Maricopa County supervisors want a judge to pause his ruling in favor of Recorder Justin Heap in a dispute over election administration. Our Friday NewsCap panelists will analyze that and the rest of the week’s top stories. Plus, taking a 21st century look at a 19th century poet.
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Amber Victoria Singer/KJZZTo talk about the latest in the disagreement between the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and Recorder, questions about whether an appointment is allowable and more, The Show sat down with Chip Scutari and Tom Ryan. -
Andrew Bernier/KJZZMore than three-quarters of voters across eight western states say issues related to conservation are important in deciding whether or not to support an elected official. -
Rosemarie Dombrowski/HandoutRight before the pandemic, someone gifted Rosemarie Dombrowski the fascicles of Emily Dickinson — essentially a series of Dickinson’s poems that were only discovered after her death. -
Ayana Hamilton/KJZZArizona State University’s student-led Rossum Rumblers Robotics Club is heading to St. Louis this weekend to compete in the VEX Robotics World Championship.
Transcript
MARK BRODIE: Hi, I’m Mark Brodie, co-host of the show, an original production from KJZZ. Every weekday we bring you the latest news and culture from across the state. You can find much more at theshow.kjzz.org. Here’s today’s episode:
Good morning, it’s The Show here on KJZZ 91.5 in Phoenix, I’m Mark Brodie. Coming up, a new survey asks what voters across the Western U.S. are thinking about conservation issues. And looking at a 19th century poet through a 21st century lens. But first, it is time for the Friday News Cap and some voices from the news this week.
MARK KELLY: Most Americans can agree that we can enforce our laws without chaos in the streets or tearing hard-working families apart. And that our country would benefit from an immigration system that is fair.
JUSTIN HEAP: Now that the court has directed the board to follow through on that commitment, the response appears to be not action but more delay through a costly appeal.
TIM LA SOTA: And at this point, she’s probably the only person that could file such a suit, so I sent that letter hoping she would get going on this.
WARREN PETERSEN: What’s happening right now is we’re meeting every day or every other day on the budget. We have a proposal and we’re really close to having the votes to move it forward.
LISA FINK: This bill ensures that Arizonans are not forced to choose between their bodily autonomy and their ability to work, learn, travel or to participate in public life.
RUBEN GALLEGO: You said to Sen. Kennedy that President Trump never demanded you to cut interest rates in your job interview. Is that your sworn testimony?
KEVIN WARSH: That is, Senator.
RUBEN GALLEGO: OK, well someone here is lying then.
MARK BRODIE: And joining me to talk about the latest in the disagreement between the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and recorder, questions about whether an appointment is allowable and more are Chip Scutari of S&C Communications — good morning, Chip.
CHIP SCUTARI: Good morning, happy Friday.
MARK BRODIE: Happy Friday to you. And attorney Tom Ryan. Tom, good morning, happy Friday to you.
TOM RYAN: Good morning, happy Friday to you as well.
MARK BRODIE: So Chip, let me start with you on this Maricopa County situation. There’s been a kind of fairly longstanding at this point disagreement between the recorder, Justin Heap, and the Board of Supervisors, in large part about who gets to do what when it comes to administering elections.
A state judge this week ruled that Recorder Heap does have the authority to have his IT department come back to him. The county board then decided to ask the judge to stay that ruling, and if not, they’re going to ask for an appeal. We’re also really starting to see some sort of disagreement within members of the Board of Supervisors.
We have an election coming up, in case people hadn’t noticed. What is the impact of that?
CHIP SCUTARI: No, it’s a huge impact. It’s a mess and there’s a massive uncertainty. And as Tom being the attorney on this panel knows, there’s a maze of election statutes.
But this — we have to take a quick step back. The 2020 election in Maricopa County was one of the most scrutinized elections across the country, of all time. And I believe — and I think there’s good evidence — that Maricopa County does a great job of having safe, secure, transparent elections. I think that’s the first thing we have to establish.
The second thing is all of this mess can be kind of traced directly or indirectly to the lies, fraud and tomfoolery of the 2020 elections. When Donald Trump and other people talked about elections being rigged when they weren’t, and these lies — and we’re still feeling the effects of that. And the really big impacts and the real-life impacts or effects of that is that in Tempe, the city of Tempe, they have a May 19th election, I believe.
MARK BRODIE: Right.
CHIP SCUTARI: It’s a jurisdictional election or a municipal election. And there’s something called the Purcell Rule that was named after former Maricopa [County] Recorder Helen Purcell — a case that went, I believe, all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court — that said there’s a certain amount of time before an election where you cannot make a decision that’s going to impact that upcoming election.
MARK BRODIE: You can’t change the rules too close to the actual election.
CHIP SCUTARI: You can’t change the rules this late in the game, in like the ninth inning of a game. And May 19th, right around the corner, so I hope Judge Scott Blaney does the right thing, issues a stay, just let these midterm elections play out because it’s such a huge election for Congress, for governor, secretary of state, AG. But there’s a lot of uncertainty now and a lot of elections workers who do a good job are in a tight spot right now.
