KJZZ’s Friday NewsCap revisits some of the biggest stories of the week from Arizona and beyond.
To talk about the just-approved budget, the latest in the dispute between the Maricopa County supervisors and the recorder, and more, are Barrett Marson of Marson Media and and Stacy Pearson of Lumen Strategies.
Transcript
GOV. KATIE HOBBS: This budget does invest in public education, and it leaves schools whole. They're not seeing the, the shortfall from that [Prop.] 123 expiration.
SEN. JOHN KAVANAGH: The biggest win, I think, from a Republican standpoint, is the $1.4 billion in tax cuts. We took the Trump great bill tax cuts, and we brought them down to the state level. The only state to do that.
SEN. SALLY ANN GONZALES: We always talk here at the Legislature about the devil is in the details. Well, I just read you what the devil is saying in this budget about this money being used for immigration enforcement.
FORMER MARICOPA COUNTY RECORDER HELEN PURCELL: I worry about those people who maybe are just on the sidelines, and they see, "Gee, I'm not sure that my vote is going to count, so if they're saying that this is wrong, maybe I'll just not go."
DEER VALLEY SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER KIMBERLY FISHER: My action was nothing more than calling out the dictatorship that we have been dealing with, not for just the one meeting, but for the three and a half years.
ANDREW GOULD: At the end of the day, it was forcing ultimately home buyers to subsidize groundwater for other uses, and it was impacting housing and affordability.
MARK BRODIE: And with me to talk about the just-approved budget, the latest in the dispute between the Maricopa County supervisors and the recorder, and more, are Barrett Marson of Marson Media. Good morning, Barrett.
BARRETT MARSON: Good morning.
MARK BRODIE: And Stacy Pearson of Lumen Strategies. Stacy, good morning to you.
STACY PEARSON: Good morning.
MARK BRODIE: So, hot off the presses, state Legislature has approved the budget, sent it off to the governor. Stacy, we heard from a number of Democrats talking about in the Legislature what some of their wins were. What to you, if you're a Democrat, what are you happy about in this budget?
STACY PEARSON: Oh, what am I happy about on this budget?
BARRETT MARSON: Well, this will be a short conversation.
STACY PEARSON: Well, thanks. The weather's great. I like the rain. It's been great. No, the fact that we wound up with a budget that does cut taxes, particularly taxes for the middle class, and I think most Democrats would agree that taxes on tips and that cut's been lovely.
MARK BRODIE: Overtime, things like that, yeah.
STACY PEARSON: Yeah, I mean, that's certainly a win. Long term, I think we are still going to have to figure out how to fund education, and we're going to have to figure out how to get corrections officers' raises, and we're going to have to figure out where new revenue comes from.
The other win I think is a moratorium on data center tax breaks. You know, a three-year hiatus is probably what we need to do to figure out what these things really are.
MARK BRODIE: Barrett, we heard from a number of Republicans saying their biggest win was basically tax conformity, which is a phrase that for a lot of people makes their eyes glaze over, but it's basically conforming Arizona's tax code with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
From your perspective, is that the biggest win for Republicans?
BARRETT MARSON: Look, this has been something the Legislature does every single year because the feds always make some minor or major tax changes, changes to their IRS tax code. So normally, this isn't really contentious. It's not a big deal.
This year, because the number was so big, it became a bigger deal. And that was, you know, again, it's about $400 million a year, $450 [million] a year over the next three years. So this is a huge, huge win for Republicans. It is no tax on tips, but it's just making it easier for us, all in this room and every listener out there, to file your taxes because it is based on sort of the same numbers, if you will.
If they hadn't done this, by the way, many tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, potentially, of people would have had to refile taxes.
MARK BRODIE: With those, that reduction, though, Barrett, are we going to be in a situation at some point down the road, be it next year or three or four years down the road, where the state is is, as Stacy referenced, looking for more money or just making further cuts, because it's not getting that $400-plus million in a year?
BARRETT MARSON: Sure, and that's about 2.5%, 3% of the state budget. The state budget is about $18.3 billion. So yeah, you know, losing 2.5%, you take it away from other priorities. But it is our money, and it is conforming to the federal numbers, which is important.
