The Show for June 4, 2026: Arizona childcare waitlist, legislator on religion and more

Advocates are calling for more funding for Arizona’s childcare waitlist as the governor and Republican legislative leaders hammer out a budget. And the next addition in our series on religion at the Arizona state Legislature.

Transcript

UNDERWRITER: KJZZ’s original production, The Show, is supported by Banner Health, Arizona’s largest nonprofit healthcare system. Last year, Banner reinvested more than $1.1 billion in community health and charity care. Banner Health, nonprofit for Arizona. bannerhealth.com/nonprofitforaz.

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.

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning and welcome to The Show here on KJZZ 91.5 in Phoenix. I’m Lauren Gilger.

MARK BRODIE: And I’m Mark Brodie. Coming up, advocates are calling for more funding for Arizona’s childcare waitlist as the governor and Republican legislative leaders hammer out a budget.

LAUREN GILGER: And what Tempe officials hope to get out of a national program focused on legacy businesses.

MARK BRODIE: But first, the U.S. Border Patrol has a new leader. Rosario Vasquez has been named chief of the agency. He spent more than two decades working for the Border Patrol, including time in both the Yuma and San Diego sectors. With me now to talk more about Vasquez and what his leadership might look like is Paul Ingram, senior reporter with the Tucson Sentinel. Paul, good morning.

MARK BRODIE: Paul, good morning.

PAUL INGRAM: Hey, good morning.

MARK BRODIE: So, who is Rosario Vasquez?

PAUL INGRAM: So, yeah, Pete Vasquez, he’s a longtime agent. As you said, he’s been around with the agency for about 26 years. He’s served across the southwestern sectors, northern sectors. He’s also been with headquarters folks. He’s a graduate of their BorStar, or the Border Search Trauma Rescue Unit. And he’s just he’s been an agent for a long time.

MARK BRODIE: And what do we know about sort of what he might be bringing to this leadership position?

PAUL INGRAM: Sure. I mean, I think that’s an interesting question. I mean, there right now we have a, you know, big shakeup in leadership at DHS. And so, DHS is the parent agency of Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection.

And, you know, recently the Secretary Kristi Noem was essentially pushed out of the agency. We also have there was the chief of the Border Patrol, Michael Banks, who also suddenly retired. So, there’s been a series of shifts.

Now, the big question is ... why why did that happen? And also, what’s that going to look like in the future? I mean, one thing we have to keep in mind is that there’s been the big immigration crackdown, and Border Patrol has been part of that and has been part of those big pushes, especially in Los Angeles and especially in Minneapolis.

And so, you know, does this mean that this is a return to form, a return to the Border Patrol’s usual business, or is this somebody else who’s going to kind of operate, you know, as the Trump administration is wanted to do with bigger immigration crackdowns? I think that’s a big open question.

But it’s very clear that Vasquez is somebody who’s long been with the agency and understands the job and is probably more of a return to form for the agency, rather than someone like Michael Banks.

MARK BRODIE: Well, I mean, you mentioned the the big open question. It seems like there might be kind of a question in terms of what his marching orders might be from his bosses, given all the turnover with the higher-ups there.

PAUL INGRAM: Absolutely. I mean, one thing to keep in mind is that we have Tom Homan, who’s the, as they call it, the border czar, who’s really said that immigration crackdowns will continue. But he’s really hinted at the idea that this is going to be led more by ICE and more of a kind of, you know, arrest of individuals, small operations, and not the really big operations that you see lots of people in tactical gear getting into, cleaning out crowds, throwing tear gas, and really getting into it.

As we saw with Greg Bovino, who was the kind of commander at large, who was in charge of operations in Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis and New Orleans. Greg Bovino has been forced out of the agency completely. You know, Michael Banks is out of, out of the agency.

And so, now we have Vasquez. So, the question, yeah, is how does he actually operate inside the agency? It really depends on how the Trump administration wants to continue the immigration crackdowns. But I think we’ve seen in the last few months that things at least have gotten quieter. We don’t see the big operations like we saw in Minneapolis.

MARK BRODIE: Is there anything from Vasquez’s time, you know, more than two decades as I mentioned, in the Border Patrol, that gives any kind of indication in terms of maybe what kind of reputation he has with his colleagues or ... how sort of the the rank and file feel about him running the show?

PAUL INGRAM: I mean, I think he’s one of those people that comes from, I mean, Border Patrol is a, is in some ways an insular agency. They very rarely have outsiders. The really the only exception is Mark Morgan, who was a former FBI agent, who was appointed by the Obama administration.

Everyone else comes up through the agency. They’re longtime agents who get to lead the agency. And he has a pretty good reputation among agents, among rank and file. People like him and see him ... as a pretty good chief and a pretty good answer to who should be in charge of this agency.

