'Arizona Is the North Star.' Seriously? (video)
How did Arizona go from Meth Lab of Democracy to a guiding light? Bad government activated multiple forces for change. Let's take a trip down memory lane.
"Arizona is the ‘North Star’ right now. I never, ever thought I was gonna say that," quipped author and historian John Nichols at a Tucson event in March 2023.
"Yep. If you wanna look at where it’s happenin'? Where' it’s all coming together? Well, that would be Arizona!"
How did we get here?
Thirteen years earlier, Daily Show host Jon Stewart labeled Arizona the “Meth Lab of Democracy,” after the Arizona Legislature passed: 1) the birther bill requiring presidential candidates to show birth certificates, 2) concealed carry without a permit and 3) SB1070, the now infamous anti-immigrant bill, in one week in April 2010. (Both the Nichols and Stewart videos are linked below.)
Democratic Wins in Arizona Took Pundits by Surprise
Nichols confessed to a crowd of about 100 Progressives that despite addressing us annually for more than 10 years, he never thought Arizona would pull off what we did in the 2022 election.
He was, of course, referring to the 2022 Democratic victories of Governor Katie Hobbs, Attorney General Kris Mayes, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, incumbent Senator Mark Kelly and enough state Representatives and Senators to comprise 48% of the Arizona Legislature. This is the third election in a row where Democrats held 48% of the seats in the formerly iron-clad Republican Legislature.
And let’s not forget … Arizona also, now infamously, voted for Joe Biden for President of the United States in 2020.
How Did We Get from Jan Brewer to Katie Hobbs?
Arizona’s Meth Lab of Democracy days began with the dark period after Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano left us to join the Obama Administration. Some of us have never forgiven her for what transpired after she left.
Republican Secretary of State Jan “Beheadings in the Desert” Brewer became Arizona governor in early 2009. She and Senate President Russell “Father of SB1070” Pearce were the cooks in the Arizona Legislature’s Meth Lab of Democracy. After the 2010 election, Republicans had an iron-clad majority, including many early Tea Party members. It was “government against the people”. Brewer and Pearce did a lot of destruction before he became the first legislator in Arizona history to be recalled.
A monster, who had been in office for 10 years, was removed from office in 2011. Great jubilation followed Pearce’s recall. It gave many activists a sense of power and the hope that the people could win. Other monsters remained in power like Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
In 2012, President Barack Obama was running for re-election. Republican politicians like 2008 Vice Presidential candidate and Alaska Governor Sarah “I can see Russia from my porch” Palin mixed blatant lying with heavy spin to pump up the base on reactionary issues. Presidential candidates Congresswoman Michelle “Conversion Therapy” Bachmann and Mitt “Corporations are People” Romney and Romney’s Vice Presidential running mate Congressman Paul “Let’s Privatize Social Security” Ryan took the lies-and-spin marketing tactics of 2008 to new levels in 2012. These politicians laid the groundwork for the disinformation society we live in today.
For Progressive Democrats like me there was a lot not to like about the Meth Lab of Democracy, and I wasn’t the only person who was fed up.
Bad Government Mobilized Multiple Forces
Before the Arizona Tea Party’s Reign of Terror began in 2011, Corporate Democrats and Republicans ran the show in Arizona. I’ve lived here for more than 40 years. The Legislature has always promoted tax cuts and deregulation. They often cut and funded the wrong programs, in my opinion, but the Legislature wasn’t completely nuts. As a Soccer Mom living on the east side of Tucson, I was glad when the sessions ended, and the Legislature could not do any more damage for a few months.
Any reasonableness went out the window when the Tea Party came to Phoenix. Even after Pearce was ousted, people like Reps. Kelly Townsend, Mark Finchem. Gail Griffin, David Livingston and Anthony Kern remained in office. Republicans gamed the rules to give the majority party more power and passed 300+ new laws every year. Anti-immigrant SB1070 passed. Anti-Mexican American Studies bill passed. The papers please bathroom bill passed but was vetoed by Brewer. Campaign contributions were dramatically increase. Mandatory sentencing increased to fill private prisons. Corporate tax cuts were annual, even when other parts of the budget were being slashed including public education. Voter suppression became a theme. Abortions became harder to get, while guns became easier to get.
How did we get from Brewer to Hobbs? Bad laws had a lot to do with it.
For more than a decade, Arizona Republican Legislators have been on a blue streak passing laws that are unfair, unconstitutional, discriminatory, dangerous, unhealthy, unnecessary and/or financially unsound in order to hold power at all costs. Since 2009 when Brewer took office, so many people have been harmed by radical Republican laws passed on a party line vote, often in the middle of the night, during her administration and Governor Doug Ducey’s. Since 2019, the most radical policies — like the attacks on abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, voting rights and school vouchers — have passed with a one vote majority and signed into law. That’s no way to run a government.