MARK BRODIE: So, Stacy, what do you think led the governor and Democrats to say, "OK we'll go along with this," because the governor had vetoed a few different versions of this earlier on in the session, and Democrats were pretty pretty united in saying, "We don't like this"?
STACY PEARSON: Well, she was very clear about vetoing a bill that didn't have a spending cut associated. You can't just cut taxes without cutting what those taxes were funding. So, you know, we're a bit in an abusive relationship in that Democrats are celebrating that it didn't get worse. This wasn't worse. I mean, it really is, well, that was really unpleasant, but at least I didn't break an arm. I mean, we're really in this very strange Stockholm syndrome.
BARRETT MARSON: You know, Mark, I think what's important here is that even Stacy, when you asked her about the wins in the budget, talks about tax cuts.
STACY PEARSON: Yeah.
BARRETT MARSON: That's great. That's great for Republicans. It's great for Arizonans. It's great for Democrats. But one thing it's probably one person it's probably not great for is Katie Hobbs. She didn't get a lot of budget wins. You know, the three-year moratorium on data center taxes tax cuts, what, that's $50-odd million over the three years that they save, that eventually will probably be taken out of future budgets anyway.
So there weren't a lot of wins for Democrats, and I think that's why you saw a handful of Democrats in each chamber complain bitterly about this budget.
MARK BRODIE: OK. So, Stacy, what from this budget, if anything, do you think the governor runs on in her reelection campaign?
STACY PEARSON: So she —
BARRETT MARSON: "That I'm not Andy Biggs."
STACY PEARSON: Well, I mean, that guy's got a tin foil hat. Sorry about that.
But she runs on the fact that we've preserved higher education funding and scholarship funding and, for the, for a large part, K-12 funding. She runs against the runs on the fact that she has tried, made some very serious attempts to rein in the out-of-control ESA program. She obviously hasn't gotten some of those guardrails pushed through, but there's still, there, there's still hope, at least on the initiative side, that something good happens.
And then, more importantly, the, the governor runs on the fact that she has government functioning. In a divided environment, she is a voice of reason. It is sane. It is passed on time. You know, we are not seeing fights spill over into the streets. I mean, this is this is there's an adult in the room, and she's executed as the highest elected official in the state.
BARRETT MARSON: That is one hell of a campaign ad, let me tell you. No one out there cares more about, "Hey, what's happening in state government? Hey, it's kind of quiet. All right, let's go."
STACY PEARSON: No, that's exactly what people are craving. You're so wrong. People want boring. Make boring make boring good again. ... Yeah, make boring cool again. I mean, this is exactly what people are craving. They don't —
BARRETT MARSON: Yeah, but they don't want things done, and I don't know that Katie Hobbs has gotten things done.
STACY PEARSON: How do you — look at, look at the rest of the Legislature. We've got tin foil hats, lunacy. I mean, we've got —
BARRETT MARSON: I don't disagree with that at times.
STACY PEARSON: I mean, this is, you know what she didn't do? Investigate chemtrails. I mean, we're like we are, we are getting back to a functional government, and that's a win for Democrats.
MARK BRODIE: OK. So one thing that was not in this budget, something that the governor really did want, and, Barrett, I'll start with you on this, was an extension, or at least asking the voters to extend Proposition 123, which expired, I now think, a couple of years ago. The schools are still continuing to get the money.
BARRETT MARSON: And that's very important to note.
MARK BRODIE: Right. The schools are continuing to get the money. Last year and this and this coming year in the budget, they will get that.
But Republicans within themselves couldn't agree, it seems, on what they wanted to ask voters about, and they certainly couldn't agree with the governor. Do you foresee this ever going back to the voters at this point?
BARRETT MARSON: I do. I think once we get out of the election next year, we can, if Katie Hobbs is governor especially, I think we see more of a push to renew 123 next year.
MARK BRODIE: Stacy, what do you think?
STACY PEARSON: Agreed. I mean, there we have a path, and, and it was developed by Gov. [Doug] Ducey and his team to create more funding for education without raising taxes, and whoever's in charge needs to continue to explore that.