MARK BRODIE: Tom, is there reason to think that a judge — any judge who just made a ruling — would then turn around and say, “Maybe not, let’s just put this on hold for right now”?
TOM RYAN: He should, but I’m not so sure Judge Blaney will do this. And Chip is correct: The Purcell Rule says we don’t make these kinds of decisions so close to this election. And there’s another one on May 29 — a countywide election.
So asking the court to stay it … it’s going to take some time to get this all done. It can’t be done in that short of a period of time. If he’s not going to stay it, then they should appeal it. And I believe that the Court of Appeals would stay it, and I believe that Judge Blaney, more likely than not, would get reversed.
The problem is the way that the county recorder and the county Board of Supervisors have been set up by statute, there’s always been this interplay between who controls what. In the past, we’ve always had agreement. It hasn’t been a problem.
It’s only since MAGA, Trump and all these others have come in with this “election integrity” issue where they’ve challenged — “You know, there’s too much bamboo shoot in our ballots,” or “Let’s bring in the Cyber Ninjas to find out that, oh yeah, Joe Biden really, really, really did win.”
And they can’t let go of it. And so every election is a challenge, even though some of their own candidates win. How is it that Kimberly Yee wins the state treasurer as a Republican and Steve Richer, the Republican, loses his seat? If somebody’s manipulating these elections, they’re doing a pretty lousy job of it so far.
CHIP SCUTARI: I think the worst part and the real-world impact is that it undermines the trust and faith in elections, which, that’s an unfortunate thing. But when people hear about this, they’re confused about, "do I believe this person or this side?” It’s just a ton of uncertainty and it’s a bit of a mess right now.
MARK BRODIE: Chip, what do you make of some of the cracks starting to form on the county board? Specifically between Supervisor [Mark] Stewart and some of his colleagues, most notably the chair, Kate Brophy McGee?
CHIP SCUTARI: You know, really, I’m not surprised, just paying attention to Mr. Stewart’s election. He was always kind of MAGA-lite. He always talked a good game, but there was some evidence where he could join — I don’t know if join is the right word — but could be part of the election denialism crowd.
And I think the interesting thing is Debbie Lesko — Supervisor Lesko, who’s very conservative, no one would question her credentials, pretty tight with President Trump — she has looked at the facts and looked at the rules and kind of is doing the right thing, I believe, in trying to make sure that we have this confidence in our election systems, that they are safe, secure, and transparent.
So it’s of interesting how she’s stepped up and played that role and Mark Stewart is kind of the fly in the ointment, so to speak.
MARK BRODIE: Tom, is there a reason legally for the board to ask for the stay and not just go ahead and appeal?
TOM RYAN: Yes, I think the smart thing to do is to ask for a stay and for the reason that Chip said. It’s because of the Purcell Rule. Let’s hold this off and then let’s take a look at it after this election is over. Let’s not change it so close to the election. So yeah, that makes perfect sense.
But I fully expect Recorder Heap is going to push forward and try and make hay with this, and unfortunately — as Chip correctly said — it’s going to further bring into question the integrity of the election when that question really shouldn’t be asked in the first instance.
MARK BRODIE: Tom, let me stay with you on another legal question. This is over whether or not somebody is legally allowed to hold an office. The Navajo County Supervisors appointed now-former state Rep. David Marshall as the county recorder up there. He had been running for Corporation Commission; he’s since dropped out of that race.
But now Tim La Sota, an attorney that I assume that you know and maybe have worked with or against in the past, is asking the attorney general to decide whether or not Marshall is legally allowed to be Navajo County recorder. And it sounds like the issue is it’s still within his term in the Legislature, even though he’s resigned.
TOM RYAN: Correct. The law does not allow you to do what Marshall is doing. Here’s the problem: You don’t want to have somebody in the state Legislature — representative or Senate — who’s out talking about other positions because now they’re currying favors to get that other position. So that’s why that rule exists.
I have filed a writ of mandamus before. I filed one with then-Attorney General Brnovich over then-chair of the Arizona Corporation Commission Susan [Bitter Smith]. … And Brnovich took it and actually removed Bitter Smith from office.
I read Tim La Sota’s letter. I think he’s correct. I probably would not have taken the swipes at the person who’s supposed to be pursuing the writ of mandamus on your behalf that he did, but I think he’s correct, and I think Kris Mayes will take the steps to have him removed from the County Recorder’s office.
That county has had a lot of problems up there, and the attorney general has intervened in the past up there with the county attorney. So I think she’ll be brave enough to do it again. And I think he should be removed.
CHIP SCUTARI: But — and you tell me, being the attorney on this show — has there ever been a court challenge to this rule about when a term officially ends? I don’t believe there has been.
TOM RYAN: No, there hasn’t. And the best argument Marshall can make is, “I resigned, I’m no longer a member, and so that whole thing doesn’t apply.” But that’s not how the statute is written.
And I think the public policy behind the statute is to prevent someone from currying favor with another — look, when you’re a state senator or state representative, your salary is basically $24,000 plus a daily —
MARK BRODIE: Per diem and everything.
TOM RYAN: Yeah. But if you go to become a county recorder, it’s multiples of that. So you could be using your office to gain a better-paying job out there. That’s why I think that statute is in place.
