The Show for May 1, 2026: Friday NewsCap, how to attend a stranger's wedding and more

The Arizona House has approved a new state budget, but the governor isn’t completely on board. Our Friday NewsCap panelists analyze that and the rest of the week’s top stories. Plus, want to go to a wedding? A new service pairs couples in need with willing guests.

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.

MATT GRESS: You now have an entire united Republican caucus in both the House and the Senate, and we are going to be very insistent on keeping 95%, if not 99% of this package intact.

OSCAR DE LOS SANTOS: This budget cuts our healthcare by $126 million, one of the biggest cuts to healthcare in state history.

MARK KELLY: Mr. Secretary, this war is stuck. The Strait of Hormuz is closed, the Iranian regime is in place, the nuclear material still in their hands. Americans are being crushed by higher costs.

KRIS MAYES: Close to schools, in the middle of a community that was never asked and never consented.

ADRIAN FONTES: They felt like they had some kind of a legal right to this very sensitive information of yours. And I said no again, and that lawsuit from the Department of Justice has been dismissed. That means we won.

KATIE HOBBS: I’m looking forward to the conclusion of this investigation, which I know will show what reporting has confirmed: that I was not involved in the decision and that DCS acted in the best interest of Arizona’s foster children.

MARK BRODIE: And joining me to talk about the GOP budget starting to move through the legislature, the potential impact on Arizona’s congressional lines of a new U.S. Supreme Court ruling and more, are former state lawmaker Regina Cobb. Regina, good morning.

REGINA COBB: Good morning.

MARK BRODIE: And attorney Roy Herrera. Roy, good morning to you.

ROY HERRERA: Good morning.

MARK BRODIE: So Regina, you are a former chair of a legislative appropriations committee. So it’s fortuitous that you are here this week. We heard just a moment ago from State Rep. Matt Gress, who says that Republicans are going to insist on at least 90, maybe 95-98% of what’s in their budget in the final version. Is he going to get his wish?

REGINA COBB: I don’t think so, and I think they’re going to be here till the end of June if he really feels that. Matt’s been in that room with me when he was working for Gov. (Doug) Ducey. He knows what it takes.

It takes people to sit in a room and actually negotiate, and they haven’t done that. Gov. (Katie) Hobbs put out her budget, refused to meet with them. Then they now they put their budget out. Neither side has come in and decided that they’re going to negotiate. And until they do, they’re not going to get a budget.

MARK BRODIE: What do you think of this process where the governor obviously is required to release their budget at the beginning of January, but since then, there have been apparently some negotiations. The governor walked away from it and said the Republicans need to show the public what their plan is instead of just saying they hate mine. Republicans took a few weeks and then put forward their plan and now said okay, we’re waiting for the governor to call us.

REGINA COBB: Yeah, I think this process is crazy. What we’ve started with usually during the summer time was with agencies and then you start at the beginning of the year when the legislative process starts and you start negotiating then. Usually you walk into a room and there’s about 70 to 80 percent that both sides agree on. Then you get that out of the way and then you find out what your go-home issue is. Hers is Prop 123. They know that. So when they’re saying 99 percent of the budget, Prop 123 isn’t in this. This is her go-home thing. Theirs is conformity and they have that complete conformity in there. She’s willing to negotiate a little bit on that direction, I think not complete conformity but most of it. I think they just have to sit in a room and figure out what else can they agree on before they get to those two points.

MARK BRODIE: Roy does it seem like they’re capable of doing that at this point, the two sides?

ROY HERRERA: I’m going to try to be optimistic today. I mean, I think there’s obviously a lot of posturing going on by both sides and that’s, you know, led to the situation that we’re in. Both sides have priorities. I think both sides have, you know, some red lines. I mean so for example, I think the Republicans have said that ESA reform is something that they’re just willing not willing to do, which is obviously something that the governor’s asking for. Similarly on the other side, this Republican budget has deep cuts to Medicaid and to SNAP and other things that the governor’s already vetoed. So you know, I don’t think that’s going to get in. But I totally agree with Regina that like there’s going to have to be compromise here. I mean, I think one Republican said earlier this week that well we don’t need any Democratic votes. Well, you need the biggest and most important Democratic vote of all, which is the governor’s signature, right? So obviously there’s going to need to be some compromise. I’m optimistic in that, you know, these folks don’t want to be there until the end of June because it’s an election year in particular.

MARK BRODIE: And the primary’s just a couple weeks after that.