You know, it’s a, it’s not a huge agency in some ways. It’s about 20,000 agents, couple hundred thousand ... dozens or few thousand in civilian employees, and it stretches across 20 sectors. So, it’s a big — it’s a decent-sized agency that ranges over a lot of territory, but he’s not somebody that’s sort of outside the scope of what you’d expect for someone to become chief of the agency.

MARK BRODIE: Sure. Now, I mentioned he had spent some time both in the Yuma and San Diego sectors, but he also has experience on the northern border, and it sounds like north of the border.

PAUL INGRAM: Yeah, he’s definitely somebody — I mean, he just came from the Blaine sector, which is the sector that kind of covers Washington state. He was the chief of that sector for a good while. And he’s also somebody that has international postings. He was a trade liaison. He’s been somebody who’s been around, and that’s kind of what you expect with the chief of the Border Patrol.

It’s not just someone who is, say, a hard charger in, you know, in the Rio Grande Valley sector in Texas, but you usually see someone who’s had some of the international scope, who understands part of the trade, part who also understands the headquarters part, which is its own complex, I think, its own complex kind of culture, too.

So, you also see almost always the chiefs, especially the last four or five, have been people who have that kind of experience. But he certainly has worked in Canada. He’s worked in Mexico. He understands the the scope of the job is not just defending the border.

MARK BRODIE: So, what will you be watching for? And maybe more to the point, what are other folks, you know, sort of in and around southern Arizona looking for to kind of glean, you know, what his priorities might be, what his style might be? What might happen that could be different with him in charge?

PAUL INGRAM: I think the real thing is to see how Border Patrol is used in terms of, of doing the immigration crackdowns. If they’re, you know, working with ICE and we see them in, you know, uniform and, you know, in tactical gear showing up to houses or, or appearing, or if we see them going back towards operating at the border.

You know, the other thing to keep in mind is of course that this is a period of historically low apprehensions. Most agents are not particularly busy. But their agency is also building a border wall, and it’s pretty clear I think from Vasquez that, you know, this is someone who’s going to continue that, continue all the programs that the Trump administration. He’s going to keep doing it because he’s, I think, a leader that they want and a leader that they expect to do the things that they want them to do.

MARK BRODIE: All right. Fair enough. That is Paul Ingram, senior reporter with the Tucson Sentinel. Paul, thanks for your time. I appreciate it.

PAUL INGRAM: I appreciate it.

LAUREN GILGER: There are now more than 12,700 kids on DES’s waitlist for childcare assistance, and 500 of them were added to the list in the last month alone. It’s happening as the cost of living continues to rise, federal funding has expired, and advocates say more state investment is needed. Nonprofits like Children’s Action Alliance have been urging leaders to make funding childcare a priority in budget negotiations that are happening now. Kyrstyn Paulat is the director of early learning and education with Children’s Action Alliance. She’s in studio now to tell us more.

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning, Kyrstyn.

KYRSTYN PAULAT: Hi, good morning. Thanks for having me.

LAURE GILGER: Thank you for coming in. So, tell us first, what are families — 12,000-plus families here who are on this waitlist — what are they experiencing now? How does this impact their lives?

KYRSTYN PAULAT: I mean, it makes families have to choose and make that really difficult decision on how they’re able to balance work and afford childcare.

So, childcare right now, on average in our state, is upwards of $15,000 to $16,000 a year, which is comparable to in-state tuition at any of our public universities. But the difference between that is ... families do have that opportunity to set aside money for their children to go to college. Families with young children do not have that same luxury.

And we have about 61% of families right now that have all available parents that are working that have children under the age of 5.

LAUREN GILGER: ... So, I mean, my first thought, 500 in just a month alone, like is this because summer began? Is this cyclical, or is more happening here?

KYRSTYN PAULAT: I mean, we — it is, you know, very much due to summer approaching and families really trying to find out how they’re going to be able to work with school being out. But I will say this has been a pretty big jump than what we have seen in years past.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. So, lots of factors have led to this. I mentioned just, you know, the economy, inflation, cost of living problems, gas prices way up — all of that kind of stuff impacts families and what they can afford to spend money on. So, that might be a factor here.

But also, we’ve seen, you know, pandemic-era federal funding still not come back, right?

KYRSTYN PAULAT: Yes, that is correct. So, before this waitlist was implemented in August 2024, we did receive federal funding to help uplift the childcare sector during the pandemic.

And when we lost that money, so we’re on two years now, our state has not been able to replace that. We have seen pretty good amount of investment in the last two years, but the reality is that we need more.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. Yeah. How much are you looking at here? What do you need from the state level?

KYRSTYN PAULAT: So, both in Gov. [Katie] Hobbs’ executive budget proposal earlier this year and that we actually saw it mirrored in the legislative proposal just last month, was $45 million. Which we are very much supportive of. But that’s the same amount that we got last year.

And we do know that with the rising costs and, you know, the affordability issues that we’re experiencing right now as a state and as a country, anything that is the same amount that we received last year is essentially a cut, right?