CHIP SCUTARI: Now what’s not being talked about is kind of the political repercussions of this. I believe the House, the split between Republicans and Democrats in the House of Representatives is 33-27. So now they’re down to 32 with former Rep. Marshall leaving.
The GOP is expected to release their budget next week. So that’s a big deal to replace him as quickly as possible. There’s not a lot of wiggle room there to get the votes up to make sure the GOP budget passes, get it up to Gov. Hobbs, and then she’ll veto it and then they’ll start really negotiating on a budget.
But losing one person with that slim amount of margin is a big deal.
MARK BRODIE: Chip, I’m loath to try to get into somebody else’s head or try to discern motivations, but I’m curious, from a political standpoint, what would be the advantage to David Marshall to leave the Legislature, become county recorder, even though he had to have known that somebody might challenge it? People had telegraphed that they thought that this might not be legal. So knowing that there’s going to be a challenge in all likelihood to his appointment, and also drop out of the race for the office that he apparently wanted to be in?
CHIP SCUTARI: I think it’s a bigger salary. It’s a way less of a commute, obviously, because he’s living up in Navajo County. Probably more stability because if he’s appointed to this, he’s the incumbent, he’ll probably win reelection. He may want to get more involved in the election game, so to speak.
But for those areas, I think that makes sense for — I’m just kind of getting into the thought … just speculating what he thinks. But salary, the lack of a commute, being up there closer to home — I think that may be an easier job for him than being a state lawmaker. Just totally speculating on what I think.
TOM RYAN: The big question for me is, where the heck was the county attorney? Because that’s the county attorney’s job to say, “Mr. Marshall, before you do this, I have to tell you what the Arizona Constitution says and what the statute says, and I don’t think you’ll qualify.”
That never was brought up before Marshall was appointed. That’s what we call legal malpractice.
MARK BRODIE: Interesting. All right, we’ll have to take a quick break. That’s Tom Ryan, I’m also joined by Chip Scutari. I’m Mark Brodie in Phoenix, the Friday Newscap continues in just a moment.
MARK BRODIE: Chip, let me ask you about — we’ve been talking about upcoming elections. Let’s talk about some of the money that is going to be spent in those upcoming elections. And this week on the congressional level, two different PACs, political action committees — one basically associated with House Speaker Mike Johnson on the Republican side, another on the Democratic side — both announced they’re spending millions of dollars in the state.
The one, the Congressional Leadership Fund, which is associated with Mike Johnson, has reserved $5.8 million in Phoenix for the fall for TV ads, streaming ads, digital ads; a little more than $4 million in Tucson.
The House Majority PAC, which supports Democrats, has reserved a little more than $7.5 million for Phoenix, a little more than $2.5 million in Tucson. This … seems like an indication that both sides consider, I’m assuming this is CD1, the David Schweikert district, which is going to be an open seat, and in Tucson, Juan Ciscomani’s district, CD6. Both sides — it seems like there’s evidence — see that as winnable.
CHIP SCUTARI: Oh yeah. Those two congressional districts you just mentioned are two of the most competitive swing districts in the entire country. And with the Republicans holding such a slim advantage in the House, both sides are doing everything they can to sway the advantage.
Reading the polls — not being partisan, but reading the polls — President Trump’s approval rating keeps dropping, whether it’s Iran or the economy or whatever. I think if the Democrats just kind of stay in the ballpark of money and advertising with the Republicans, that they’re going to be fine. Just because every sign — consumer confidence is down, there’s other telltale signs about the economy — that this is probably not going to be a good year for Republicans, and that’s usually the way it is after a midterm with, you know, after a Republican being elected, their party can struggle. It happens on both sides of the political spectrum.
So I think the money is important, but I also think it’s going to be the momentum and what the campaign messages are about much more. Sometimes there’s the law of diminishing returns. You can have so much money, but one political consultant said you can drop a piano on someone one time; the second time it doesn’t really hurt as much. I’m stealing that from another political consultant, but it’s a good way to explain it.
MARK BRODIE: Do you think, Chip, of those two districts —Republicans are obviously defending both of them even though it’s an open seat in CD1, it’s held by a Republican, David Schweikert. Do you think, are Republicans more nervous about one or the other of those?
CHIP SCUTARI: You know, I would say I think they’re nervous about both, really. And I, as a CD1 voter, longtime CD1 voter, I’ll believe it when I see it when a Democrat wins that race. You know, we’ll see. It’s going to be up for grabs.
And I think Rep. Ciscomani is going to have a really tough reelection fight on his hands down in Tucson. If I had to pick one, I’d say that one is probably more likely to swing Democrat.
MARK BRODIE: CD6 in Tucson. OK.
CHIP SCUTARI: Even though I think Ciscomani’s an excellent campaigner and he’s good on the stump, but I think they probably have a better chance just with the demographics and kind of the election dynamics of winning that one. But we’ll see. Both could go Republican.
TOM RYAN: JoAnna Mendoza down there in CD6 has really raised a lot of money.
MARK BRODIE: The Democratic candidate.