MARK BRODIE: I mean, is there reason, though, to believe, I mean, last year was not an election year, and they couldn't get it done. Is there reason to believe that next year would be any different?
STACY PEARSON: Sure. I mean, knowing that she's termed out, I mean, folks aren't trying to block her success to try to create a one-term governor. I mean, I think she, I think Katie, term two Katie Hobbs is going to be a really fun governor to watch.
BARRETT MARSON: Look, Rod Stewart just played here earlier this week, and I have reason to believe.
MARK BRODIE: Oh, man. Did not have that on my bingo card for today.
BARRETT MARSON: And look, I know your listeners, I know your listeners. They're Rod Stewart fans.
MARK BRODIE: Oh boy. OK. So, Stacy, anything in the budget that, if you're a Democrat, like were there hold your nose and vote for this moments for Democrats?
STACY PEARSON: I think it's a lot less this year than last or other, you know, years prior. We don't have pork. We didn't have a lot of pork to go play with, and so there were very few pet projects for people to be really upset about.
And so it really was a basic functional budget, keep the train on track, like let's go. You know, we're, we're really looking at a functional government, and that alone is a nice refreshing change.
BARRETT MARSON: You know, Mark, when there's less money to play with in a budget, it's easier to do. It's when there's more money and everyone's fighting over, you know, this $4 million project and this $7 million project, that's when it gets a little hairier. So this year, there wasn't a lot of money to play with, so it was kind of easier to do.
MARK BRODIE: Were there elements of this, Barrett, do you think that Republicans kind of had to hold their nose and vote for, or was it generally like, "The stuff that Democrats want, we don't really care that much about. It's not not a big deal?”
BARRETT MARSON: Yeah, I would say there's very little quote "wins" in here for Democrats, and it's just kind of a normal budget. And with the 1.4 or other —
STACY PEARSON: Or Republicans. I mean, aside from tax cuts, the Republicans didn't get much of their pet projects either. We don't have a border strike force. We don't have, you know, the lizard guys.
BARRETT MARSON: Well, hold on. That's not true. We do have the, the local border support fund, which is, I don't know, $17 million, something like that, I don't remember the exact number right now. But no, that's that that's been in the budget for the last few years, remains in the budget. It remains. And so I, you know, there was some law and order money, if you will, that certainly Republicans and Katie Hobbs can, can point to.
STACY PEARSON: Yeah, $55 million for corrections to comply with the federal court orders. I mean, this is, there, there was stuff in here to just comply with the law, which is nice.
MARK BRODIE: And we we've heard that the Legislature's going to try to wrap up today, hopefully. Referenda, the big issue still outstanding. Obviously, there are some third-read bills or some bills to be voted on, but are, is the decision about what voters are going to figure out in November still the big thing left, Stacy?
STACY PEARSON: Yeah, referral-palooza is really what today is. And, no doubt, yeah, and what, how that ballot takes shape could very well determine the state's future. I mean, we're talking about some really really important bills, really important referrals that are still being considered, ones that democracy have, have democracy on the line, ones that have the future of the state and unions' ability to organize. I mean, we've got some really big items still outstanding.
BARRETT MARSON: Yeah, there are a couple to watch. There is one that doesn't allow boys in girl spaces, and there's one that Stacy mentioned, sort of the, the democracy one, you know, that would limit mail-in balloting, you know, mandate precinct balloting, things like that. So there are several important ones to watch. There's also a bill that sort of deals with license plate readers.
MARK BRODIE: And there's one that would ban photo radar, too, I think.
BARRETT MARSON: Yeah, and so, well, that's an HCO, right. That is a, that's a, it's a referral, but there's a, there's just a regular bill … that would essentially ban Flock, right, and license plate readers. So those are the things to watch out today, what are, what is the Legislature going to do with that today.
And I almost can guarantee this, they will end the session at some point today, maybe even in daylight, which would be great.
MARK BRODIE: Wow. So very quickly before we go to break, we know that last election, I mean, the ballot was endless. There was a lot of referrals. Any predictions on — there were three that the Legislature put on last last session. Do you have any predictions on how many to expect this November?
STACY PEARSON: I mean, if we believe Republican leadership, they wanted to limit it to 10.
