KJZZ’s Friday NewsCap revisits some of the biggest stories of the week from Arizona and beyond.
Lorna Romero Ferguson of Elevate Strategies and Sam Richard of Consilium Consulting joined The Show to talk about the swearing in of Arizona’s newest member of Congress, the end of the federal government shutdown and more.
Conversation highlights
MARK BRODIE: So Sam, Arizona's congressional delegation is now whole after Adelita Grijalva went from representative-elect to representative after, I don't know, a little bit of time, a minute or so had passed since she was actually elected.
Obviously this doesn't really change the balance of power in Congress. But does it make things maybe a little more dicey for House Speaker Mike Johnson now that the Democratic caucus has one more member in it?
SAM RICHARD: I mean, I think that the math is the math. The tight window that Speaker Johnson had on any vote that he put up now is formally one vote tighter with the very, very close margin in Congress. But I think more than anything, I think that Arizona now, to your point, does have a whole congressional delegation.
No longer congresswoman-elect but Congresswoman Grijalva, and really excited to see some of the policies that she put forth during the campaign, she's now actually gonna be able to extrapolate into policy ideas and really kind of share the personnel that she's bringing into the office. And excited to kind of move beyond this spectacle and drama of not being sworn in.
And she's formally signed the discharge petition. So we can perhaps even move on from that story and really see what Congresswoman Grijalva is gonna bring to Congress.
BRODIE: Lorna, does it — obviously, as I said, it doesn't change the balance of power. She replaced her dad, who is, of course, also a Democrat. But do you think it changes any in the House?
LORNA ROMERO FERGUSON: No, not really. I mean, the House has been a dramatic place for quite a while, even before Congressman (Raúl) Grijalva passed away and this election to replace him. So I don't think the dynamics shift, right?
Yes, now the Arizona congressional delegation is whole. The Democrats have their numbers in D.C., but the same dynamic still exists between Republicans and Democrats.
And even amongst Republicans in Congress, too. I mean, there's a lot of Republican infighting that Speaker Johnson always has to deal with. So this really doesn't change the game whatsoever.
BRODIE: So we were talking before we went on about sort of the dynamic of Rep. Grijalva, and we heard Rep. Stanton as well, just a few moments ago in the well of the House, speaking right after Grijalva was sworn in and not saying super nice things about House Speaker Mike Johnson when he was like 5 feet behind her standing on the dais there.
We couldn't see his face. The feed I was watching on C-SPAN, you couldn't see his face. But it was just kind of striking, as somebody who's not in politics that they're going after this guy and he was right there.
FERGUSON: Yeah. It just goes to show that obviously there's just not a lot of common courtesy in D.C. anymore. I mean, we're used to seeing these fights on social media or on Twitter or campaign emails for fundraising and whatnot. Now people are just attacking each other to each other's faces over things that are pretty minor.
And I think, honestly, to Speaker Johnson's credit, he gets criticized from the right and left every single day. So I think it was no sweat off his back. He probably tuned it out, in all honesty, it was happening.
BRODIE: Think maybe he was maybe checking his phone or something?
RICHARD: Absolutely. And I think that, you know, to the point that Lorna was saying about the decorum, we really are missing that in real life now. It used to be just on social media and these kind of distant jabs, and we're seeing members of Congress kind of just follow leaders down the hall to try to corner them into answering things.
So I wasn't surprised to see kind of that forceful rhetoric in the well of the House, but somewhat disappointing to see for those of us who kind of like the decorum of the institution.
BRODIE: Yeah. Lorna, Sam mentioned the discharge petition that Representative Grijalva signed right after she finished her speech, meaning the House will take up a vote on whether or not to release the Epstein files.
We heard from Congressman Biggs in the montage saying that he would vote in favor of that. Is that surprising to you at all, especially given how close he is with President Trump and how much we know President Trump does not want that to happen?
ROMERO: No, I'm not surprised by it. Just for the simple fact — I mean, there's so many people on the far-right Republican online circles that have just been obsessed over these Epstein files for years, right?
And it's really become an issue for Republicans of how can you defend something when you're not being fully transparent, especially when there were so many promises made in the past about being transparent about this issue. Get it off the table. Release the files. Get it out there.
There's still gonna be a group of people who are conspiracy theorists that are just gonna say this isn't everything, or they're still covering it up. That's still gonna exist. But to have it be almost a daily media headline and just something that people are gonna constantly have to address going into the 2016 election is not helpful for Republicans.
So just get it off the table, move on as much as you can, and honestly hold the people accountable who need to be held accountable, who are involved in this horrific situation.
BRODIE: Well, and Sam, I wonder, to Lorna's point, is it the kind of thing that Congressman Biggs and maybe Congressman Schweikert as well don't want to have to talk about in their runs for governor?
RICHARD: Yeah, absolutely. And I think both of them are going to be confronted with those questions because they're going to have that vote that is taken next week that they're to have to answer to. I would expect that both of them will vote to do that.
So the question is more about how do we respond to the files rather than whether the files are going to be out. Because I think with Congresswoman Grijalva's swearing-in and signing of the petition, that question is now put to bed. So now you're kind of seeing the shift in the rhetoric and shift in the dialogue that, you know, what do we do now that the information is out?
BRODIE: So Sam, Congresswoman Grijalva was able to be sworn in because, according to Speaker Johnson, because the government reopened. The Senate and the House this week both voted to reopen the government.
There's been a lot of criticism of Senate Democrats for brokering this agreement because they didn't end up getting what they said they were shutting the government down for, which is extended ACA health care subsidies for premiums that in Arizona have gone up across the country — have gone up by a lot, even without the subsidy going away.
Do you join that criticism? Do you think Democrats got enough for their votes to reopen the government?