So many constituencies were outraged by the lopsided laws passed by Arizona’s Republican Legislative Majority Party since Brewer took over that multiple forces and layers of strategies were employed to change Arizona.
Top 10 Contributing Factors to Arizona’s Purple Tinge in 2022
Here’s my Top 10 list of factors that contributed to Arizona turning purple. They’re in loose chronological order beginning in 2010. (Please add people, events or groups that I have forgotten in the comments.)
1 The Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC) was fair. Redistricting in 2010 was about as fair as the Democrats could have expected. Thank goodness Napolitano appointed moderate IRC members before she left for DC. Special thanks to the beleaguered IRC Chair Independent Colleen Mathis, wife of state Rep. Chris Mathis, for keeping it all together in a tough political climate.
2 National activist groups came to Arizona. Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) and MoveOn started chapters in Tucson and other Arizona cities when the Tea Party was starting to brew. PDA came to Tucson to assist Congressman Raul Grijalva in a tough election in 2010. With Tea Party fervor hot in Arizona, unknown “rocket scientist” and Raytheon employee Ruth McClung, with her Sarah Palin styling, was gaining on Grijalva. You’ll remember that both Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and Grijalva held their seats in 2010, an election where many Democrats lost seats and Obama said the party “got a shellacking.” PDA was active on multiple issues: Medicare for All , campaign finance reform, economic justice, peace, getting money out of politics and protecting the environment. The first PDA Tucson meeting drew 300 people in early 2011. PDA and MoveOn were particularly active in healthcare reform, which became an issue in the 2012 presidential election.
3 The Wall Street Crash and the housing market crash opened our eyes to corporate greed. Beginning in September 2011, Occupy Wall Street started with a sit-in in New York City park. Two slogans marked the moment: “We are the 99%” and “The banks got bailed out. We got sold out.” The Occupy movement quickly spread. A few hundred attended Day 1 of Occupy Tucson (video here). Occupy Tucson was one of the longest running encampments in the US. Economic justice and “busting up the banks” later became campaign issues for Progressive presidential candidates like Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
This is an inspiring clip on income inequality and Wall Street greed by Senator Bernie Sanders. There are other segments from his marathon speech in Reid Park in Tucson on October 25, 2015 on my Tucson Progressive YouTube channel.
4 Horrific laws from Arizona’s Republican-controlled Legislature caused outrage and backlash on multiple fronts. For decades, Republican Legislators focused on tax cuts for the rich, corporate handouts, deregulation and privatization, while willfully ignoring Arizona’s real issues like immigration reform, chronic poverty, food and housing insecurity, low wages, gun violence, a ravaged public education system, a climate change fragile environment and, of course, water.
Religious organizations, like South Side Presbyterian Church and Casa Maria Soup Kitchen, have been working in immigration justice and humanitarian aid for decades. As law enforcement in border states cracked down on border crossers, racial profiling increased and crossing the border became more deadly in the late ‘00s and early ‘10s. Groups like Derechos Humanos, No More Deaths, Border Action Network, Samaritans, Living United for Change (LUCHA), Mi Familia Vota and others sprang up and grew stronger. SB1070 and immigration justice became rallying points for other groups like PDA, MoveOn, the Unitarians and the trade unions, as they branched out in their activism.
Political action committees and special interest groups mobilized in Arizona on many issues: ending gun violence (Black Lives Matter, Moms Demand Action, March for Our Lives, Every Town for Gun Safety); public education funding (Save Our Schools, Red for Ed, labor unions); reproductive rights (Arizona List, Planned Parenthood, National Organization for Women); fair wages and equality in the workplace (labor unions, National Organization for Women, ERA Task Force); LGBTQ rights; prison reform; separation of church and state; and many more.
Arizona House Democrats were gaveled down when they tried to introduce people in the gallery who had just completed marching 38 Miles to promote Arizona becoming the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Arizona never ratified the ERA, but Arizona women definitely need its protection from government-based sex discrimination.
5 Bad laws + Citizens United + a more competitive political landscape = more ‘Dirty Money’ in Arizona. In deciding Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (FEC), in January 2010, the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) struck “down a prohibition on corporate independent expenditures, which has since enabled corporations and other outside groups to engage in unlimited amounts of campaign spending.” This is the SCOTUS decision that infamously said: corporations are people, and money is speech.
Also, in January 2010, SCOTUS struck down the matching funds section of Arizona’s Citizens Clean Elections Act, a Citizens Initiative passed by voters in 1998. Before this 2010 decision, Clean Elections candidates received matching funds up to the amount their traditionally funded opponents raised if it was more than a qualifying clean candidate could get from the state.