ROY HERRERA: And the primary’s coming. I mean so voting will have already begun at that point and all of that and so maybe that puts some downward pressure, but everybody’s going to have to give up something ultimately because we’re in an era of divided government.

MARK BRODIE: What do you make of the fact that the Republican budget had almost across the board 5 percent agency cuts? It excluded a few public safety ones but is that something you think the governor is going to go along with?

ROY HERRERA: Well, we’re all obviously in a difficult fiscal situation. I mean, you know, it’s a lot easier to do a budget when you have a surplus and here, you know, because of the overall economic, you know, slowdown and things like that, we have we have a fiscal deficit and so there’s always going to be cuts in that scenario. Across the board cuts whether that makes sense or not, you know, I’m not sure that will make sense to the governor. Again conformity issue is a big issue here. I think the governor has indicated that she likes some of the cuts, particularly the ones that are, you know, for middle class Arizonans. So, you know, there’s compromise that’s going to be there. Um but again, everyone’s going to have to give up a little bit of what they want to get this done.

MARK BRODIE: Regina you mentioned Prop 123 being a big thing for the governor. This is something that the legislature and governor have been trying for at least two years now to renew. It expired last year. Do you would you have optimism that in the next X number of weeks they can do what they’ve not been able to do in the last couple of years?

REGINA COBB: When the pressure’s on you can do anything. And what they haven’t done over the last couple of years is really try. I think what they did is do a lot of posturing as he said it was, you know, they’ve both been posturing on both sides. It could be done and I think it could be a continuation of what we do right now or it could be cut down to 5.9. I think the Republicans could go for those kind of if it was reduced a little bit I think they could. Their concern about the corpus of it.

MARK BRODIE: Of the state land trust.

REGINA COBB: Of the state land trust and and they should be. If they keep it at it where it’s at or below, I think they’ll they’ll be fine. And but they’ve got to negotiate that. So I think they can do it and the pressure is they’ve got to get out of there so they can all go back and do run for reelection.

MARK BRODIE: Is this the kind of situation Regina where the past, like especially that the first the budget under Governor Hobbs’ first year where people referred to it as the Oprah budget where everybody gets a certain amount of money and can do what they want. I wonder if that in some ways hurts the negotiations now because they don’t kind of have that muscle memory of having three years’ worth of Republican legislative leaders and the governor really negotiating a budget. Like they’ve done different stuff over the couple of years and they’ve not really had to do one like this.

REGINA COBB: You’re correct on that. The muscle memory is gone for the last three years, which really does put them at a disadvantage. But you have your leaders who have done this before. They know how to go back to that again. You’ve got Kavanaugh, Peterson. Peterson sat right beside me most of the negotiations I think in ’23. And then you have Matt Gress who’s been in there for all eight years pretty much that Ducey was in there.

MARK BRODIE: David Livingston’s been there a long time too. I mean Kavanaugh’s been there almost forever.

REGINA COBB: And he was my vice chair for four years and he was in the room with me the whole time.

MARK BRODIE: Does that experience, Roy, like come into play especially right now when as you say sort of the time pressure is on and, you know, they’ve there’re clearly some pretty significant differences between the governor and the legislature. Does having that experience in the room matter?

ROY HERRERA: I think it absolutely has to matter. But the other thing that happens here and and I think legislators have been guilty of this for a very long time here in Arizona is that you don’t really have the Republicans negotiating with the Democrats in the legislature, really. I mean the Democratic caucus is not really to my understanding been particularly involved in negotiating directly with the Republican caucus. That also leads to delays because you know again everybody’s gotta look at.

REGINA COBB: But that’s not anything new. It’s been like that for a long time.

ROY HERRERA: No, it’s not. So in so in a perfect world though, things like that would happen.

MARK BRODIE: So you’re saying the legislature is an imperfect world.

ROY HERRERA: That’s what I’m saying unfortunately and and I don’t know if it will change but you know just thinking about sort of the practicalities of this, this is why we are at you know kind of stalemate points like this and why we run the risk of going until June.

MARK BRODIE: But couldn’t one make the argument that sort of the governor is negotiating on behalf of the Democratic caucuses and in theory anyway, the Democrats in the legislature are communicating with the governor or her staff and saying okay we need A, B, and C we’re not doing X, Y, and Z and that is sort of taken into consideration when the governor and the legislature eventually start talking about this?