And so, earlier this year, Rep. [Sarah] Liguori, she did present a bill for $160 million for the Childcare Assistance Program.

LAUREN GILGER: OK. Where did that land?

KYRSTYN PAULAT: That bill did not get a hearing. So, as we are going through budget negotiations right now, that is why a lot of early childhood advocates are really stressing the need for not just the support of that $45 million, but in for us to fully fund the Childcare Assistance Program, we do need $160 million. Which I know is not an insignificant ask, but it is what the the need is.

And we have seen other states make this type of investment that either has a similar political makeup to us, or actually has a more conservative makeup. So, just last month, Indiana, they put in $200 million to their Childcare Assistance Program.

LAUREN GILGER: So, I mean, this though is coming at a time when Arizona’s facing a pretty significant budget deficit. Lots of programs are looking at cuts. Do you have confidence this will remain or be increased in the current budget proposal?

KYRSTYN PAULAT: I think that there is a huge stress in multiple stakeholders really stressing the need for more support for working families right now. And I know you had discussed the rising costs of housing and groceries, utilities and more.

But the reality is that if people — especially the 61% of of families that have all available parents are working — don’t have childcare, they have to make those really tough decisions on how they’re going to keep their jobs and also have somebody watch their kid in a safe environment.

LAUREN GILGER: So, there are economic ripple effects there. ... You think people people leave the workforce to take care of the kids, essentially.

KYRSTYN PAULAT: Oh, absolutely. Parents, they reduce their work hours, they leave jobs and they turn down better opportunities, and it costs our state billions of dollars each year in lost productivity and tax revenue.

LAUREN GILGER: What about the supply of childcare, Kyrstyn? Because I mean, I know I’ve done lots of conversations over the past several years since the pandemic about the difficulty for childcare centers to even stay afloat, even with that federal funding when it was when it was coming through.

I mean, if these 12,700 kids were to be taken off this waitlist and put into the system, are there enough providers to give them care?

KYRSTYN PAULAT: I mean, there’s certainly not enough providers, and I think that’s why helping fully fund the Childcare Assistance Program is essential. Right now in our state, we are experiencing a pretty significant childcare gap. So, statewide, it’s at 16.5%, and that identifies the potential need of childcare based on the number of slots that are available in that more formal setting and the number of kiddos that could potentially need childcare. But we do see that disproportionately that number grow in more rural areas of the state where there is very significant childcare deserts.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. So, rural areas, we’re talking about people, you know, with low income, lower incomes. What are the requirements? What do you have to meet in order to qualify for a childcare help?

KYRSTYN PAULAT: So, there’s, at the statewide level, there’s three different programs. So, the Childcare Assistance Program, this one does serve the most amount of families in our state. So, they — to qualify for the program, you have to be at 165% of the federal poverty level, which essentially equates to a family of four that makes $53,000 a year.

We also have Head Start, which is 100% federally funded, but they also have been flat funded over the last couple of years, and that’s what kind of the proposal looks like this year.

And then First Things First, which is our early childhood program, they serve about 5,000 children with their Quality First scholarships. But, you know, very similar to some of the funding issues we’re experiencing with the Childcare Assistance Program and Head Start, their revenue is also decreasing because they’re primarily funded through a tobacco tax.

LAUREN GILGER: Right, right. We’ve talked about that on The Show as well. And before I let you go, I want to talk about the context in which this is happening, as well. Not just in terms of inflation and, you know, sort of economic pressures from the outside, but I mean, we’re watching cuts come down from the federal level to lots of safety net programs right now. SNAP has seen major cuts, especially here in Arizona. Lots of other cuts coming, Medicaid cuts coming. What does that picture kind of add to this?

KYRSTYN PAULAT: No, I mean, it’s just, it’s taking away additional financial options for families while increasing administrative burden on a lot of agencies as well.

So ... what we’re seeing is, you know, children are losing food access. In Arizona, that’s 200,000 children have lost their access to SNAP within the last year. And, you know, we’re seeing some of that, you know, potentially could happen with Medicaid as those cuts do come down.

So, you know, I think with the affordability issues that we’re having right now and families just need some type of help, and being able to offset some of these costs in some way would be so beneficial to working families. Getting kids into early quality early learning opportunities so that they can enter kindergarten ready to thrive. Help parents be able to thrive in the workforce. Businesses can help keep and retain workers. And our state continues to grow economically as well with most of the productivity back in.

LAUREN GILGER: All right. We’ll leave it there for now. Kyrstyn Paulat is the director of early learning and education with Children’s Action Alliance, joining us to talk about childcare funding. Kirsten, thank you very much for coming on. I appreciate it.

KYRSTYN PAULAT: Thank you so much.

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning. It is The Show here on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Lauren Gilger.

MARK BRODIE: And I’m Mark Brodie. Coming up, a national initiative aims to support small and legacy businesses.