RICHARD: I think that it was an incredibly difficult situation, and I think it still is important to remind folks that there's a Republican in the president and there's a Republican control of the House and a Republican control of the U.S. Senate. Obviously there needed to be some negotiation compromise to get to 60 votes. That included eight Democrats that were not either one of our two Senate Democrats that really held firm in their commitment to protecting the 24 million Americans that rely on these subsidies for the Affordable Care act and a significant number of those here in Arizona.
So I think that to a large extent, we needed to end the charade, the specter of what the government shutdown was starting to do. There was real harm coming with the SNAP shutdowns that were coming. I think that Secretary (Sean) Duffy from the Department of Transportation indicated that there was gonna be massive air traffic disruptions that were on the precipice, so the government needed to open.
I think it's unfortunate that the Democrats didn't get exactly what they wanted out of that. But I'm proud of our delegation, in particular Sen. Gallego and Sen. Kelly, for standing firm in making sure that we can provide consistency and affordability for those receiving healthcare from the Affordable Care Act.
BRODIE: So, Lorna, it sounds like there will be a vote sometime next month, early next month, in the U.S. Senate about whether or not to extend the subsidies. That seemed to be part of the deal the Democrats got for voting to reopen the government, was not, as (Senate Majority) Leader (John) Thune said, “I can't promise you an outcome. I can promise you a process.”
How do you think that vote's gonna go?
ROMERO: It'll be really interesting. Because now we're in this phase where folks are starting to see what the increase is gonna be for the upcoming year for their health insurance premiums. And as you mentioned, they are skyrocketing for folks who that do rely on these premium tax credits and then folks who don't, right?
And so I think as that continues on and open enrollment increases, there's gonna be more pressure on Congress to act. The question is now, Republicans, a lot of the commentary has been all these premium tax credits. What they're doing is just subsidizing insurers. It's not actually helping the individual. So there's a lot of conversation about that, about what's the actual value of it outside of just lowering the cost to the individual, but is it actually helping health care outcomes and access to affordable and quality health insurance?
And so I think that's going to be the debate going leading up to it is how do they frame this moving forward? It doesn't fix Obamacare. It does not fix health insurance whatsoever. And honestly, these conversations should have been happening for a very long time in Congress.
But to have that coupled with the federal shutdown and other issues that were emerging, like Sam mentioned, such as SNAP and then the impacts to air travel going into the holidays, which was gonna impact millions of Americans, some Democrats had to reprioritize.
And I agree they did not get everything that they wanted. And this was a deal that they could have done weeks ago and prevented a lot of this mishap that's happened.
BRODIE: We talk so much about the issue of affordability in the elections, not so much in Arizona, but across the country from earlier this month. Does that continue, do you think, into next year? Like, do you anticipate that we're still going to be talking about affordability and specifically health care affordability going into the 2026 elections?
ROMERO: I do. I think Democrats are not going to let that issue go away by any means. So I do think it'll be discussed. I do think when you look at voter sentiment, cost and affordability is number one, right? That's the top concern. And in that includes health insurance.
And when folks are seeing that their premiums are increasing by 25-30% and they have to make hard decisions of do we forego health insurance or do we get a lesser-quality plan so we can continue to pay our mortgage or do that — these are real conversations that people are happening.
And I don't think that there's going to be much of a difference between now and then going into a primary a few months from now, that's still going to be top of mind because we're not solving any issues right now. And it's gonna be the same problem going into open enrollment next year, where people are gonna see prices go back up.
BRODIE: So in general, over the past, let's say, decade, since the Affordable Care Act went into effect, a little more than that now. Typically, not always, but typically health care has been a better issue for Democrats than Republicans.
Does that continue, do you think? Like, if Democrats are able to continue to make health care, health care affordability, the Affordable Care Act, a major issue that people are and voters are talk about, does that help them next year, do you think?
ROMERO: It really depends. Obamacare has shifted politically from people hating it at one point to really, I mean, the time that Sen. McCain voted no, it was increased in popularity during that standpoint, right? But we're in a different world now where costs are skyrocketing. And people are paying so much per month for their health insurance premium and still paying a lot for care on top of it.
And so people are questioning, why do I even have health insurance? And so Republicans are saying, this is the failure of Obamacare. This is a failed system that Democrats put in place and have been unwilling to modify for the past 10 years.
Democrats could say Republicans aren't doing anything and they just actually want to increase your health care costs so they can pay for tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires and whatnot.
So, I mean, there's equal blame on both sides, right? Nobody has actually made a real effort to reform the system and make it work and function for individuals at an affordable rate. And so it's gonna be all about framing on either side, and there's not gonna be a solution before the 2016 election.
BRODIE: Well, so given that, I mean, do you anticipate that health care will continue to be a big topic of conversation going into the midterms?
RICHARD: Without question. And I think it probably doesn't surprise you or the listeners that I do respectfully disagree that I think that there's equal blame on both sides. I do think that without the Obama administration, without the leadership of Democrats In Congress, those 24 million Americans would not be worrying about their subsidies. They'd be worrying about health care, period.
Because the Republicans for those 10 years have been trying to get rid of Obamacare, getting rid of the Affordable Care act wholesale from there. So Democrats have always led on responsible health care choices, and I think that voters are gonna see that.
I think the other thing that I wanted to just key in a little bit, from what we were talking about earlier, I don't think it's the Democratic Party or the Democratic electeds that are necessarily gonna be talking about affordability.
It's gonna be the voters. That's what voters really responded to last Tuesday night across the country in those elections. So I think the juxtaposition of a president building a $300 million ballroom and having a “Great Gatsby” party while the government shut down is a really interesting split screen when voters only want to make sure that grocery prices are actually low, not just having a president lie to them about grocery prices staying low.