MARK BRODIE: 10 total.
STACY PEARSON: A 10 total or 10 additional, I don't know if it matters. But ultimately, what I think last ballot taught Republicans is, without a campaign and the machinery behind that, just referring an endless number of things doesn't necessarily help your candidates.
BARRETT MARSON: Well, one of the things that I think hopefully the Legislature noticed is that voters were not eager to take away their own rights.
STACY PEARSON: Right.
BARRETT MARSON: And several of the initiatives that or referrals, rather, that went down two years ago were about capping rights on the voters. They weren't going for that. So I, hopefully the Legislature at least takes note of that.
MARK BRODIE: Stacy, there is I feel like we talk about this every week on the Friday NewsCap, this drama between the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and Recorder Justin Heap. There are a couple of things going on this week, but let's start with this ballot envelope scanner that was apparently removed from a ballot tabulation area or somewhere within the county tabulation center.
BARRETT MARSON: Mark, it wasn't apparently, it was.
MARK BRODIE: It was.
BARRETT MARSON: It was. There's video.
MARK BRODIE: There's video of it being —
BARRETT MARSON: There's video, and you know, I guess it didn't happen if there wasn't video, but guess what? There's video of the guy putting it into the trunk of his rando car.
STACY PEARSON: Four, four angles of video of this thing going for a field trip.
MARK BRODIE: So the recorder is saying that the machine belongs to his office, it was not in use at the time. The supervisors are saying that is not true.
I mean, not trying to adjudicate this, Stacy, but like optically, this seems not great for anybody.
STACY PEARSON: No. The, what happened with the release of that footage yesterday is this fight that was largely on Twitter and in the court itself jumped the fire line. I mean, this, it was, we've got a Board of Supervisors that is holding its position, we have a recorder that was holding his position. Now it has spilled over to the active administration of an election. And a scanner getting loaded up on a dolly, on a roller and put in somebody's pickup truck is bonkers.
MARK BRODIE: This was during the, we should mention, this was during the Tempe City Council election.
STACY PEARSON: During the Tempe election. And Councilmember Randy Keating sent a demand yesterday to preserve records in anticipation of litigation.
BARRETT MARSON: Because, you know, one of the things is they took the machine, which isn't so good to begin with, but they also took ballot envelopes.
STACY PEARSON: You're right. Yep.
BARRETT MARSON: We don't know whether those ballot envelopes still had ballots in them. And I think that's really important, that he may have taken this person who took the machine may have taken actual ballots.
And, you know, did that disenfranchise anyone in Tempe? Well, we don't know that yet, we have to wait for the end of the investigation. But I think that's really really important. It's, it's a small fact, it's a significant fact that is sort of lost in a lot of the stories because the machine and the video, but there are potentially ballots.
STACY PEARSON: There were, there were papers, too, yeah. What I find so fascinating about this is if you would have asked me when we first started talking about this, whether or not I thought Debbie Lesko was going to be in a position of opposition to the county supervisor, like I would have thought that they would have gotten their tin foil hats at the same store, she and Justin Heap. Not at all.
I mean, she is, she is standing strong for democracy in a way that I didn't expect, and she's demanding answers. I mean, this is a Republican majority board that has dug in to the, to the strongest degree against what County Recorder Heap is trying to do.
BARRETT MARSON: We do things right on the west side, just FYI. West side west side for life, baby. No, you know, I think, I think Stacy talked about something very important. Four-fifths of this board is absolutely united and they are standing strong. You have the three of the Republicans and the Democrat who are a united front, and I don't know that people expected that going in.
STACY PEARSON: I agree.
BARRETT MARSON: But I will tell you, the board has been virtually unanimously united in this effort against Heap. And, you know, again, it's for the good of the administration for voters. Thankfully, so far, voters haven't noticed. I mean, it's, it's been a little bit insider baseball, but I will say ...
STACY PEARSON: Ballots get mailed in what, 14 days
BARRETT MARSON: But taking machines during the middle of an election that may include ballots, that all of a sudden now starts to bring it to the voter. Hey, what happens if he just takes a machine, you know, in July or November that does have ballots? And how are we going to, you know, how are we going to get, ensure that the election is run properly? And the, that is the board's main focus, and Heap's main focus seems to be attacking the board.
