KJZZ’s Friday NewsCap revisits some of the biggest stories of the week from Arizona and beyond.
Christina Corieri of Consilium Consulting and Democratic strategist Tony Cani joined The Show to talk about what the change at the Department of Homeland Security might mean for Arizona, competing plans for increased transparency in state government and more.
Conversation highlights
MARK BRODIE: Christina, let me start with you. Kristi Noem is out as the secretary of Homeland Security. Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin is set to at least go through the confirmation process. There’s no indication that he’s going to have any trouble being confirmed to be the new head of Homeland Security.
There’s obviously been so much talk about is ICE coming to Phoenix or Tucson. Might they come for elections? Any sense of what a change at the top and the sort of the circumstances that surrounded it might mean for Arizona?
CHRISTINA CORIERI: Well, I think with the circumstances surrounding it, no president wants a Cabinet secretary that’s in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. And I think the $220 million ad campaign that Kristi Noem ran as secretary of Homeland Security — that drew questions, really, from both sides of the aisle , it looked more like a vanity play than a proper use of taxpayer dollars — was that last straw.
In terms of confirmation for Senator Mullin, I think senators always have a leg up. That’s their colleagues. They know them. So I don’t expect a strong challenge there to his confirmation process in the Senate.
I don’t think that his appointment is going to change anything in terms of the direction that this administration wants to go in terms of making sure that immigration law is enforced and that people who are not authorized to be in the country go through the process of removal.
BRODIE: Tony, would you agree that — it sounds like, Christina, what you’re saying is that if ICE was going to come to Phoenix under Kristi Noem, they’re probably still going to come under future Secretary Mullin. Is that a fair assessment?
CORIERI: I think that’s a fair assessment.
BRODIE: Do you agree with that, Tony?
TONY CANI: Yeah, I think that’s probably true. I think that where this probably has a bigger impact is just that this confirmation process is going to be another public sort of debate and inflection point about what it is that ICE and immigration enforcement, sort of the procedures they’re doing and all the, in my perspective, abuses and sort of overstepping in a lot of these ways. That’s going to be in the public eye in a very big, public way with these hearings.
And so I think that that’s going to have an impact on us here. But yeah, I think that if they make the decision to come here, it likely isn’t going to be coming from the secretary of Homeland Security anyway. It’s probably coming from somebody else, like maybe Stephen Miller, in the administration.
BRODIE: Given some of the backlash, though, to what happened in Minneapolis, is there — I don’t know if hope is the right word or expectation — that if ICE were to come and do sort of a surge in Phoenix, that it might be a little more organized, a little less chaotic, maybe a little less deadly?
CANI: Well, at the very least, the municipal governments are going to be more prepared to sort of — I don’t wanna say confront— but they’re more prepared for what is going to happen than I think they were in Minnesota. That’s one thing that I think will happen either way.
But I think that the way that this chaos has unfolded isn’t necessarily that there’s somebody at the top who’s been telling people to behave this way.
I think there’s some of that. I think it’s more of a lack of control. And so I don’t know necessarily that this change of leadership will change that. I think that hopefully, though, the fact that it has become such a challenge for the Trump administration — with people of both political parties and independents who did not expect that this is going to be the way that his promises were carried out — that hopefully that’s giving them some pause, that they realize that this is less politically powerful than it would have been than they expected it to be.
BRODIE: Well, Christine, it’s interesting to Tony’s point a little bit, one of the things that’s been said about Sen. Mullin is that he doesn’t really have law enforcement background, and that maybe the thinking in the Trump administration is we need somebody who can just be a manager who can sort of organize everything and have a little bit more sort of — as they say in college sports — institutional control?
Is that something that you might be looking for from a new secretary?
CORIERI: Yeah, I think that’s right. Again, I think there’s broad agreement among the American population that we want a border that’s under control, we don’t want unrestricted illegal immigration, and that there does need to be adherence to our laws.
What they don’t want is chaos in carrying that out. And I think somebody that can bring more structure to implementing the policies is going to be ultimately good for everyone.
CANI: I think the reason he was picked is because he’s good on TV in a way that Trump likes. I wonder if that might be the reason why Trump wanted him to be in this position, because Noem was certainly not that. I think that she did a very bad job both in the administration, but in her defense of the steps that she took and her defense of the administration.
And so I hope that he’s able to do what Christina’s talking about. But I’m concerned that this is more of an optics type move.
CORIERI: I do think good on TV definitely plays into it.
CANI: It helps. There’s a good reason for it.
CORIERI: I also think being a member of the Senate and having kind of an inside track to confirmation is another benefit.