ROY HERRERA: In theory that’s true although every legislator I’m sure and Regina’s a true expert at this, but every legislator’s going to have priorities that are specific to their district that they have to care about which may be a little bit different. But again there also the question becomes do you really want to have a bipartisan budget? I think we all should strive for that, obviously doesn’t always happen, but that all involves negotiations with everybody.

REGINA COBB: And when you’re talking about experience, I mean Governor Hobbs doesn’t have the experience that that some of the other legislators have in there. And I think that you ask somebody without experience to be your negotiator that’s not a good thing. Uh this year they’ve decided they’re going to do what they call the super-cage, which means that they have the full appropriations committee on both sides in the room. You have that many people in the room you are not going to come up with some a good uh balanced I don’t think. I think that’s a difficult thing. You just need the experience in the room to be in the room and doing the job.

MARK BRODIE: Is that a matter of like too many too many cooks in the kitchen?

REGINA COBB: Yes, absolutely, absolutely too many cooks in the kitchen.

MARK BRODIE: All right, so guys let’s just a couple minutes until the break. I want to ask you about a federal judge this week decided that a lawsuit that the district the Federal Department of Justice filed against Arizona was to be thrown out. This is the one that uh asked for voter information uh from Arizona voters. They purportedly wanted to use it to make sure that Arizona’s following law in terms of keeping the voter rolls maintained and all that sort of thing. Roy this is an area that you work in quite a bit. Uh is this like are you surprised that a a Trump-appointed federal judge tossed this lawsuit out?

ROY HERRERA: I’m not surprised and for full disclosure I filed on behalf of a client an amicus brief on the side of the Secretary of State in in the litigation. I’m not surprised at all and if you look across the country I think I count six different states that have you know been sued by the Department of Justice or sued the Department of Justice related to this request. In all six of those states the Department of Justice has lost. Um so they’re obviously not making the case legally speaking on why they should be entitled to this kind of information. This is very sensitive per you know personal data that they would be turning over to the Department of Justice and so I think the Secretary of State needs to be given credit for for fighting back and and winning this lawsuit. So it doesn’t surprise me. It was Judge Brnovich on the federal court, she’s very considerate judge, uh knows you know this law very well and so I’m not surprised that she came out this way.

MARK BRODIE: Do you have a sense of whether DOJ may or may not appeal this?

ROY HERRERA: Oh you know it’s hard to say. I mean my my theory on why they want this data because it hasn’t really been explained very well by the Department of Justice is that we have a president that still is an election denier. In other words, he still doesn’t believe that he lost the 2020 presidential election. And I think you have a Department of Justice that’s doing his bidding to basically show to him that they’re doing something about it uh and that something is trying to gather data to build up a case on why there was fraud because again we have not seen any evidence of fraud thus far and the countless lawsuits we’ve had since 2020. But I think that’s the reason why they’re doing it and if that’s the reason, then yeah they will likely appeal.

MARK BRODIE: Regina what do you make of of this ruling and sort of what it means for Arizona voters and and Arizona elections?

REGINA COBB: Well, I I think that it’s a lot of chatter that we shouldn’t be dealing with right now. Um it’s something that that’s been just what uh Roy said is it’s been something that you know we want to say we’re doing something and so we are doing it. Uh I think there’s other things with the elections that you can do and and ways to make it safer. Uh going back and doing voter rolls I have a mixed feeling about this. You know I I want to make sure they’re correct but do I want to give my personal information all the way to the federal government and they have know everything about me. I know they know a lot already but I mean this is one more step of of giving my personal information out.

MARK BRODIE: Sure. All right, we’ll take a quick break. That’s Regina Cobb, I’m also joined by Roy Herrera. I’m Mark BRODIE in Phoenix, the Friday news cap continues in just a moment.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning, it’s the Friday news cap on KJZZ 91.5 I’m Mark BRODIE. My guests this week are former congressional staffer and attorney Roy Herrera and former state lawmaker Regina Cobb. Roy let me start with you on a big ruling from the US Supreme Court that could have implications for Arizona dealing with a congressional map in Louisiana basically saying that there was a district that was unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered. Uh the president of the Arizona Senate Warren Peterson has said Republicans here will file a lawsuit to try to undo some districts here that he considers to be unconstitutional as well. Obviously Arizona has an independent redistricting commission so it’s a slightly different procedure than in a lot of other states but like could Arizona’s congressional maps end up changing before the next census when they would be changed anyway?