LISA HAUSZ: Businesses that already exist in a community are more likely to further invest in the community, hire more people, and grow within the community. And much like a regular regular business, it’s easier to sell more and keep more of existing businesses in than it is to acquire new customers in that respect.

MARK BRODIE: We’ll hear how one Valley city is looking to retain some of its local businesses. But first.

LAUREN GILGER: And now let’s turn our attention to Scottsdale City Hall, where three City Council seats are up for grabs this November, and things are getting complicated for Mayor Lisa Borowsky. On the campaign trail, there is a slate of candidates vying for those open seats, and the race is getting messy, even dragging in Scottsdale’s famed toilet-to-tap program and actor Rob Schneider into the fray. Here to break it all down for us is the Arizona Agenda’s TJ L’Heureux. TJ, Good morning, TJ. Thanks for coming on the show.

TJ L’HEUREUX: Morning. Thanks for having me on the program.

LAUREN GILGER: OK. So, let’s begin inside City Hall, where things have been interesting since Mayor Lisa Borowsky took office last year, and this kind of right-wing majority took over.

First, there was Parking Gate. Tell us about this.

TJ L’HEUREUX: Yeah, this basically happened right as Mayor Borowsky entered office. The Scottsdale City Council had already started the process of approving a contract to build a parking structure in Old Town Scottsdale.

Mayor Borowsky came in and didn’t like the plan, wanted to scrap it, and basically hand over to somebody she knew, David Hovey Jr., who was also one of her campaign donors. And this sparked a lot of controversy, and ultimately, she was unsuccessful in swaying the rest of the council to do this. It was a 6-1 vote to continue on the path that Scottsdale was already on.

And so, that kind of started her whole tenure as mayor on a really interesting, funny note. In her first State of the City speech, she actually said, "Where’s my honeymoon phase? I wanted my honeymoon phase."

LAUREN GILGER: Didn’t get a honeymoon phase. OK. And then, this was quickly followed by the ouster of her chief of staff, Lamar Whitmer.

TJ L’HEUREUX: Yeah, Lamar Whitmer was put on suspension earlier this year, and after a thorough investigation by the city, it was found that he was given a ticket for a a parking violation and tried to flash his business card and name drop a few powerful people in trying to get out of that parking ticket. And ultimately, that resulted in his firing.

And Whitmer was a key adviser to the mayor throughout her time in office, and obviously, was her chief of staff at the time of his suspension. So, it was kind of one of those big moments of a, a key Borowsky ally coming under the lights more, and controversy being added to this drama unfolding at the City Hall.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. All right. So, let’s talk about this upcoming election. The primary is just around the corner, and the mayor herself is kind of getting involved here, going after some members of the City Council, right?

TJ L’HEUREUX: Yeah, that’s right. The two incumbents who are up for reelection, Barry Graham, who has been around Scottsdale City Council longer than Borowsky and kind of the new wave of conservatives that came in last year, and Solange Whitehead, who is one of the critics of that right-wing majority on the council. Kathy Littlefield is also an incumbent, has hit her term limits, and is not running for reelection.

But there are a lot of interesting challenge I mean, there are six candidates running for the three seats. Challengers on top of those two incumbents, among them, Bob Littlefield, who was previously on the council and is the husband of Kathy Littlefield, Eric Sloan, who has his own history of controversial, questionable behavior, and Michelle Ugenti-Rita, who is a very well-known name for a number of reasons.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. OK. So, let’s talk about Bob Littlefield first. He is also the person behind this kind of very big and aggressive push to get rid of this deal with Axon that the city of Scottsdale had made to create this major development there that would include a lot of housing. He really doesn’t want that to happen and is running for a seat.

TJ L’HEUREUX: That’s right. He runs a PAC called TAZES, which is Taxpayers Against Awful Apartment Zoning Exemption, which the whole purpose of of the PAC is to oppose the Axon campus development. And this has resulted in a fair amount of controversy because Kathy Littlefield is, of course, on the council.

So, there’s, to some, an appearance of impropriety or of a conflict of interest. An ethics complaint has been filed, but the Littlefields have said there’s no conflict of interest because they never discuss the project. So, that is ongoing, and there’s some question about that.

LAUREN GILGER: Interesting. OK. You also mentioned Michelle Ugenti-Rita, of course, a former state lawmaker, a name lots of folks have known here. She’s teamed up with Rob Schneider, who lives in Scottsdale, to attack a sitting council member as well, and this is all kind of bringing up this toilet-to-tap program, which has been pretty successful in Scottsdale, right?

TJ L’HEUREUX: Well, yeah. You know, Scottsdale’s kind of one of the the leading proponents of researching toilet-to-tap, and obviously, toilet-to-tap is kind of actually more of a name that has stuck more for critics of it. They there are other names, advanced water purification, I believe, is what Scottsdale rebranded it to,

LAUREN GILGER: The official name.