BRODIE: It would make sense that somebody like a new DHS secretary, especially right now, could potentially have a difficult time being confirmed. If not, maybe for the advantage of going before your former colleagues in the Senate.
CORIERI: Your current colleagues.
BRODIE: Right. Your current, soon-to-be former colleagues in the Senate.
Christina, let me stick with you on government transparency. This has been a pretty big issue in the state since the revelations about a residential, like a group home kind of company that had made some contributions to Gov. Hobbs, her inaugural fund, and then they got a rate increase.
And there’s been sort of a back and forth between Republicans in the Legislature and Gov. Hobbs about what legislatively to do about this. The Senate this week approved a bill from Sen. T.J. Shope (R-Coolidge) on transparency. I’m curious, having worked in a governor’s office, would this have dealt with the thing that senators are concerned about?
CORIERI: Yeah. So it was approved in the Senate. It actually was approved on partisan lines, which I think is unfortunate because this is really a common sense bill.
This is saying that if you have a company who is seeking a grant or a contract from an executive agency — that is an agency that is controlled by the governor’s office — they should reveal all of their donations, whether it’s to an inaugural fund or a legal fund or any other fund that has connections to the executive whose branch is making those decisions.
So I do think it was very sad that it was on partisan lines. I think the reason for this, as you said, isn’t that some donation was made. A $400,000 donation was made. And this was an agency that was seeking an increase from the previous administration and didn’t get it there. So it does beg the question of what changed.
BRODIE: Is there a reason to not to only have something like this apply to the executive branch and not the legislative branch?
CORIERI: And this, yes, it’s that the legislative branch has no role in determination of grants or contracts. So when you’re looking at those, the only branch that has a role is the executive, which is why this is focused on the executive.
I understand the governor’s office wants to change the story and look at the legislative branch. That is certainly fine. To do it is not a reason to not do this.
I also think the governor served in the Legislature for a long time, so she understands the legislative timelines and legislative processes. So when you bring up the idea for a bill related to changes on legislative reporting, but you do it after the bill deadline and you do it after agendas that are the last agendas for committee in the Legislature, it doesn’t really look like a serious proposal.
It looks like deflection.
BRODIE: So, Tony, to Christina’s point, this was approved in the Senate along party lines. Is there an expectation — the governor has vetoed a kind of similar bill last year — an expectation that given all of the coverage of this situation, that if it gets to her again, that she would veto it again?
CANI: I don’t know. I don’t know. ... I agree with the governor in the sense that there needs to be more transparency in the entirety of our sort of government structure. And I do think there needs to be more transparency in contracting. I’m someone who’s been a big transparency proponent component in all. I’ve been critical of Democrats and Republicans on this.
But I do think that even if they’re not handling contracts, there needs to be better transparency in the legislative process. And there’s even things down there where, for example, they do not consider it a public record that you can sort of request, as a member of the public, what people are being paid out as the Legislature for their per diems and their salaries after a couple of years.
That’s the money the government is spending. But they’re saying, “Oh, we’re not going to release that to the public.” So a political scientist couldn’t do a longitudinal study of the way that the system may or may not be abused.
But the greater point here is that I do think that this was brought up because of politics, but I also think that transparency is a good thing and that I wish that it was more comprehensive to, sort of, we have this opportunity.
And if this was put to a vote of the people when it comes to transparency, it’s one of those things that would pass by like 90%. Like people want this kind of thing,
BRODIE: Which kind of makes it difficult, it would seem, for those members who voted against it or for the governor to potentially not sign it if it gets to her, especially in an election year.
CANI: I think so. I don’t know whether or not this is the kind, you know, this is the kind of thing that would be put in like, you know, direct mail or that you could actually actionably put into a campaign, but I’m sure that’s gonna be a part of the thought process as they’re making the decision going forward.
CORIERI: I’m not a campaign person, but I totally disagree. I would put money on the fact that you are gonna see the Sunshine Residential —
CANI: I mean specifically this legislation.
CORIERI: And alongside of it is going to say “The Legislature tried to put a stop to it and it was vetoed at least once.” Perhaps it’ll say twice by then.
I also, Tony, don’t think it was entirely accurate that perhaps per diems aren’t available via public record because I know there have been stories in the newspaper at least the last two years showing which legislator collected the most per diem each session.
So there is transparency. Should there be more? Perhaps, but it’s not a black box.
CANI: The reason I know is because they’ve changed the rules, and I got rejected from a public records request.
BRODIE: Personal experience.
CANI: Yeah, it’s a recent change by Sen. (Warren) Peterson (R-Gilbert).