ROY HERRERA: So without running the risk of being the worst guest that you could have on here I’m a bit limited on what I can say on this topic given the fact that I was you know the co-lead counsel for the redistricting commission this time around. In theoretically if Peterson proceeds with anything I would imagine you know that’s going to involve the commission. So I don’t want to you know talk about necessarily what the the Supreme Court decision means for redistricting going forward. Uh I will say and I think we all know this that the state constitution has a number of factors that the commission has to consider when it draws its maps. It has a process um that the commission must follow. Uh I think that the this commission followed that process and considered all those factors appropriately. Um and I think the evidence for that quite frankly is the fact that no one really sued the commission’s maps after they were promulgated, unlike 2000 unlike unlike 2010. So to me that’s a sign that the commission did its job well. You know obviously if President Peterson you know intends to move forward in challenging the maps I’ll respond to anything that he asserts uh on behalf of the commission at the direction of the commission uh and we’ll go from there.

MARK BRODIE: Were you surprised that the at the reasoning that the US Supreme Court gave in its decision out of Louisiana?

ROY HERRERA: Not really. I mean just talking very generally speaking um this seems along the lines of what this you know Roberts’ Chief Justice Roberts led court has been doing in this area. I mean there’s been a number of decisions now involving the Voting Rights Act that they have done and I think most observers of the court were not particularly surprised at this is the way that it came out um where you had this six you know conservative justices on one side and the three liberal justices on the other side. So in that sense I’m not surprised and it’s sort of a the trend that we have been seeing from this court.

MARK BRODIE: Regina, uh Arizona has been immune from the redistricting battles that we’ve seen play out over the country uh after President Trump urged Texas to start redrawing that of course set off this domino effect. Could this be what changes that, not for necessarily for 2026 because as we’ve talked the midterms are very close and or the primaries are very close and you know this would have to go through court. But in terms of maybe 2028 or sometime before the next redistricting would have ordinarily happened?

REGINA COBB: Well, the normal redistricting would happen in 2030. Uh so we’re going to be two years earlier. So there’s a lot of things to consider here. Are we going to start doing midterm redistricting or middle of the ten-year decade uh redistricting that we do? It takes us over a year to do redistricting. And the as Roy said, this one was pretty good. Uh I think they did a pretty decent job. This could boomerang on the Republicans and I hope I hope that they look at this as as something to um a warning. Um because we could actually have redistricting to that causes a whole state to go blue.

MARK BRODIE: Really, you think that?

REGINA COBB: There could be, yeah. Um and honestly it’s or you you could do it to where you put all of the Republicans into one district and then um Democrats are you’ve got competitive district and other districts. So it could boomerang on us. So I feel like that um we should leave it as is every ten years uh do the job. There’s a lot of processes that are that we need to go through with redistricting that couldn’t be done in a very short amount of time.

MARK BRODIE: If you are Senate President Peterson, like how concerned would you be that as you as you say like this could come back and maybe create more competitive competitive districts or maybe even more like lean Democratic districts?

REGINA COBB: Yeah, I would be concerned about that. Um I think you gotta look at both sides. You gotta have your eyes open when you look at this. It can’t just be that a Republican we want to just change everything to Republicans. Um it would be nice to do that, but you can’t do that. But um here we are here we are saying that this state we want to we want to change it for this state, well it can happen in another state going the other direction.

MARK BRODIE: Interesting. So guys um late last week uh the Attorney General filed a lawsuit to try to stop the uh ICE detention warehouse facility that’s being built in Surprise and she had gone through sort of a litany of reasons. There was a a stop-work order on that um anyway, but Roy I’m curious what you make of the fact that the governor the the Attorney General is going to court now to try to stop this facility which at least some in the community don’t necessarily want and the city council has basically said look even if we don’t want it there’s nothing we can do to stop it. It seems like Mayes is saying well this is something we can do to stop it if that’s what the goal is.

ROY HERRERA: I think that’s right. I mean she’s challenging this on the grounds that they didn’t do the appropriate environmental impact study at that location. And and this has been the type of challenge that we have also seen in other states and we’ve seen at least one judge in another state agree with the plaintiff in that case that the federal government has not done the appropriate environmental impact study. So that is the legal claim I think. But obviously the the larger point here is and I think Attorney General Mayes said this in the lead-up clip that you played, which is that you know this is a this would be in a in a community of Surprise where folks in the community don’t want this facility there um and they obviously didn’t have a say in putting it there. And so you know I view this as her fighting back on behalf of that community to make sure that this facility isn’t placed there. And if that means you know going to court and and you know claiming that they didn’t file a you know an environmental impact study, then that’s what you gotta do uh in order to do that.