TJ L'HEUREUX: yeah. The official name. But you know, naturally, I think especially in a well-off area like Scottsdale, there’s kind of going to be an ick factor for people. But Rob Schneider, of course, like one of those big entertainment figures who has solidly jumped behind the MAGA movement, has come out and criticized the mayor about this program.

The mayor has shot back saying, "I, I asked you to meet with me about this so I can explain my position, but you haven’t taken me up on that. I actually am still undecided based on the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality is still undergoing some some regulatory research on this." So, the mayor says she hasn’t made up her mind on whether to expand the toilet-to-tap program more.

LAUREN GILGER: And he and Michelle Ugenti-Rita have made a little video about this. We’ll hear a little bit of that now.

[VIDEO CLIP]

ROB SCHNEIDER: Toilet to tap. You and your family to drink it. Let’s take a look at regular water.

MICHELLE UGENTI-RITA: That looks delicious.

ROB SCHNEIDER: Doesn’t that look more like you want to drink that or this? Well, if you voted for Sewage Solange, say it.

MICHELLE UGENTI-RITA: Sewage Solange, that’s right.

ROB SCHNEIDER: Sewage Solange, she wants you to drink this, your family. I don’t know why her parents named her that, but that’s what she wants you to drink.

[END VIDEO CLIP]

LAUREN GILGER: So, TJ, tell us, you know, a lot of kind of drama in this race, a lot of controversy already at City Hall in Scottsdale. Looking forward to, you know, many new members being added to the City Council potentially, how could these candidates shift the political makeup in Scottsdale? What might this look like going forward? And, you know, keeping in mind, these are technically nonpartisan races.

TJ L’HEUREUX: Right, that’s the interesting thing about municipal government, and that’s why I love to cover city politics. You know, down at the state Legislature, it’s pretty much a stark divide. You have your Republicans and your Democrats, and you know, while there is some bipartisan work, there’s a lot of, you know, shouting matches and and posturing and standing and stances.

City politics, it’s a lot more interesting how these alliances get made. I think personalities have a lot to do with it. You know, pretty much immediately Borowsky cornered herself in entering office. There’s a good possibility that this cycle, if things continue on the road they are, that there’s going to be a lot more turnout for Democrats, just based on the kind of the anti-Trump sentiment. The candidates higher up and the general sentiment nationally will often impact the lower-ballot races, and you know, we’ve seen that quite a bit in other races going on around the country. But you know, it’s yet to be seen whether that has any effect on the local level.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. All right. Lots to watch for heading into the primary and the general election in November here. The Arizona Agenda’s TJ L'Heureux joining us. TJ, thanks so much for coming in. Appreciate it.

TJ L’HEUREUX: Thank you. Yeah.

MARK BRODIE: And I’m Mark Brodie. Next up this morning, let’s turn to the next addition in our series on religion at the Arizona State Legislature. We’re calling it Ditat Deus, Arizona’s state motto. And in it, we’re hearing directly from our lawmakers about religion and how religion affects the way they vote, the issues they care about, and maybe even why they ran for office in the first place.

LAUREN GILGER: Next up this morning, let’s turn to the next edition in our series on religion at the Arizona state Legislature. We’re calling it Ditat Deus, Arizona’s state motto — and in it, we’re hearing directly from our lawmakers about religion and how religion affects the way they vote, the issues they care about, and maybe even why they ran for office in the first place.

Today, let’s meet a deeply religious Democrat: House Minority Leader Oscar De Los Santos. He told me his identity as a Christian is fundamentally tied up in his work as a public servant.

OSCAR DE LOS SANTOS: For me, being in office is not just a job or a hobby or something I enjoy. For me, it feels like a call.

LAUREN GILGER: A Rhodes Scholar with a masters in public policy from Oxford, De Los Santos then went to New York to spend two years studying Christian ethics at Union Theological Seminary, a nondenominational school affiliated with Columbia University with a distinctly social justice bent, as he put it.

OSCAR DE LOS SANTOS: And I spent two years there immersed in the Bible, immersed in over 2,000 years of church history and church tradition studying Christian ethics.

LAUREN GILGER: It was a somewhat unlikely Christian education for a Latino kid with parents from a tiny rural town in Mexico who was raised a particular brand of Roman Catholic.

OSCAR DE LOS SANTOS: My mom is sort of your classic Mexican folk Catholic. I was, you know, baptized into the faith and did my first communion. And that relationship with the church was complicated when I came out.

LAUREN GILGER: That’s right. Oscar De Los Santos is also gay. He is the first openly gay representative from his district, and he told me, though he never lost his faith in God, his coming out did complicate his relationship with the Catholic Church.

OSCAR DE LOS SANTOS: You know, it was a it was, in some ways, a difficult thing to hold in tension.

LAUREN GILGER: Like many disillusioned Catholics, he became Episcopalian as an adult. But, he told me, today he’s much less interested in any of those labels.

OSCAR DE LOS SANTOS: Much more interested in I think the more fundamental message of the Gospel.