TOM RYAN: The Democratic candidate. And she’s been polling well and doing a lot of campaigning down there. I think that one, and I agree with Chip, I think that one will shift back to the Democratic side.
As for CD1, it really — that one is I think more up in the air because who’s coming out of it?
MARK BRODIE: Big primaries on both sides of that one.
TOM RYAN: Big primary on both sides. Amish Shah is a tough campaigner because he wears out shoe leather. He gets out and knocks on doors. And Marlene Galan Woods is a very attractive candidate, both politically and physically. You would think that she would be doing much better than she is, but Amish Shah seems to be way ahead of her in the polling data that I’ve seen.
CHIP SCUTARI: See, now if I was the DCCC, you know, in charge of these elections, what they did in the Tucson area was smart. I don’t know if they did this on purpose, but they got those other candidates out of the race.
In CD1 up here in Scottsdale-Fountain Hills, like Tom said, there’s five or six really good candidates, so they’re all fighting. So they’re going to have less time to make the case against the Republican. I would have cleared the field if I was running these races, but I’m not in that position.
MARK BRODIE: Well, it’s a good point, Tom, because, for example in CD1, one of the candidates on the Republican side is Jay Feeley, who you would think, being a former NFL player and sideline reporter, most people have at least heard of his name even if they don’t know much about him politically.
And with both sides spending a ton of money in that district on that race, could it be — it might be the issues on the margins like name ID that come down to it. And if you’re fighting — Feeley, of course, has a primary. He’s not necessarily going to come out of that.
But on the Democratic side, you have at least two candidates who have run before in primaries in the recent past still going at it with each other.
TOM RYAN: Yes. We just got to see who comes out of the primaries here. Again, that’s going to be the tell of the tape. If it’s Marlene Galan Woods, I think she would probably take down the Republican candidate, even if it’s Jay Feeley. I do. If it’s Amish Shah, and he’s a great campaigner —
MARK BRODIE: He won the primary two years ago.
TOM RYAN: Two years ago. But he got stomped in the — it wasn’t very close in the last election, as I recall. I think once you get past the primary, though, I think it is going to be how long are the coattails of Donald Trump? And they don’t look very long this election.
In fact, you probably don’t want to be hanging onto them at all in a swing district like CD1. You really want to start showing some independence from Trump and MAGA. MAGA candidates on a statewide basis have not been doing well. On a legislative district basis, they seem to do well.
But on a statewide basis, you know, that’s why we don’t have a Gov. Kari Lake or an Attorney General Abe Hamadeh or a U.S. Sen. McSally or Wendy Rogers. So, it really depends on how MAGA Jay Feeley is going to be, how Trumpian Jay Feeley’s going to be or any of the other candidates coming out of the GOP.
CHIP SCUTARI: But the big difference in CD1 obviously is Amish Shah lost to longtime incumbent David Schweikert, who’s now running for governor and has vacated the seat. So it’s an up-for-grabs seat. So that could sway a few things. And this will be a much better cycle — or should be — for Democrats than Republicans.
MARK BRODIE: Chip, one more fundraising question I want to ask you about. It seems if you’re a U.S. senator and you have a fight with the Trump administration, it’s good for your bottom line, huh?
CHIP SCUTARI: Incumbency has its privileges. And before this, Sen. Kelly is just a monster of a fundraiser.
MARK BRODIE: He always has been kind of a big fundraiser.
CHIP SCUTARI: Yes, but this has just jacked it up, this fight with Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War, Secretary of Defense, whatever you call him. But he’s just been a brilliant fundraiser. And almost like John Kyl was back in the day, Republican John Kyl. And these are like presidential contender numbers. And of course, he’s on the short list to run in 2028 or at least be on the considered list.
So, yeah, incumbency has its privileges. You saw the same thing with Gov. Katie Hobbs, who has a massive amount of cash on hand. Like, these numbers just dwarf what was, you know, thought of five or six years ago. But Sen. Kelly is just super impressive; even my, you know, Republicans have to say, “Wow, this guy is a juggernaut.”
MARK BRODIE: Tom, at least when it comes to Governor Hobbs, which Chip mentioned, she also has been sending out press releases touting her fundraising. In a race like that — she’s obviously on the ballot this year — how much does it matter how much the candidate raises?
Because it’s obviously going to be a lot of outside money. Like, if Andy Biggs is the nominee on the Republican side, Turning Point is going to spend a lot of money. They’ve said they’re going to spend a lot of money on his behalf.
So I’m wondering, from your perspective, how much does it matter what the candidate and their campaign raises versus all of the outside money that’s going to come in?
TOM RYAN: That’s a great question. I think the idea of what the candidate raises really shows their level of popularity with the people that need to support them. They have no control about the out-of-state money. But it does show something here. Katie Hobbs is a known commodity. And she’s been more of a centrist than a progressive in her administration.
They’ve tried to create a whole series of performative bills to force her to veto so they can call her the “veto queen” and everything else like that. People like to see a governor that’s active, that’s protective, that seems to be paying attention to things. And Katie Hobbs has been doing that.