MARK BRODIE: Regina we should mention that like it’s not uniform. Like not everybody in Surprise is opposed to this. Not you know not everybody in any place will be for or against anything. Obviously there’s a you know a spectrum of opinions here. But from a I guess from a political standpoint, Attorney General Mayes is obviously running for reelection this year. She and she has not been shy about going after the Trump administration. Is this do you see this as in addition to the the legal you know the legal issues that she clearly sees with this, savvy political move on her part or not?

REGINA COBB: I think it’s futile. Um I think that she’s she is doing politicking and I think that calling it a nuisance law and saying it didn’t go through the environmental impact study I think it’s going to be um it’s not going to go anywhere. Um I there are many communities that don’t want like prisons in their communities but they end up with a prison in their community. So I think that you just it’s it’s not some I think she’s just doing politicking.

MARK BRODIE: Could the administration have done even like a cursory I don’t know like an online survey or something in Surprise just so folks there felt like they at least had some kind of say in this or do you think they made the right choice just by saying we’re doing it here and we don’t like we’re not looking for opinions on this?

REGINA COBB: I I think that if they wanted to get it done they did it the way they did it and they should have done it the way they did it because if you start going out for public comment you’re going to get exactly what you said. You’re going to get both sides out there fighting um and it’s going to be um a delayed response. So if they wanted to get it done as quickly as they did, they did it the way they they should have done it.

MARK BRODIE: Okay, so guys a couple minutes left Regina I want to ask you about the newest state lawmaker, member of the house someone that you would have served with, Sylvia Allen was appointed by the Navajo County Board of Supervisors to replace David Marshall who was appointed maybe legally question mark to be the the Navajo County recorder. Um she has obviously experience, she served in the legislature for a while and is coming in at a time when I would have imagined having been there before is pretty valuable.

REGINA COBB: Absolutely. I think this was the perfect choice for them. It was kind of like when Steve Pierce came in in the in the Prescott area when they when they needed somebody to come in and fill in a spot, especially in towards the end of session uh right before an election. She’s not running for reelection. So this is a perfect person to be in there. She Sylvia is um a great lawmaker, did a great job when she was in there. I could see her coming in with her experience and being able to to jump right into all the budget negotiations all of the final um bills that are being presented at this point.

MARK BRODIE: Roy I would not expect that you and Sylvia and now Representative Allen would share a lot of political beliefs, but in terms of having the experience of having been a legislator at a time when you’re coming in and voting on a budget, is there is there value there?

ROY HERRERA: I mean we don’t share a lot of beliefs. Maybe I mean maybe some I’m not but but certainly not on how old the Earth is for example or something like that. But uh but yeah I mean she’s going to be there you know to Regina’s point she’s going to be there for just the remainder of this session. You have somebody in there that’s done this before. I don’t really see any long-term impact that that’s going to have because she’s not going to be running for you know for reelection or anything like that. And so having somebody that’s done it is not a bad idea.

MARK BRODIE: And presumably she will vote in the same way that her predecessor would have right? So you’re not there’s no real change there other than the human sitting in the chair.

ROY HERRERA: No that’s exactly right and we’re at sort of the I hope towards the end game of this budget negotiation.

MARK BRODIE: You just hope.

ROY HERRERA: And so I don’t think it’s going to make much of a difference.

MARK BRODIE: Would you agree with that Regina? Like she and Representative Marshall would have voted the same way.

REGINA COBB: Yes they would have voted the same way and I think that uh Sylvia’s a strong woman and she’ll she’ll finish out this season good with it.

MARK BRODIE: All right, terrific. Thank you guys for the conversation Regina Cobb, Roy Herrera, good to see you both, thanks.

REGINA COBB: Good to see you too. Thank you.

ROY HERRERA: Thank you.

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MARK BRODIE: Good morning. It’s The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Mark Brodie. Coming up: ever wish you could go to a stranger’s wedding? Well, there’s a website that can make your wedding crashing dreams a reality. But first, the Phoenix Suns season ended earlier this week with a four-game sweep against the defending NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder. The Suns had made it into the playoffs as the eighth seed by beating the Golden State Warriors in the play-in tournament. That followed a season in which the Suns largely defied expectations and won 45 games. That’s nine more wins than they had last season and more than most prognosticators expected them to have this season. With me now to review this past season and look ahead to the future is Dana Scott, sports reporter for the Arizona Republic. Dana, good morning.