LAUREN GILGER: And it’s that message of the Gospel De Los Santos says drives his work today. I sat down with him recently in his office at the state Capitol to talk more about it and how he went from that Mexican “folk” Catholicism to an intellectual understanding of his religion today.

Sativa Peterson
Oscar De Los Santos speaking to Lauren Gilger.

OSCAR DE LOS SANTOS: I think one of the interesting things about Mexican folk Catholicism is that it is not very heady. It’s not like this academic exercise. It is a sort of lived tradition where the entire town comes together in one place, and the church is a place for community.

And I think that’s the thing that has stuck with me the most is how beautiful that community was. Not not just in a sort of, "this is fun" way, but in a "church is a verb" way, not just a noun. It, it means something theologically to come together to be in communion with others, to forgive one another.

But sort of from a political side, as I came to think about it when I was older, it was also a place for mutual aid. And so, my mom used to run this thing called “tandas,” which are lending circles, and it was a way for families to know that on a certain week, they would have a big amount of money, and so maybe that’s when they would do their shopping or pay their rent, etc. And it was sort of a, a method for economic security.

LAUREN GILGER: So, you grow up with that very kind of almost superstitious Catholicism. But it sounds like as you grew up, you didn’t leave the Christian faith in general, but you wanted to study it in an academic way. You wanted to understand your faith in an academic way?

OSCAR DE LOS SANTOS: I wanted to understand my faith in an academic way, in a deeper way, but also understand what the faith means in the context of politics. And what the faith means in the context of ethics. Because I firmly believe and have always believed that Christianity is not some sort of supernatural relationship that you have privately with God. That that is not my understanding of Christianity.

My understanding of Christianity is that this is a relationship you have with God and the world. You have with God and others. You have with God and the state. It is how do you act in the world, how do you behave in the world? And that was a fundamental question that I wanted answered.

LAUREN GILGER: Did you get an answer to that?

OSCAR DE LOS SANTOS: You know, in some ways I did. I mean, one of the paradigm-shifting moments for me was really learning and leaning into the Imago Dei: the idea that we are all made in and as the image of God, and it is for that reason that we are all endowed with equality. It is for that reason that we must all enjoy the same fundamental freedoms. It is for that reason that democracy is important, because democracy is the only form of government that equalizes everybody.

If you are rich or poor, or Black or white, or gay or straight, you have the same voice in your government because you are equal, and in my view, you are equal because we are all made in and as the image of God.

LAUREN GILGER: So, that religious throughline from your faith to your public service, to running for office, sounds like it was very strong for you. Like, you are motivated by that religion, it sounds like.

OSCAR DE LOS SANTOS: Right. It, it sort of is astounding because it is the fundamental premise of everything I do. And but I sort of don’t really talk about it, right? Like, mostly, mostly of my days here are sort of looking through spreadsheets or policy memos or strategizing with the caucus, but the fundamental reason I’m here is because I’m a Christian.

LAUREN GILGER: Do you get from people a lot if you’re talking to them outside of maybe these halls, that, you know, you are a Christian and that is why you serve in office, and people assume something about your politics?

OSCAR DE LOS SANTOS: Yeah, I think most Christians in the United States, and certainly those who are in office, probably don’t have the politics that I have, and I think people make a lot of assumptions. I also think that people get very confused about what I mean when I say that. But I think when I mean, when I’m able to have a conversation with them, it’s, I don’t know. There’s a connection that’s formed.

LAUREN GILGER: Do you think it’s a missed opportunity for folks on the left to to speak to the religious population in this country and say, "You know, we are also religious sometimes"?

OSCAR DE LOS SANTOS: Absolutely. I mean, yes, it is a massively missed opportunity. You know, you’ve seen Catholics sort of drift a little bit to the right in recent elections, and that is horrifying because Donald Trump is attacking immigrants and terrorizing many immigrant communities across this country in direct violation of the Catholic faith, in direct violation of what the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has said.

And so, I think Democrats need to do a much better job of reaching Christians and religious people across the country, because I think our message, our policies, align a thousand times better with the Gospel than the right does. No doubt about it.

LAUREN GILGER: Where have those religious convictions entered politics for you or the policies that you support, the things that you think need to happen that government needs to do?

OSCAR DE LOS SANTOS: I think the foundational theological principle that roots my policy positions is the preferential option for the poor. This is an idea in Catholic social teaching, Catholic ethics, that Jesus Christ came to save everybody, but that if you look at the Gospel and you read the Gospel and you understand the Gospel, the poor were at the forefront of Jesus’s salvation.

LAUREN GILGER: The Beatitudes, yeah.

OSCAR DE LOS SANTOS: Right, the Beatitudes, the fact that Christ incarnated as a poor refugee child is an astounding fact.

LAUREN GILGER: So, you are, if I’m not mistaken, the first out LGBTQ representative from your district, right? And I wonder how you think about this because I think a lot of Christian politics, quote-unquote, today, and a lot of that is very concerned with issues like anti-LGBTQ stuff and not the poor, which is so dominant in the Gospels. What do you think about that?