Clean Elections Candidate Janet Napolitano beat “traditionally funded” Republican Matt Salmon in the gubernatorial race in 2002. Napolitano’s campaign benefited from the level financial playing field created by matching funds from the Citizens Clean Elections Act. Republicans claimed that Salmon’s freedom of speech was hindered by the knowledge that his opponent would get funds equal to what he raised. They took that “money is speech” argument to SCOTUS and won. These two SCOTUS decisions were major blows to campaign finance transparency and sanity in campaign spending.
Since Arizona has become more competitive and is often a testing ground for bad ideas — like school vouchers, attacking LGBTQ rights and restricting abortion rights — independent expenditures (IEs) from all sides of an issue have increased dramatically since 2010. Unlimited money in politics has hurt our country.
6 Citizens initiatives pushed the vote. The Citizens Initiative process, which is enshrined in the Arizona Constitution, is under constant attack by Republican Legislators. Despite efforts to make it harder and vastly more expensive to get them on the ballot, many Citizens Initiatives are still proposed. Here are a few examples since 2010.
At the height of the Tea Party fervor, medical marijuana passed in Arizona in 2010. A popular bumper sticker declared: Marijuana got more votes than Jan Brewer. Adult use cannabis legalization failed in 2016 and passed in 2020. In 2016, Arizonans passed a gonga minimum wage bill with automated increases for regular workers and tip workers. Outlaw Dirty [Dark] Money — campaign finance transparency reform — tried to get on the ballot multiple times and passed in 2022. The Save Our Schools (SOS) anti-school voucher Citizens Initiative successfully limited school privatization in 2018, but the Republicans in the Legislature keep ignoring it. Invest in Ed — a fee on excess income over $250,000 — was stopped from the ballot but eventually passed in 2020. Heaven forbid Arizona would tax the rich to pay for public education! Governor Doug Ducey and Republican Legislators vowed to neutralize Prop 208, which they did.
7 Fearless candidates with bold messages fueled competitive Democratic primaries and voter interest. Too often in the past, the Arizona Democratic Party, at the county or state level, has presented candidate slates early in election cycles. Here’s the Democratic Dream Team. In my humble opinion, this practice discouraged primary challengers and dampened voter enthusiasm because there were few real “horse races” in the Democratic primaries. Party control over primaries deteriorated somewhat in 2016 with many people running for office, challenging incumbents and challenging Democratic primary slates.
In 2016, Senator Bernie Sanders challenged Senator Hilary Clinton, the establishment candidate, and challenged the big money apparatus. Clinton challenged the patriarchy by trying to break the toughest glass ceiling in the US and become the first woman President. People were inspired by both stories. The Sanders campaign urged supporters to “vote progressive down ballot.” The Clinton campaign predicted many women candidates would be swept into office on Hilary’s tunic-tails. In Arizona, although neither Clinton nor Sanders won, women and progressives were elected to office.
The Arizona House Democratic Caucus increased to 26 in 2015 and held that position in 2017, although a few incumbents lost (Reps. Celeste Plumlee, Stephanie Mach, Jonathan Larkin, and Matt Kopec). Progressives replaced these more moderate Democrats: Reps. Athena Salman, Isela Blanc1, Kirsten Engel, Tony Navarrete, and myself, respectively.
In 2019, the House Democrats became the “Mighty 29,” a position they still hold although there was a huge turnover in membership in 2022.
The Republicans have had only a one vote margin in the House and Senate since 2019; all of their members to agree to pass their more radical ideas. That is getting increasingly more difficult as evidenced by the bipartisan budgets passed in June 2022 and 2023. The Republicans are in chaos. The Democrats should run candidates in every race in 2024.
More Democratic and Republican primaries, provocative Citizens Initiatives and epic presidential races meant more door-to-door canvassing, events, mailers, phone calls, social media and advertising. These layers of activity focused on changing Arizona increased volunteerism, voter turnout and Democratic wins.
8 Fueled by social media, Red for Ed inspired teachers and public education advocates to fight back. By 2018, teachers had had enough. The teachers union had agreed to temporary concessions in school funding during the Great Recession and the budget-slashing years after the Wall Street market and housing crashes. Unfortunately, Arizona Republican Legislators never fully restored funding to public education even after Arizona’s economy rebounded.
The RED for ED movement was born on a spring day when one frustrated young teacher posted on Instagram that people who support public education in Arizona should wear Red for Education on Wednesdays. Red for Ed exploded on social media, in the schools, at the Legislature and throughout the general public. I remember that post because it was forwarded to the House Democratic Caucus by Leader Charlene Fernandez, who said, “We should do this!” And we did it in a big way.