DANA SCOTT: Morning.

MARK BRODIE: So how—how big of a surprise in the NBA world were the Suns this season?

DANA SCOTT: Yeah, it was a great surprise because everybody thought that they would only get to 36 games, match their total last year where they didn’t make the playoffs for the first time in five years since the 2020 bubble. Or actually, is that 2020—21 is when they went to the finals and 2020 is when they barely missed it on a shot that was missed by Caris LeVert, then of the Brooklyn Nets. Everyone in Phoenix was on the edge of their seat hoping he’d make that shot for the Suns to get pulled in when they went on that 8-0 run in the bubble, which was improbable for them at the time and they hadn’t made the playoffs in 10 years at that time. But then the Suns, of course, five years after that, were considered one of the best teams in the league as they made trades for Chris Paul and then had him for three seasons until they traded him off for Bradley Beal and then basically traded the farm for Kevin Durant and those basically the championship expectations were there with that former Big Three of Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal and Devin Booker and building around him. Then they had to rebuild around Booker again for the season and they were expecting the team to basically just be in the basement of the Western Conference, which was really loaded. So no one expected a rookie coach, Jordan Ott, to come in. A rookie head coach to come in from the Cleveland Cavaliers and be in the offensive coordinator of the league’s—the Eastern Conference’s best record last year, to just turn this team around so quickly.

MARK BRODIE: Well, so how much of—of the turnaround do you think was the coach and maybe his staff? How much of it was the players? Maybe how much of it was the players who weren’t there this season that had been there, you know, the last year or two?

DANA SCOTT: Well, they had to get younger for one. They had to get rid of a lot of guys, also being at the second apron yet last year with Bradley Beal’s contract at $50 million.

MARK BRODIE: In terms of the luxury tax, yeah.

DANA SCOTT: Yes, exactly, deep into the luxury tax, into the second apron where they could only get veteran minimum guys, where Bradley Beal, Kevin Durant, and Devin Booker were worth $150 million, just the three of them alone. Or among them. And then everybody else was they couldn’t get anybody beyond a veteran minimum contract per the collective bargaining agreement. And so now that after having to, you know, eat the too expensive sandwich that they bought with trading for Bradley Beal for basically a quarter of a billion dollars from his Washington Wizards contract that they traded for with that no-trade clause they had to buy him out and get him to waive his no-trade clause in order to put him against the cap for five years and put them under the first apron so that way they could go out and sign guys and get Collin Gillespie on—on a guaranteed deal for their starting point guard and then get the trade Kevin Durant to get Dylan Brooks and Jalen Green, who became basically their Big Three with Devin Booker in that trade for—to Houston to get them and create that new nucleus. And then get other of course, re-sign, get Royce O’Neale of course, on an extension. Grayson Allen was on 18 million and then, you know, to have those guys really buy into Jordan’s system, which was offensive rebounding and improving that, improving the defense and extending possessions, and—as well as the three-point shooting, that’s really where the Suns hung their hat this season.

MARK BRODIE: Okay, so looking ahead, you mentioned how the Suns sort of traded the farm to get Kevin Durant. A big part of that was a lot of first-round draft picks. So looking ahead to next season, what changes would you expect to see? Because obviously it’s great that they defied expectations, made the playoffs, but I assume that the ownership and the coaching staff and the players don’t want to make the playoffs and get swept in the first round every year. So what are they—what can they do, what do they need to do to get better?

DANA SCOTT: Well, what they need to do is continue to improve their defensive rating. They saw a big jump in that: they went from 27th in defensive rating last year to 9th this season. Also they made a big jump from last year at 26th in offensive rebounding percentage and got to 13th. And also they were in a three-way tie for scoring with the Magic and 76ers at 13th to—from up from 21st the year before. So what they need to continue doing is having that rim protection. Also get healthier because Mark Williams’ knee, the third—foot metatarsal injury, has really plagued him this season. And that’s been—that’s the rim protection, because they were dead last in rim protection last year. That’s helped them in with his percentage when they—when he’s out there on the floor. As well as they need some—continue to have the playmaking of Oso Ighodaro who’s basically their Swiss army knife as a big, as a 6’10", but at the same time is they need to get some more inside play because they didn’t have Mark Williams all series against the OKC Thunder, who have the best defensive team historically, one of the best of all time. And so that’s where they’re need—going to need to get to if they’re going to have to compete with the OKCs, the, you know, San Antonio Spurs, or even teams like the Timberwolves. And they’ve had some big wins this season against, you know, the Thunder and Spurs and Timberwolves, too. So they’re going to continue to need to have that inside play to establish them to higher percentage shots.

