KJZZ’s Friday NewsCap revisits some of the biggest stories of the week from Arizona and beyond.
To discuss a judge’s finding about the constitutionality of the way the state pays for schools’ capital needs, an Arizona senator visiting the Iowa State Fair and more, The Show sat down with Marcus Dell'Artino of First Strategic and former state lawmaker Aaron Lieberman.
Conversation highlights
MARK BRODIE: Aaron, I want to start with you. A lot of education advocates are calling the judge’s ruling in this case over schools’ facilities and capital needs a pretty significant deal. Do you agree with that assessment?
AARON LIEBERMAN: Yeah, I sure hope so. We have this kind of pesky thing called the Arizona Constitution, which says that we’ve got to do a great job, a uniform job, funding our public schools. I want to point out this is a Doug Ducey appointed judge. This isn’t some liberal judge that people are going to attack and all of that stuff.
And he’s pointing out what everybody knows, which is we have underinvested in our public schools. We need to do a lot more. I like the quote in the NewsCap that we just heard. That’s not an optional thing or some new policy idea. That’s what’s written into our state constitution. And the Legislature needs to get their act together and make a serious investment in our public schools.
BRODIE: Marcus, understanding that this will be appealed — the House speaker and Senate president have already said that they’re going to appeal — how significant do you think this decision is?
MARCUS DELL'ARTINO: Oh, it’s massively significant. You are talking about a price tag probably in the billions of dollars, not millions of dollars. And I think everybody, if you are anywhere near the education space, you probably saw this coming a mile away. You had 60 witnesses, I think, and I cannot tell you how many examples that they brought forward.
The state has already lost this case once before. And then we reformed the entire system to something called the SFB, School Facilities Board, through a grant process. And then the state didn’t really fund the grants. And so — big shocker —they got sued and lost.
We’re going to kick the can down the road because you’re going to appeal. I, with 98% certainty, think that the appeal will be lost by the state.
But that price tag comes due in just say two years, three years, four years. It’s going to be super expensive, and we don’t have the ability in the state to raise revenue very well if.
BRODIE: We’re talking about billions of dollars, Aaron. That’s a lot.
LIEBERMAN: I’ve got an idea. Let’s stop paying for millionaires to send their kids to private school with a runaway voucher program. And that’s really what’s happening. It’s absolutely crazy. They call it universal vouchers. It’s paying for rich people to not have the state pay for their private school.
Incredibly, if you look at how low our tax rate is, anyone taking that voucher if you make under $300,000, you’re taking more from the state than you’re paying. Everybody seems to be opposed to welfare until they get a chance to get theirs. And that’s what’s happening with our voucher program. We really need to stop it and put that money into our public schools.
BRODIE: But Aaron, understanding that that’s generally a nonstarter for the Republicans who control the Legislature, and the possibility that there’s a Republican governor in office in a couple of years, if we’re talking about billions of dollars, what are some of the options for getting that?
LIEBERMAN: Honestly, I think even among some of the more mainstream or centrist Republicans, the idea of paying for millionaires — I mean some income limit on upper limit, which is what the governor proposed this last time on the voucher program — would honestly really make sense. They’ve got to go somewhere.
They could go back and redo Proposition 123, which they let lapse and haven’t done that. Try to do that next year to get more out of the state fund. There’s lots of choices.
But it’s just like they say: Stop digging the hole first. And if you go back and look at the predictions of the voucher program, $40 million I think was the original one. We’re now up to a billion.
It’s a runaway train. It’s like that fuels program that just got totally out of control. The Republican Legislature that authorized that fuels program came back and eliminated it. We’ve got to do something similar.
BRODIE: Marcus, do you see a universe in which Republicans in the Legislature do something to change the universal ESA program?
DELL'ARTINO: No. They will look at every other option under the sun, but probably not that one. And I would just point out, look, this is one problem that we’ve talked about, but the Joint Legislative Budget Committee came out consistently updating a report on the effects of the “Big Beautiful Bill.”
And so that has already had an impact on Arizona. It’s like, round numbers, $350 million this year, in this budget that we just passed. And then by the third year you grow to $450 million. So it’s not only the school revenue that we’re gonna have to make up.
We’re gonna have to make up some revenue in some other places too. So there’s some tough choices coming. Personally, I would not want to be a legislator in the next three years.
BRODIE: I mean, given as you referenced the difficulty in raising taxes and raising revenue, it seems like the two options really are to make cuts or to ask voters to raise revenue in some way.
DELL'ARTINO: That’s exactly what I would say. One of the very few choices I think you have is going to the ballot on some of this stuff. ... And the question is whether the Legislature refers something to the ballot or is it the people.
BRODIE: Do you see the ballot as a maybe the option here?