Personally, is she — you know, she’s got kind of a funny voice, she doesn’t come off strong, she didn’t debate in the last election, and yet she still won. Andy Biggs has not learned how to deal with that. He’s going to probably go the same way Kari Lake did. I really do believe that. TPUSA is going to come in and be very MAGA-like, and it’s going to hurt him. I think, even with all the money they’re going to bring. I think it’s going to hurt him in the general election.
MARK BRODIE: Interesting. Alright guys, we’ll have to leave it there. Tom Ryan, Chip Scutari, thanks to both. I really appreciate it.
TOM RYAN: Thank you.
CHIP SCUTARI: Thank you.
MARK BRODIE: Good morning, it’s The Show on KJZZ 91.5, I’m Mark Brodie. A ASU student-led Rossum Rumblers Robotics Club is heading to St. Louis this weekend to compete in the VEX Robotics World Championship. For the competition, they had to build a robot that goes head-to-head in a 12 by 12 foot field with another team’s robot to collect and sort balls and knock them out of the other robot’s clutches. It’s a high pressure competition that the students have spent a long time preparing for. My co-host Lauren Gilger spoke more about it with Robotics Club President Alessandro Marcolini and Lead Engineer Enzo Muggler.
Arizona State University’s student-led Rossum Rumblers Robotics Club is heading to St. Louis this weekend to compete in the VEX Robotics World Championship.
For the competition, they had to build a robot that goes head-to-head in a 12-by-12 foot field with another team’s robot to collect and short balls and knock them out of the other robot’s clutches.
It’s a high-pressure competition that the students have spent a long time preparing for. The Show talked with Alessandro Marcolini, robotics club president, and lead engineer Enzo Muggler.
Full conversation
LAUREN GILGER: OK, so for those of us who know nothing about robotics, let's start at the beginning here with in terms of how this works. So you get sort of a game, a prompt, a challenge, right, for these things. This one has to do with designing a robot to go head to head with another one.
What does it, the competition actually look like?
ALESSANDRO MARCOLINI: Yeah, so I mean typically when you're engineering something, you obviously have constraints. You're thinking, what am I going to build a product for? So the competition kind of mimics that. We come up with a game and it has constraints and rules and we build a robot that plays it.
LAUREN GILGER: What's the game this year?
ENZO MUGGLER: This year, we're picking up these hexagonal balls, they call them blocks, and we're picking them up, storing a bunch of them in our robot and putting them into these tall horizontal goals and just putting as many of these blocks as we can in those goals while competing with the opponents for possession of those goal spaces.
LAUREN GILGER: So you have to kind of ward off the other robot.
ENZO MUGGLER: Exactly, yeah.
LAUREN GILGER: So how do you begin designing a robot to do something like that? Like where does the conceptualization start?
ENZO MUGGLER: So the first thing we do every season is analyze the game manual that the RECF, the parent company, releases about the game. And so we go through and we try to strategize seeing what's most effective and what will score us most out of points in the least amount of time. What can we do to defend against other robots?
And typically there'll be other teams throughout the season that will build robots really early and we'll see what their strategies are and we'll take inspiration and see what they do and what works and what doesn't. And we'll formulate our own robots to sort of compete against theirs.
LAUREN GILGER: OK, that's smart. So you wait and see what the competition looks like.
ENZO MUGGLER: Exactly. Yeah.
LAUREN GILGER: The design part, like in the end, do a lot of these teams have similar looking robots? Because there's like one way this works best, or does everybody kind of come up with something that looks pretty different.
ALESSANDRO MARCOLINI: So I'd say it depends year to year. But typically it ends up being a few designs that stand out just because they're easy to build or they're really effective and they can score a lot of points and things like that. And then teams look at that and then copy each other, iterate off each other.
It ends up being pretty similar.
LAUREN GILGER: Pretty similar. What works works. And this is 3D printed parts. There's, like, programming involved here. Describe the technical side of this a little for us.
ENZO MUGGLER: So we do, since we're part of university, the University of X program, we can manufacture our own parts, which isn't a liberty the high school teams have. So we 3D print, we can machine. We can buy materials off the shelf, we can buy blocks of aluminum and machine out of them, which is really cool.
So we get to learn machining practices and real manufacturing stuff. So we do 3D print. We are able to buy our own custom pneumatics. We wire together the robots ourselves. We can make custom PCBs for our robots. It really is just a whole. We go through the entire robot. Everyone on the team has a part in each component, whether that's electrical or mechanical or even strategy.
LAUREN GILGER: Even strategy. Tell me about the strategy part of that. Some of this is driver skills, right? How does that work?
ENZO MUGGLER: So I will say the driver side can be more important than the mechanical side. It's because with a good driver, you can probably outclass a good robot with a bad driver. Yeah.
LAUREN GILGER: Who's the driver? Which one of you?
ENZO MUGGLER: We have two drivers. I'm one of them. Another one is not here today, but they're really talented as well. So since we have a competition in a few weeks, we've been starting to practice and getting good at driving.
LAUREN GILGER: So what goes into being a good driver?
ENZO MUGGLER: It's a lot of hours of practice. We have a skills challenge, which is where you play with the robot itself on the field. And practicing for that is just going over and over again the same skills route, optimizing, going faster every run, and just trying to get the highest score.