MARK BRODIE: All right, we’ll have to leave it there. That is Dana Scott with the Arizona Republic. Dana, thanks for your insights, I appreciate it.

DANA SCOTT: I appreciate you. Thanks for having me on.

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MARK BRODIE: Good morning. It’s The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Mark Brodie. For our next segment this morning, we’d like to introduce you to Jeff and Karina Besen. They’re a San Diego couple that came up with a way for you to attend a wedding even if you’re not on the guest list. Why? Well, the Besens got married young when most of their friends weren’t ready to settle down. And by the time they were, Jeff and Karina already had a family and little kids and getting out to weddings was a lot harder. So they came up with a way they could go to more weddings, and you can too. It’s called "Not a Wedding Crasher," where they allow couples to invite strangers to their wedding. Might sound a little nuts, but there are some real reasons for this. My co-host Lauren Gilger spoke with them more about it, beginning with the genesis of this idea.

KARINA BESEN: We were literally sitting one day and Jeff said, "Hey, don’t you wish we could go to more weddings?"

JEFF BESEN: Yeah.

KARINA BESEN: And I was like, "Yeah, I mean that sounds like fun, but we don’t know people getting married, especially at our age now." And that’s kind of where it was born. Jeff was like, "Hey, what if we could go to weddings and not know the couple?"

JEFF BESEN: I just want to go, right?

KARINA BESEN: Yeah.

JEFF BESEN: And, and there’s no way to do that, right? It’s probably — it is atypical I guess in society to some extent, but people love experiences and we said let’s, we had an idea and let’s do something with it.

LAUREN GILGER: OK. So you started this site. How does this work? Like you can basically purchase a spot, a seat at a wedding and participate as if you were an invited guest from the beginning?

JEFF BESEN: Yeah, so we formally launched a month ago, so this is still very, very new. There’s already been over 300 guests that have already signed up that have interest in attending weddings, and we have six weddings that are live right now.

So the way the process goes is that let’s just say that a couple has already listed their wedding on our website. A guest would go on, they would create a profile and they would hopefully find a wedding that we have on our platform in their area.

Now let’s just take one that’s outside of Phoenix, which is happening on I believe May 3. Someone would go on as a guest, and they would request a seat at that wedding. And every guest that is on the platform, when they request a seat, they have to verify their identity to say who they are. So they have to scan their IDs and they have to do a biometric scan to ensure they are the person that they are. That’s one level of trust that we’re creating on this platform.

So trust and security are huge, especially for a couple that is having their special day. The couple that listed their wedding sets what I’ll call a contribution amount, so there’s a monetary contribution amount which is similar to having a price per seat. And they set it based upon what they likely put in as a cost to their wedding and what they think the value is for their wedding.

So a guest would go on, they would request a seat, they put a message in there, the request would get sent to the couple, and they have the ultimate approval decisions on who they would like to attend their wedding. And when the wedding occurs, they show up.

LAUREN GILGER: They show up and follow the rules and wear the right things and all that kind of stuff, I’m sure.

KARINA BESEN: And it kind of runs like any other ticket you would buy to an event.

LAUREN GILGER: So that’s the kind of the guest side of it, the people who might want to attend a wedding. And I can totally understand that. Yeah, like my friends are all kind of past the age of getting married and I want to go to more weddings, right? I would love that.

But what about the people who are listing their weddings? What are their motivations?

JEFF BESEN: Yeah, so the value proposition to a couple is offsetting some of their costs. Weddings are very expensive. Right now the average cost of a wedding in the United States is $36,000, which is a big number for anybody. People cancel last minute or maybe a couple wants a venue that has a seat minimum and they can’t meet a seat minimum.

LAUREN GILGER: OK. I can understand that. Sure.

JEFF BESEN: Yeah. The other aspects which are probably a bit more social is that having extra seats or open seats at a wedding don’t look great in pictures, there’s less energy at the wedding, there’s less, I’ll say, vibe or good vibes. So there’s like that feel-good type of piece or element to this that a couple wants as well.