LIEBERMAN: We passed a surtax on high income earners. It’s kind of a funny thing. When the Legislature passed the flat tax, they assumed that surcharge on high income earners was going to be in place and we’d have essentially a graduated income tax. Then, crazily, a judge threw it out, even though a majority of Arizonans voted for it.
So maybe we’ll be back to something like that. I think it’s public service. Our legislators, we’ve got Democratic minorities that are close that would all vote for it. You probably need three or four Republicans. We’ve seen this in things like Medicaid expansion and other things like that, where a small group of Republicans join Democrats, essentially take control of the chamber.
I was there for one or two of these. It’s kind of exciting when you’re in the minority to see it all go down. And when you have a majority of the votes — it’s 31 and 16. Even if that’s just two or three Republicans, you can get something to a Democratic governor.
I will say, I think Gov. Hobbs — you know, the state is booming. I think her reelection chances are actually quite high right now. And that’s going to be a big difference maker, certainly in terms of how we solve this.
BRODIE: Marcus, have you ever been to Iowa?
DELL'ARTINO: No, as a matter of fact, I haven’t. And I do want to go because I have a number of very close friends of mine that grew up in Iowa.
BRODIE: I’m sure they’d love to see you. Maybe they would take you to the Iowa State Fair.
DELL'ARTINO: I would love to go to the Iowa State Fair. If nothing else, just to eat.
BRODIE: Yeah, a lot of deep fried goodness there. And if you were there a few days ago, you would have seen one of Arizona’s U.S. senators.
DELL'ARTINO: Well, ironically, I did run into them two days ago.
BRODIE: Not in Iowa.
DELL'ARTINO: I run into him at school. Picking up children is where I run into him. So it wasn’t Iowa, but he was fresh back from Iowa, I will say. And I think he was a little tired, I will admit that. But clearly he’s working it.
BRODIE: Aaron, what’s the endgame here? I mean, there’s so many rumors about him thinking about running for president now.
LIEBERMAN: Yeah. Look, in a red wave year in which almost no Democrats won, he won in a very tough state for Democrats to win statewide. I think there’s clearly something about his background, his military service and frankly how he’s carried himself and how he’s articulated things. He’s been a leader, frankly, and kind of articulating a different vision for the Democratic Party in terms of the border and other things like that.
And there’s great food at the Iowa State Fair. So it’s a great combination of things. It’s really interesting to see this whole kind of pattern develop. We have kind of two different senators right now. You know, Sen. Kelly tends to be more of a heads down guy, kind of getting things done. I think Sen. Gallego likes to be out front, and we’re kind of seeing that happen as things roll out.
DELL'ARTINO: But can I point this out because this is sort of a weird time: You could possibly have both our senators running for president. Mark Kelly was certainly on the short list for VP.
BRODIE: VP. Yeah.
DELL'ARTINO: There is a scenario where — I don’t think it’s very likely ...
LIEBERMAN: I suspect they work that out, out one way or another.
DELL'ARTINO: But it could.
BRODIE: Well, here’s the question, because you have a Democratic Party that sort of the conventional wisdom is, is maybe a little leaderless at the moment. Aaron, I’m not sure if you would agree with that assessment.
I mean, it seems though — and maybe I’m just going out on a limb here — it seems as though Sen. Gallego, even if he’s not ultimately going to decide to run for president, maybe he’s kind of running to be sort of a voice, a face of the Democratic Party.
LIEBERMAN: Look, Arizona is a great spot for a Democratic leader to emerge because to get elected statewide here, you have to win over kind of the independents and even some of the Republicans that decide our elections. There’s a little bit of like, you know, Bill Clinton, the Democratic governor of Arkansas.
Someone needs to emerge to articulate a new vision for the Democratic Party. Sen. Obama did that. And everyone is rending their clothes, saying the Democratic Party is going to cease to exist. Do you remember when Obama got elected and everyone thought there was a new coalition forming and Republicans would never win another national election? It wasn’t that long ago.
Politics tends to swing from one thing to another. And I think there’s a good chance that Sen. Gallego could be a part of what’s articulating a vision for Democrats that really gets back to it’s about working people getting great jobs and being able to support their family, and that’s what we should care about.
And we kind of lost our way a little bit.
BRODIE: Marcus, does Sen. Gallego — car pickup line at school aside — does he have what it takes to be sort of a national voice for Democrats?
DELL'ARTINO: Oh, I totally think so. I think he’s already proven it, frankly. But you’re watching him articulate that message in Iowa. You’re watching him articulate it on the Hill. He’s certainly got the energy for it. He is a hard worker and a mover and, by the way, also a dad to young kids.
Not an easy spot to be in, but he’s up for the challenge. There’s no doubt about it.