For match play against other teams, since we're a university team, we'll sometimes invite high school teams out to our lab, and we'll have a day where we compete with high school teams to get the practice in for us.
LAUREN GILGER: They probably love that.
ENZO MUGGLER: Yeah.
LAUREN GILGER: So, I mean, it sounds like teamwork is actually pretty essential to this, but also, I wonder about the testing, the trial and error. Have you had some major failures in the process of doing this?
ALESSANDRO MARCOLINI: We definitely have. We, as a team, we like to be ambitious with our designs, so we like to try some things that are really out there and that no other team tries, and so sometimes that ends up in a lot of failures. So actually, our last semester, we had a completely different design that we ended up scrapping and starting again from scratch.
LAUREN GILGER: Oh, man. Is there a moment in a competition that you both really love, that you're looking forward to, or maybe one that you're stressed out about that you're like, man, this is gonna be a tough one?
ENZO MUGGLER: My favorite part is a combination of the two. It's when something really bad goes wrong, and you have to figure out how to fix it as soon as possible. There's so much adrenaline and so much stress in the moment. It's so fun having to come up with a really quick solution that works well.
LAUREN GILGER: Has that happened to you?
ENZO MUGGLER: Yes.
LAUREN GILGER: Tell me about it.
ENZO MUGGLER: A good time is like our drivetrain completely spiffing out, which is like, what the robot sits on to maneuver around and just, you know, going back to our pits, running back, taking the robot apart and trying to figure out what's wrong with it for our qualification match in maybe 10 minutes.
LAUREN GILGER: Ten minutes?
ALESSANDRO MARCOLINI: Yeah.
LAUREN GILGER: So you got to do it right then.
ENZO MUGGLER: Yeah.
LAUREN GILGER: Did you get it done?
ENZO MUGGLER: Yes, of course.
LAUREN GILGER: Of course. All right. So, I mean, robotics is, competition is one thing, but we're seeing robots kind of pop up everywhere right now with AI and all of the technology that's being advanced right now. What do you both envision this looking like? What kind of work do you think you'll be doing in the future?
ENZO MUGGLER: That's really a good question. There's so many. There's a large variation of robotics you can go into. I know here in Arizona, we have a lot of automation. Even on campus, at the Polytechnic campus, we have a whole automation lab where manufacturing engineers and robotic engineers can practice using robotic arms for assembly lines.
So that's one option. Another option can really be a lot of things because we do mechanical and electrical work, so we're able to kind of split into both of those areas. With the program that we're in, we can choose either mechanical or, like, a electrical, like, specification. And, you know, that allows us to kind of specialize in what we want to do.
LAUREN GILGER: That's going to be really cool. All right, that is Enzo Muggler and Alessandro Marcolini with ASU student-led Rossum Rumblers Robotics Club joining us. Thank you both for being here, and good luck.
ENZO MUGGLER: Of course. Thank you.
LORI WEIGEL: I think there’s one thing that we see is that the interior West, these eight Western states including Arizona, have really demonstrated a strong conservation ethic throughout. They care about public lands, they care about conserving water. Voters in these states are really telling us that these are important issues to them in evaluating candidates. And if anything, we’ve seen in the last year an increased concern about some of the changes that have been happening in terms of funding cuts, in terms of roll back of certain laws. So if anything, that this conservation concern has become more acute in the last few years.
MARK BRODIE: Did respondents say that they take those concerns with them to the polling place, like do they really pick candidates based on some of those concerns? Because to your point, there have been funding cuts, there have been sort of policy changes that folks don’t necessarily like. I wonder if if this is something that people really think about when they’re voting.
LORI WEIGEL: Yeah, we actually asked a question, one that we’ve asked in the past, asking them to compare these issues — involving public lands, water, wildlife— and contrast that with other issues — sort of the perennial ones like the economy, health care, and education — and ask them how important are these issues related to conservation? And we have by far most voters, for example 85% of voters in Arizona saying they’re at least somewhat important. It’s about one in three that say they are very important, they are a primary factor in how I evaluate someone.
And that that level of importance has been relatively stable over recent years, but it’s shown a big increase since 2016, up 10 points overall in the region since 2016. So we know they’re considering it. I think we’ll have a real test this fall in terms of the the midterm elections, in terms of how much of an issue this becomes, because it has been fairly visible in a way that we haven’t seen changes in public policy related to conservation always be in the past.
MARK BRODIE: So you mentioned water and one of the numbers that really stood out was that 93% of the respondents in Arizona said they were seriously concerned about a lack of water supply. And what was particularly interesting, besides the fact that that number was really, really high, was that the next states were New Mexico and Utah, so you really have sort of an upper and lower Colorado River basin sort of all agreeing that they’re concerned about this issue even though their states are not really able to come up with an agreement on what to do about it.
LORI WEIGEL: Yeah, Arizona in fact was the highest level of concern. We had seven in 10, in fact, saying that inadequate water supplies are a extremely or very serious problem today. So, uh, you know, very close to Utah, just a tick above New Mexico. You know, we really do see that latitude difference, so states that are up river tend to usually be less concerned. Utah’s been in sort of a unique space recently.