LAUREN GILGER: I mean, obviously we live in a world of social media, right? Where the pictures and the video from the wedding are kind of everything. Is that part of it? Do you hear from couples about that?

JEFF BESEN: Yeah, I’d say for sure. I mean, I don’t want to say like they want to have like this social media-focused wedding, but yeah, I mean when they, people are getting married and this is one of the most important milestones of their life, they want to have very good memories of that.

LAUREN GILGER: So have you ever done this you two? Have you been seat fillers at a wedding?

JEFF BESEN: Yeah, actually, was it two weeks ago we actually went to a wedding? And it was in San Diego County up in the mountains, it was incredible.

KARINA BESEN: We actually had another couple also attend.

LAUREN GILGER: So did you have fun?

KARINA BESEN: It was incredible. We got to line dance and we got to, gosh, we — the ceremony was involved in, we got to listen to their vows and be a part of such a special loving experience. And then followed up, it was a giant party. It was great. There was an open bar, they had people teaching you different dances,

JEFF BESEN: Photo booth.

KARINA BESEN: I mean we got to socialize with a ton of amazing people. It was truly, truly an incredible experience.

LAUREN GILGER: So not weird to be at a stranger’s wedding? It turned out to be really fun, it sounds like.

KARINA BESEN: It actually felt so much more natural than I think people could predict.

LAUREN GILGER: So I mean, I wonder this because you’re obviously thinking a lot about this as you’re watching — who’s signing up as guests, what, who’s offering up their wedding, like you’re trying to get the word out there about this new service.

Like what do you think this says about the wedding industry as a whole? Like do you think this says anything about how much we value, you know, the appearance versus the experience, or how maybe open we are on the other side?

JEFF BESEN: Yeah I think it’s kind of a combination of the experience and open side of things. I think we’re in a world now, especially as we’re kind of getting past the thick of COVID if you will, where people want to experience new things. People are open-minded, both on the guests and the couple side.

Just to give you a little insight on the guests that we’re seeing on the platform, they can range anywhere — and I should mention everyone is required to be at least 21 years old, there could be alcohol involved. So anywhere from people from 21 years old to 70s and 80s years old. Couples, singles, all sorts of people.

And what I found interesting actually is people that are in the wedding, the wedding industry that work in the wedding industry actually have signed up, a lot of them.

LAUREN GILGER: Ha!

JEFF BESEN: Because they’re always working at weddings and they don’t have an opportunity to actually sit back and enjoy them.

LAUREN GILGER: They want to go! That’s so funny.

KARINA BESEN: Also for people getting married, it’s a very great way to go experience a wedding, potentially get some ideas.

LAUREN GILGER: Not a bad call. Do you get some singles who maybe want to go and meet somebody at a wedding?

JEFF BESEN: Yes, very much so. I mean people on social media have commented and said this is a great way to meet other people.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, guess that makes sense.

KARINA BESEN: Sometimes it’s just a group of friends, you know, like two friends that are like, "Hey, me and my friend really want to go."

LAUREN GILGER: Well, it sounds like fun. Weddings are a blast, absolutely.

KARINA BESEN: They really are, they really are.

LAUREN GILGER: Well, that is Jeff and Karina Besen, the founders of Not a Wedding Crasher. Jeff, Karina, thank you so much for coming on, this is really interesting.

KARINA BESEN: Thank you so much for having us.

JEFF BESEN: Thank you.

MARK BRODIE: And if you want to attend a wedding yourself via Not a Wedding Crasher, you can sign up for R&B’s wedding they mentioned, it’s being hosted in Gilbert this Sunday. Check out our website for more.

[Music segment]

MARK BRODIE: And that’ll do it for this Friday edition of The Show. Thank you as always so much for being along. Remember to sign up for The Show’s weekly newsletter, it is called Radiohead. You can sign up at theshow.kjzz.org. While you’re online, you might as well follow us on Instagram as well, we are @kjzztheshow. The Show is produced by Sativa Peterson, Nick Sanchez, Amber Victoria Singer, Athena Ankrah, and Ayana Hamilton, as well as Bruce Drummond. Sky Schaudt is our digital editor, Claire Lawton our newsletter editor, Chad Snow is the news director. The Show was created by Jon Hoban. Our executive producer is Amy Silverman. For Lauren Gilger, I’m Mark Brodie here in Phoenix. Have a terrific rest your day, have a great weekend. Hope to have you right back here on Monday.