OSCAR DE LOS SANTOS: I think it’s sort of boring. I mean, I think it’s a tired question that’s been, for me, settled a long time ago theologically. I mean, there there are a lot of LGBTQ Christians in this world, and I see no contradictions with being gay and being a Christian at all. Again, the Imago Dei, we are all made in and as the image of God.

But I mean, I think when it comes to the political question, I think it’s very sad, 'cause I think a lot of people don’t actually believe what they’re saying. And then, I think what they’re doing is they’re being told by some poll that this is their best chance at winning is to demonize some small group of people and blame all of society’s problems on them because it’s easier to do that than it is to take on the special interests and the donors who power your campaigns.

LAUREN GILGER: Have there been times, votes you’ve had to take, deals you’ve had to make as a lawmaker, when it’s butted up against your religious convictions, and you’ve sort of said, "Well, I need to do this," greater good kind of question?

OSCAR DE LOS SANTOS: Sure. Absolutely, all the time. I mean, the Christian faith is pretty black and white in right and wrong. Politics is anything but. It’s a lot of gray, it’s a lot of compromise, it’s a lot of negotiation, and certainly, that’s the case when you have a divided government, a split government.

LAUREN GILGER: When you’re making those decisions, when they butt up against your religious beliefs, who are you serving? Are you serving God? Are you serving your church, your religion, or are there times when you say, "I have to serve my constituency, the people of Arizona"?

OSCAR DE LOS SANTOS: I mean, I think this is a sort of clear-cut constitutional question for me here. I think, you know, my view is so long as the state is not preferring one religion over another or advancing religious interests using state dollars, that that’s sort of the line for me. I think everybody should bring their religious principles to bear.

I mean, part of the point of a Legislature is that we’re supposed to be representative of the people, and there are a lot of people who are people of faith. And I think we should bring our whole selves into this job: how we grew up, who we choose to love, the faith we carry, the jobs we’ve worked, the experiences we’ve had. All of that, I think, makes the Legislature a more fruitful place.

LAUREN GILGER: All right. Thank you very much. I appreciate you taking the time.

OSCAR DE LOS SANTOS: Thank you so much.

LAUREN GILGER: That was my conversation with Democratic Representative Oscar De Los Santos For more of our series Ditat Deus, head to our website, theshow.kjzz.org. You can also find us on Instagram @kjzztheshow.

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning. It is The Show here on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Lauren Gilger.

MARK BRODIE: And I’m Mark Brodie. Tempe today is officially joining an initiative led by the National League of Cities. It’s called Legacy Forward and aims to help small and mid-sized cities help so-called legacy businesses. That means those firms that have been in business for at least 20 years and have fewer than 100 employees. In addition to Tempe, the nine other communities chosen include Chino and South San Francisco, California; Tacoma, Washington; Fort Collins, Colorado; and St. Petersburg, Florida.

Lisa Hausz is the interim deputy director in Tempe’s Economic Development Office. I spoke with her earlier and asked what she hopes the city will get out of being part of this program.

LISA HAUSZ: Well, it’s a it’s a great addition to our business retention expansion program. So, we’ve recently launched the Tempe 360 program, which has two arms. One is direct outreach to existing businesses to find out their their needs, their wants, how how can we help them. The other arm of the Tempe 360 is inbound, so when businesses have questions, they know how they can reach us directly. And the legacy program, which will help in our in our direct outreach piece particularly, is having another tool in our toolbox that we have another service or other resources to offer businesses when we provide that outreach.

MARK BRODIE: What does it allow you to do that maybe without it you wouldn’t be able to do?

LISA HAUSZ: What we are hoping to learn from our counterparts across the nation in the program is really some key questions, some key tools, and things that we can ask and dig into with our companies that have been here for a long time in determining their next step. What’s their succession plan, how are they going to to transition, either into retirement or transition to their employees, or if they’re going to get it ready to sell. We want to keep the business here, and we just need to know some of those details and how we can help them navigate.

MARK BRODIE: And what specifically do you get from this? Like, how does it work for Tempe that you’re a part of this program?

LISA HAUSZ: So, it is a a hands-on learning program over six months. So, we’ll join teams across the nation from I think there’s 10 of us across the nation, so we’ll start this week. We’re going to do a kickoff all the way through February. And in that, we meet we’ll meet monthly and regularly. We’ll have some activities that we need to do. And at the we’re learning from each other and what’s working, what’s not working in different cities across across the U.S. as well as building new and unique approaches that we can we can use to help businesses.

MARK BRODIE: Is that something that you’re not able to do or not able to do as well without the this National League of Cities program?

LISA HAUSZ: One of the things that we are hoping to gain through this is best practices and what’s really working in different areas. while we can do that trial and error here, we have a small but mighty team, and you know, the more that we can learn from others, the the better and more effective we’ll be in helping our our Tempe businesses.