So I just think that you can all agree there’s a problem. What specifically to do about the problem is another issue.
MARK BRODIE: One of the other numbers that was particularly high was the percentage of people in Arizona, more than 90%, said they’re concerned about a lack of wildland firefighters. And as fire season seemingly becomes longer and longer to the point where it’s almost all year long, that seems like a pretty significant number of people who are concerned about an issue that, when we’re talking about who you vote for, doesn’t seem to be one that a lot of people talk about, a lot of candidates for example talk about on the campaign trail.
LORI WEIGEL: Yeah, I think it is. I mean one of the things that we have seen over time is a real sense that fire is, whether it was a bad fire year or not, that people are still registering this level of concern about the potential for uncontrollable wildfires that threaten homes and communities.
And now obviously we have this interesting dynamic where a lot of the government agencies that manage national public lands did experience budget cuts, whether it was the firefighters themselves or, you know, in many cases the support staff that really monitor and manage that to help reduce the risk of and fight those fires that threaten public lands and nearby communities.
You know, I mean people are just saying like this is a problem, we had 67% of Arizonans say they’re very concerned, one of the highest out of the eight interior Western states. So I think it is likely to become an issue in some elections because there are communities that are going to be catastrophically affected.
MARK BRODIE: Were there any areas where you saw a big disparity in the numbers between states? Like an issue where, you know, voters in one state were very concerned about something and people were not that concerned about it somewhere else?
LORI WEIGEL: Well, I'd say some of the energy issues, Wyoming, which has a very energy-focused economy, is often a little bit of an outlier and somewhat different than Arizona or other states in the region. They are more likely to prioritize coal mining and oil and gas development than on even on public lands than than some other states are.
But for the most part, I think really one of the most interesting questions was when we asked people, we didn’t give them categories, we just let them respond however they wanted and asked them what message they would send to their member of Congress regarding the future of our national public lands.
And I was kind of shocked at the level of information and detail. We often hear a lot of information in our world and think "Oh gosh, are people paying attention to these issues?" And in this case they really are. That idea of keeping public lands public, of protecting wildlife and their habitats, of increasing the funding that was cut, things like that — those were being volunteered with a great deal of detail behind them.
So, I think it’s one of these areas that maybe hasn’t been as top of mind in the past, but is receiving more attention today than we’ve ever seen.
MARK BRODIE: Do you have a sense as to why that might be?
LORI WEIGEL: Well, I do think that there's been, you know, there's been some proposals that have been pretty dramatic, things like selling public lands. I mean we heard for a long time there were ideas about maybe transferring them to state control and management, or, some tweaks around the edges.
Obviously in Utah, there were some rollbacks to national monuments, and then those were put back in place. So there have been, but not as dramatic as actually selling public lands to private interest. And I think that really kind of brought these issues to sharper relief.
MARK BRODIE: Lori Weigel is principal at the opinion research firm New Bridge Strategy, and you are listening to The Show.
MARK BRODIE: Good morning, it’s The Show on KJZZ 91.5, I’m Mark Brodie. A new collection of poetry takes a 21st century look at a 19th century poet. Right before the pandemic, someone gifted Rosemarie Dombrowski the fascicles of Emily Dickinson, essentially a series of Dickinson’s poems that were only discovered after her death. Dombrowski is an ASU professor and Phoenix’s inaugural poet laureate. Her new collection is called Emily’s Advice to Girls in the New Millennium, and came out of the time she spent with those fascicles.
ROSEMARIE DOMBROWSKI: So the fascicles were the little books of poetry that Emily Dickinson bound herself during her lifetime. And she created 40 of them. And we might call them zines today, because they were handbound and handwritten, but after Dickinson put these 40 little booklets together, she tucked them away, and no one saw them again until after her death.
And then everyone ignored them. So anyway, these little booklets of poetry, curated by Dickinson, were finally republished in 2016. It’s as thick as the Bible, you know, it’s about 500, 400, 500 poems. And during the pandemic, you know, I just started reading it nightly.
MARK BRODIE: What spoke to you about the poems in these little booklets?
ROSEMARIE DOMBROWSKI: Well, I’ve taught Dickinson for 20 years. I teach her as a medical poet, I teach her as a patient, I teach her as a poet who grappled with death in really interesting, philosophical ways, you know, who grappled with various kinds of illness, bodily and mental throughout her life. I teach her as a feminist. I teach her as a bisexual.
So, I already had all of those lenses through which I could read Dickinson. And being able to read these little booklets as she had originally curated them, with the poems, you know, these little clusters of 10 poems per booklet that she had arranged. I don’t know, things just started taking on a new meaning for me.
And, and I guess the main thing that I should have said earlier was that I felt suddenly like all of her poems were little advice columns to girls in the 19th century. That’s just what I was hearing, like fascicle after fascicle, booklet after booklet. That Emily Dickinson was like, what was that advice columnist in the '80s? What what was her name?
MARK BRODIE: Dear Abby.
ROSEMARIE DOMBROWSKI: Dear Abby, yes. I started reading Dickinson like she was responding to like 19th century girls’ inquiries or something, like Dickinson was a Dear Abby. So that’s where the title of my collection came from, as I was reading these little booklets, I was translating them. That’s what my poems are, they’re just I consider them to be modern day translations of Dickinson’s fascicles.
