Harry Mitchell has died; he was 86 years old. Mitchell served as the mayor of Tempe for 16 years, from 1978-1994.
During much of that time, he also taught government at his alma mater, Tempe High. After leaving city hall, Mitchell served in the state Senate and then two terms in Congress.
As mayor, he played a major role in developing Tempe Town Lake; in Congress, he was a sponsor of the 21st Century G.I. Bill and also voted in favor of the Affordable Care Act.
Robbie Sherwood served as district director for Mitchell from 2007-2011; he’s currently the communications director for Arizona House Democrats.
Sherwood joined The Show in studio to talk about his former boss.
Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: Robbie, good morning. Thanks for being here.
ROBBIE SHERWOOD: Good morning. Thank you. It’s an honor to be here to talk about Harry.
MARK BRODIE: So, how did it come to be that you worked for him?
ROBBIE SHERWOOD: Well, I had been a journalist at the Arizona Republic for years covering politics. So, I knew him as a state senator there and had a relationship with him there, a professional one.
I didn’t cover his race in 2006, where he was like the "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" story. He beat the bully, J.D. Hayworth, and defied the odds and won as a Democrat in this Republican-leaning district.
I had left journalism. I had been out for about a year working in public relations. A year after he won, they weren’t expecting to win. So, there was nobody on his campaign staff who knew how to run a congressional office. So, they hired a veteran chief of staff out of retirement. I believe his name was Gene. I’m forgetting his last name. I’m sorry about that.
But he had vowed to work for Harry for one year, get you up and started, show you where the bathrooms are, show you how to run a congressional office, but then I’m leaving. And he kept that promise.
So, a year in, he retired. They promoted Alexis Tameron, who you might know
MARK BRODIE: From running the state Democratic Party for a while.
ROBBIE SHERWOOD: Yeah, from district director to chief of staff, and they were looking around for a district director. And someone suggested maybe they should call me. Thankfully, that happened. It was really a life-changing call for me because it put me directly into Congressman Mitchell’s orbit, and I became part of what I like to call the Mitchell Mafia from that point.
MARK BRODIE: What was it like working for him in that role? Because during the week, of course, he would be in D.C. You would be here. But if memory serves, he came home a lot.
ROBBIE SHERWOOD: Yeah. He was someone who wanted to be home on weekends. So, he flew back almost every weekend unless there was something to keep him in D.C. It wasn’t easy for him or us. If you’re in a competitive congressional district, there’s not really much time off. So, there were events, business tours, Congress on Your Corner events, town halls, media interviews scheduled all day long on Saturday and sometimes on Sundays.
So, it wasn’t always easy for him. It was exhausting. But what he really wanted was to be home and mowing his lawn. That was his happy place, working in his yard, making it beautiful. He was very house proud, this home that he and his wife, Marianne, had moved into when they were married and where he still resided until he passed away.
MARK BRODIE: I would imagine you must have had a lot of conversations in the backseats of cars, going to different events and interviews and things like that. What were those like?
ROBBIE SHERWOOD: Harry would speak to you in stories and anecdotes. When he needed to make a point, there was always a story. And if you heard the story more than once, that was really on you, because apparently you needed to hear it again.
He loved to talk about Tempe and the history of things. He really was an architect for the Tempe that you see today when he was mayor. He would say things in aphorisms like, one I remember, “a city stops growing, then it starts to die.”
He was talking about Tempe. And that was a challenge for Tempe when he was mayor and after, because Tempe didn’t go on this big expansion where they started annexing land the way their neighbors did. They became landlocked. Ahwatukee went to Phoenix, not to Tempe.
So, how then do you keep your city growing and not let it die? Well, he started initiatives to start rehabbing Mill Avenue and turning it into a destination. Old-timers will remember there used to be more biker bars than college bars on Mill Avenue. And he began advocating for Tempe Town Lake and the Rio Salado Project that started and was completed under subsequent mayors. But it started with his vision to create something new in Tempe, and Tempe’s thriving. But it started with that vision under Harry Mitchell.
MARK BRODIE: So Robbie, you had a really nice post on Facebook last night as news of Harry Mitchell’s death started to come out, and you talked about his vote on the Affordable Care Act, which you referenced as a vote that, as you say, all of you knew would cost him his seat and you your jobs.
What was the thought process, what were the conversations like leading up to and after that vote?
ROBBIE SHERWOOD: Well, to take you back to that time, this was the beginning of the Tea Party movement to oppose that vote in particular. And so there was a lot of pressure. There were people outside of our office, lobbying in phone calls, threats sometimes even. So, it was a very intense political environment.
But we were also hearing from other people who had pre-existing conditions and could not be insured and were wanting something to be done. And I think that’s where he was at. He knew that this was a historical vote, that this was our one and perhaps best chance to create some sort of affordable healthcare infrastructure in the country.
He also knew his own political environment. This was, again, as I said, a Democrat in a Republican district. This vote would almost assure that he wouldn’t be reelected a second time.
But he knew it was the right thing to do for the country, and so did our staff. And so, it was the proudest professional moment that I have in my career, and it’s one that he and I shared. And I tend to get very emotional about it.
And we did. We got swept out in a big red wave, similar to the one I hope we see in reverse this November. But we never looked back on it. I think that vote has been vindicated many times over to where Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, however you want to say it, is now more of a third rail for politicians who mess with it. That’s a good way to lose your job in reverse. So, I think he always understood that and knew that that would be a lasting legacy.
MARK BRODIE: So Robbie, before we let you go, when you think of Harry Mitchell’s legacy and your experiences with him, what will sort of be the enduring thing that comes to mind for you?
ROBBIE SHERWOOD: Anytime that I roll past Tempe Town Lake, I think of Harry. Anytime I walk into a Costco, I think of Harry. That’s his happy place, other than his front yard.
Yeah, he was just such a fixture in this community, and he loved it so much. And it loved him back. So, if you wanted to feel like a celebrity for a moment, like a somebody, just walk into a Costco with Harry Mitchell someday. You’d be there for half the day, forget what you came for, just because he was stopping and talking to people who knew him and wanted to catch up and say hello to him.
So, I just — it’s a way you want to aspire to be. He was in public service for all the right reasons, and he did a really good job at it.
MARK BRODIE: All right, that is Robbie Sherwood. He served as district director for then-Congressman Harry Mitchell. Robbie, thanks so much for being here. Thanks for helping us remember Harry Mitchell.
ROBBIE SHERWOOD: That was my pleasure. Thank you.