MARK BRODIE: Well, Stacy, it's an interesting point you made about Supervisor Lesko because there were some questions, right, when Bill Gates and Clint Hickman left the board about what the board would look like because they, of course, had been involved in the 2020 election and, you know, harassed and threatened and stalked and, yeah., dealt with all sorts of stuff.
And really, nobody knew what was, you know, how the new supervisors were going to react. It seems as though the new board, in many ways, is kind of similar to the old one.
STACY PEARSON: Agreed. And once presented with the facts, the Board of Supervisors has been, to Barrett's point, relatively unanimous in its defense of how the elections are administered. We don't have room for this for these games.
I mean, this, this people's trust in elections are at the lowest point in recorded history. This walking a ballot scanner out of a building and loading it into a pickup truck is bonkers.
BARRETT MARSON: I think it's, it's for the board, the personalities are pretty different. Like, I don't think anyone who has ever known Kate Gallego or Debbie Lesko would put them sort of in the same camp of Republicans, right? But yet, one of the thing, the thing that does bring them together is they both have incredible backbones. These are two incredibly strong women. You know, one's a bit more of a moderate Republican, one's more of a bit of a conservative Republican, but what they have are incredibly strong backbones.
And they, the two of them, the chair now and vice chair, are standing united and strong. And along with [Steve] Gallardo, along with Thomas Galvin on the east side, those four have really stood up and are going to bat.
And they're, you know, Justin Heap wants someone arrested, you know, for maybe, you know, picking up some ballots, and, you know, Jack Sellers and Debbie Lesko, they are, you know, "Arrest us first. We, you arrest us, not, you know, some, you know, election worker who's just doing their job."
MARK BRODIE: So, Barrett, let me ask you about a former Maricopa County recorder, Helen Purcell, for whom the Purcell Principle is named.
BARRETT MARSON: I just want a Marson Principle. I don't even know what my principle would be but I want a Marson Principle.
MARK BRODIE: We'll work on that. You might not like what it actually says but we'll can get one for you. She came out this week and said that in the lawsuit, the original lawsuit between the recorder and the supervisors, that the, the judge should stay this and put it off because we're close enough to an election that, you know, it could cause some problems, could cause some confusion.
Barrett, does this like legally, and I guess in the court of public perception, like does this matter what Helen Purcell has to say?
BARRETT MARSON: It very much matters. Now, little caveat, I am not an attorney. I used to get my law degree from Law & Order University every week, but it would seem that her argument is pretty valid and, you know, kind of hits it on the head.
We are in elections, essentially. I mean, as Stacy noted a couple of minutes ago, early ballots, couple weeks, get mailed out in just a couple of weeks. We are having a big primary for a lot of important positions here, and I don't think it's time to make drastic changes in the administration of elections. Let's deal with it when we're not counting ballots.
MARK BRODIE: Do you agree with that, Stacy?
STACY PEARSON: Oh, absolutely.
MARK BRODIE: With the caveat that I think none of us in this room are lawyers.
STACY PEARSON: Right, but we, we all know the court of public opinion is, is on the side of boring, traditional election administration, not experiments. I mean, Helen Purcell got unelected because precinct locations changed and people got mad. They went to where they used to be, that facility wasn't open anymore.
I mean, folks just want to go mail their ballot in or drop it off where they always drop it off and call it a day.
BARRETT MARSON: By the way, Brodie, Pearson and Marson PLC would be a pretty good law firm.
MARK BRODIE: Yeah, we'd get I don't know, can we be disbarred if we're not members of the bar?
BARRETT MARSON: We can't be disbarred.
STACY PEARSON: That's a good. Yeah, no, that's a good question.
MARK BRODIE: It does it does have a certain ring to it. Get the business cards made up. All right. Barrett Marson, Stacy Pearson, thank you both so much for the conversation. I really appreciate it.
BARRETT MARSON: Thank you.
STACY PEARSON: Take care.
MARK BRODIE: That's all for this week's Friday News Cap. You can find the full show podcast at podcast.kjzz.org. I'm Mark Brodie. Thanks for listening.