MARK BRODIE: That seems like kind of a tough task. I mean especially for somebody who is as familiar with Dickinson and her work as you are. I wonder was that intimidating for you to reinterpret her work into a 21st century context?
ROSEMARIE DOMBROWSKI: Well, you know, at the time it wasn’t, because I wasn’t taking it seriously, Mark. It was the pandemic and I just wanted something interesting to do. And so I just went down a Dickinson rabbit hole. I had no intention of doing translations in a serious way, it was just something that was keeping me sane on the nightly.
And I thought, I’m going to write these translations for all my students. Because once I realized that Emily’s poems were advice poems, I thought my god, I’ve got to try to make this a little bit more palatable or accessible to younger audience, and I was predominantly thinking of girls because, you know, Dickinson was a 19th century girl herself. And I think that was the imaginary audience that she had in mind for her poetry, other girls like her.
MARK BRODIE: Does an example come to mind for you of a subject matter in a poem that she wrote that really spoke to you as advice for the girls who were her contemporaries that you were able to translate to a 21st century context?
ROSEMARIE DOMBROWSKI: Oh sure, I mean there’s, I mean I can’t tell you the numbers of the poems because those are those have been imposed by later editors and she doesn’t use those numbers in the fascicles at all. But you know, some of the fascicles are I would say more nature heavy, like she curates some booklets that have primarily nature poems.
Some primarily contain poems that she wrote to Susan, her sister-in-law/best friend/lover who lives next door. And is married to her brother.
You know, some mainly contain poems that are musing over illness and pain and death. I would say the ones that sort of struck me the most as advice poems were the ones that were set in nature. I felt like she was using instructional language in those poems.
You know, acknowledge this, girls. Listen to this. Be this way. Understand that this isn’t going to be here forever. Understand that these things are ephemeral, and that we need to capture them while we can.
MARK BRODIE: I wonder if reading these poems in the fascicles and thinking about translating them to the 21st century, like has that made you think about what Emily Dickinson might have thought about things like climate change, she talked about her being in nature. Thought about social media and, you know, sort of the culture in which we all live now, and maybe what she would have written about those things.
ROSEMARIE DOMBROWSKI: Oh my god, I just can’t imagine that Dickinson would not have been the first Insta-poet, right? She would have been the Instagram poet. For sure. I mean come on, you know, some of her poems are four lines long, six lines long. That’s Insta-poetry. That’s micro-poetry. That’s something we think we invented in the 21st century, and I have to call BS on that, for sure.
As far as climate change, that’s an excellent question. I think she would have been beside herself.
MARK BRODIE: So you mentioned that you had your students in mind as you were looking at these poems and reinterpreting them for the 21st century. So I’m curious what you hope that people who read your collection will take away from it, both in terms of the content and the context, but also the history of it and its connection to Emily Dickinson and her work.
ROSEMARIE DOMBROWSKI: That’s a great question as well. I think I hope that my students, past and present and future, will see Dickinson as a zine-ster, right? A 19th century zine-ster. Like somebody who was making these DIY, handbound poetic publications that were sort of pushing back. Pushing back against social norms, pushing back against the patriarchy, pushing back against the publishing industry.
I want students to know that she was radical. She wasn’t a spinster. She was a radical. She was a radical activist on the page. So I want them to see that. And I want them to maybe read my poems and then feel encouraged, reinvigorated, to go back to Dickinson and just play, play with her language. Play with their own interpretations.
Because I think that’s what makes poetry so special, is that it allows readers to enter into these tiny little texts on the page and play. You know, I’m just one poet who has a relationship with Dickinson that’s subjective, right? Like everybody’s relationship would be. Anybody can have that subjective relationship with any poet.
MARK BRODIE: Sure. We'll have to leave it there. That's Rosemarie Dombrowski, the inaugural poet laureate of the city of Phoenix, a professor at ASU and author of "Emily’s Advice to Girls in the New Millennium." Rosemarie, thanks so much for the conversation, I appreciate it.
ROSEMARIE DOMBROWSKI: Thank you so much, Mark. You had amazing questions, it was delightful.
MARK BRODIE: And that’ll do it for this Friday edition of The Show. Thank you as always so much for being along. The show is produced by Sativa Peterson, Nick Sanchez, Amber Victoria Singer, Athena Ancra, and Ayana Hamilton, as well as Bruce Drummond. Sky Schout is our digital editor, Claire Lawton is our newsletter editor, Chad Snow is the news director. The show was created by John Hoben, our executive producer is Amy Silverman. Remember to sign up for the show’s weekly newsletter, it’s called Radio Heads, you can do that at theshow.kjzz.org. For Lauren Gilger, I’m Mark Brodie here in Phoenix, have a terrific rest of your day, have a great weekend, hope to have you right back here on Monday.
MARK BRODIE: You’ve been listening to The Show’s podcast. You can find more of the show and sign up for our newsletter at theshow.kjzz.org. You can also find us on Instagram at kjzztheshow.