goes basically to the general fund?

>> Scott Thomsen: Exactly. And so the -- you know, it was a case where it doesn't appear that they read down into the fine print because the folks that drafted the bill came immediately to, here's where the money goes as soon as that ad came out. Governor Hull was very adamant about her feelings being hurt on this issue because she felt attacked for no good reason.

>> Barrett Marson: And they were personal attacks. They really cut to the heart of her as a governor of the state.

>> Robbie Sherwood: They brought out the old alt fuels, from the governor who brought you alt fuels, this is what she is trying to put on the table. The governor felt like she's worked very hard on this gaming compact and I think you see a lot of lawmakers, particularly Senate Democrats, who would like to just ratify these compacts straight up just because it represents the work of the tribes and their wishes.

>> Michael: I've heard that there's a comfortable approval margin in the Senate and the house much more in doubt. But I wondered about the comfortable approval margin in the Senate. After all, Randall Gnant wants this resolution referred to the ballot on the horse tracks.

>> Robbie Sherwood: When the person who controls the agenda and sets the agenda is not one of the comfortable members of the approval margin, then all -- literally all bets are off.

>> Michael: So to speak. Well, let's see. Let's get to the 2003 budget. Republicans proposing budget cuts?

>> Robbie Sherwood: House appropriations chair Laura Knaperek came out with a plan. I think she was pushed a little by leadership to get some initial ideas out there. The big feature of this is about a 4% budget cut across the board for most big agencies. They would allow universities to have some money for new students. So there's would only end up being about 2.5. What's interesting about that, is they also take another 20 million for what's called vacancy savings, attrition savings, so you would lose 50% of the money for positions held vacant within each agency. That's a tool appear lot of agencies used to meet previous budget cuts and so that's outside the purview of that 4%. So I think the message there is you might have to come up with some live bodies to meet these cuts.

>> Michael: Incidentally, Robbie, this is 4% on top of the budget level that has already been cut by, what, 2.5 or 3 --

>> Robbie Sherwood: I think when you look at it over the two-year span you're going to see about 8 1/2%.

>> Michael: Let's see. We had some activity on the informed consent abortion bill, Scott?

>> Scott Thomsen: Yeah, this went late last night. Quite a bit of a floor debate, about an hour or so back and forth on the idea of what do you -- what do you force a doctor to tell a woman before you can perform an abortion? And the bill is, as it stands, would -- strips out a lot of the really detailed written information and specifics on what has to go into it, but you would have to describe the gestational age of the fetus, you would have to go through the risks of the procedure and alternatives to doing it, and do that 24 hours before the surgery was performed. So it amounts to a 24-hour waiting period as well. It got through the committee of the whole 25-18. After lengthy debate. You know, there's probably going to be a few folks that missed the floor vote when this thing goes up on the board --

>> Barrett Marson: The COW vote --

>> Robbie Sherwood: We don't know if they were missing it because there was an abortion debate but it needs 31 votes on the board to pass. It only needs a majority of whoever is there to get a committee of the whole preliminary approval. So when this thing goes up on the board, you might see some people taking a walk, and it might struggle to get 31 votes.

>> Scott Thomsen: It's easy to stand up on the floor where you're being counted but not named and go either way on this, but this is an election year issue that people are trying to use as a wedge issue and they're trying to get people's names in writing on where they stand. It's the same bill that's come up several years before, and this thing has been defeated. And I don't see the 31 votes there to get this thing out of the house.

>> Michael: Ok. Panel, we're out of time. Thanks very much. To see a transcript of tonight's show or to share your views or contact us, please visit the Channel 8 website at www.kaet.asu.edu, click on "Horizon" on the left side of the screen, and follow the links. Monday on "Horizon," the last part of the loop 101 will open over the weekend. We will update you on the entire Valley freeway system. Thank you very much for joining us on this Friday evening. I'm Michael Grant. Have a great weekend. Good night.

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