MARK BRODIE: Okay. How many businesses roughly do you have in Tempe that are sort of these these legacy businesses that fall into the category of this initiative, relative to, you know, newer businesses or just plain new business?

LISA HAUSZ: Mark, that is a million-dollar question, because right now we have a database that’s starting with our new business license, so we don’t have a real feel of what businesses are there that we can we can help. We also get data from Maricopa County through our our association with government, so we get a database there, and we also have our own CRM that we’re trying to build those connections. So, the short answer is we’re hoping to reach out to those and find out where they are in in their life cycle of of their business. We just don’t have a real keen grasp of that right now. Our businesses that we do know that we have, we have roughly just about 13,000 to 15,000 brick-and-mortar businesses in Tempe, which is huge for for municipality of this size. Of those, those are five employees or more. We’re really missing those that are from one to four employees. We don’t have a a real keen sense of how many of those we have in the city. So, this program will help us build a database that will work, get the right questions to ask companies of how long they’ve been in and how we can help them, and really continue to build that database that we need.

MARK BRODIE: Well, so given that, do you even know at this point who to be reaching out to in terms of businesses that would that would fall into the the category outlined in this initiative?

LISA HAUSZ: So, when we do our kickoff with the National League of Cities, we have some of those key questions. So, some of our homework has been what what sources that we have currently, including what I’ve just mentioned with our with our database. And also, if there are businesses that we’ve already been in touch with that may qualify. So, for instance, there’s there’s three to five that I know off the top that I would say these are the ones we need to reach out to. They’ve been in business 30 years, 40 years, 50 years in in Tempe. They would be great ones to start the conversation with and then use their answers to find more.

MARK BRODIE: From an economic development perspective, what is the importance of having sort of these long-standing businesses that have been in the community for a long time? I mean, I know you always want, you know, new businesses, you always want as many businesses as you can get, but specifically for for some of these longer-standing ones, what are the what’s the importance of those?

LISA HAUSZ: So, businesses that already exist in a community are more likely to further invest in the community, hire more people, and grow within the community. And much like a regular regular business, it’s easier to sell more and keep more of existing businesses in than it is to acquire new customers in that respect. Our businesses contribute probably 80% of our of our job growth and of our local economy with the existing business groups. You know, we do have some that’ll that’ll close, that’ll move in and out, but the ones that have stayed here for a long time are our key economic drivers for the city.

MARK BRODIE: And I would imagine also that it’s much like, you know, a it’s cheaper for a business to keep its employees than to have to continue to on-board and hire and train new ones. I would imagine there’s something similar for cities, right? Like, it’s more efficient to keep the businesses you have than to have to keep cycling through new ones with closures and and openings.

LISA HAUSZ: Yes, yes. You’ve exactly nailed it. It’s it’s really that retention piece, and just like for a business keeping employees, keeping businesses here is is much more effective and, I guess, economical in respect of our of our staff time and how we’re helping those businesses.

MARK BRODIE: So, I guess for the city of Tempe, you’re you’re one of 10 municipalities that are that are part of this program, how big of a deal is it for for you and your department and your city that you are now part of this initiative?

LISA HAUSZ: We are extremely pleased to be selected for this. We are we’re going to be partnered with I think there’s 10 of us across the nation. Um, it’s they’re from all over from the south, from the north, east, west coast. Um, so we’ll get a really wide range of of perspective and how they’re approaching their business retention expansion, how they’re approaching their their legacy businesses. For us, it’s a huge feather in our cap to say, you know, Tempe is a part of this, and this these are the reasons why we want to build it into our business retention expansion program.

MARK BRODIE: And at the end of this, like, what do you hope that you have learned, what do you hope that maybe you’re doing a little differently or or have, you know, practices that evolved a little bit? Do you are you even at a point where you can identify that yet?

LISA HAUSZ: One of the key things, and it’s a great question because, you know, the outcomes at the end, what do we want, is really to have another reason to reach out to our businesses, particularly with the long long established ones or our legacy businesses. For many, many years, they’ve been operating in the city and really haven’t had to engage with the local government level. They do what they do, they do it well, and they don’t need us to help. This may be one of those reasons for us to reach out to them and see if there’s what’s their next stage, where where are they heading, and having the tools through this program will help us to have those conversations.

MARK BRODIE: All right. Lisa, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

LISA HAUSZ: Thank you very much.

MARK BRODIE: Lisa Hausz is the interim deputy director in the city of Tempe’s Economic Development Office.

LAUREN GILGER: Thanks for listening to The Show’s podcast. The Show is produced by Sativa Peterson, Nick Sanchez, Amber Victoria Singer, Athena Ankrah, and Ayana Hamilton. The Show was created by Jon Hoban, and our executive producer is Amy Silverman. You can find more of The Show and sign up for our newsletter at theshow.kjzz.org. You can also find us on Instagram @kjzztheshow.