The Red for Ed rallying cry was: no new tax giveaways until public education funding was restored to 2008 levels. Ironically, Progressives like Salman, Blanc and I had been voting against tax giveaways since we got there in 2017. I remember the day Blanc and I made a pinkie promise to vote “no” on every tax giveaway — no matter what — until the schools got what they deserved. This became the Red for Ed Pledge, which most Democratic Legislators signed.
In 2018, House Democrats wore a lot of red. We made a lot of floor speeches about teacher pay and the dismal state of school buildings. We read somber letters from teachers, parents and students on the Floor with the video cameras rolling. We voted against a lot of tax giveaways and stopped some. And we promoted it all on social media. The Republican Leadership hated the live videos, the Tweets, the packed galleries watching us and our oratorical “shenanigans” under Fernandez’s leadership. During COW and Third Read, Republicans regularly gaveled the Democrats down — particularly the women — when we were fighting for people issues like public education, equal pay for equal work, and reproductive healthcare. Republicans changed the rules to limit speech multiple times, and we just got more concise in our Floor speeches.
The Mighty 29 pulled together behind increasing public education funding significantly and supported the Red for Ed and Save Our Schools (SOS) movements, more than other causes in my six years.
Democratic Legislators obviously weren’t the only group rallying around increased, stable funding for public education. Teachers, parents, students, education advocates and much of the general public supported Red for Ed, Save Our Schools and later Invest in Ed. As elected officials, we were able to use Floor speeches and social media to amplify the grassroots messages.
The grassroots Red for Ed movement spawned a new union, Arizona Educators United, and affinity groups like SOS and Civic Engagement Beyond Voting (CEBV).
9 Volunteerism rose. As noted above, waves of bad legislation from Arizona Republican Legislators brought special interest groups, grassroots organizations, different types of candidates and newly minted activists out of the woodwork. Sanders had massive grassroots support, particularly from younger voters, when he ran for president in 2015-16. People were inspired by the “gruff but loveable” Senator who had the guts to say the capitalistic system in the US was rigged against us and who talked about leveling the economic playing field by taxing the rich.
A second wave of Democratic Party volunteers arrived after Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016. The ranks of the precinct committee (PC) people grew. My legislative district, as well others, rented larger meeting facilities to accommodate the new PCs. Many talented youngish retirees from Corporate America with high-level computer, writing, marketing, social media and training skills popped onto the scene and shook things up. When I came home at the end of my first term in May 2017 and went to my first LD9 meeting, I looked around the much larger room and thought, “Who are all these people, and where did they come from?” I am so glad they showed up with their skills, their new ideas and their energy.
After the 2016 election, political groups working outside of the mainstream political parties — like Indivisible, Represent Me, Indivisible Tohono O’odham, Mi Family Vota, LUCHA, the labor unions and others — became more visible, more active and more vocal in the struggle for increased equity and broader representation in government.
Large groups of people in matching cause t-shirts started showing up in the galleries of the Arizona House and Senate to watch us in action. During the 2018 Red for Ed budget vigil, Red for Ed supporters were in the gallery and out on the lawn all night long as we debated the budget on the Floor of the House. People also showed up in person and later on Zoom to testify in committee. Participation in the legislative process was high.
More volunteers meant more trainings. Civic Engagement Beyond Voting (CEVB) trained hundreds of people to use the Arizona Legislature’s Request to Speak System (RTS). RTS allows Arizona residents to comment on bills and add their names to the For, Against or Neutral lists. During the sessions, CEBV sends out a weekly list telling supporters about the bills currently in play in the Legislature and giving a suggested Up or Down vote on RTS. Hundreds of people go to RTS with the CEBV list in hand and cast their opinions each week. CEBV grew out of the anti-school-voucher movement, but their weekly distribution lists, newsletters and meetings have been instrumental in keeping thousands of people informed on multiple issues.
Besides training people in campaign techniques like canvassing, phone-banking, voter registration and RTS, different arms of the Democratic Party offered trainings like Civics 101 classes.
Civics 101 classes in Pima County started as part of Indivisible Southern Arizona. Civics 101 offered a friendly, nonpartisan space to learn about the structure and functions of government at the federal, state and local levels and, importantly, where and how a citizen’s voice could be heard. In 2019, Civics 101 worked under the auspices of the Pima County Democratic Party and collaborated with CEBV on RTS training.
10 Many new people were registered to vote, and voter turnout increased. Both the Democratic and Republican Parties and groups like Mi Familia Vota registered people to vote, particularly after 2016.
According to AZ Central, as of July 2023, Independents (no party affiliation) make up the largest group of registered voters in Arizona with about 1.45 million voters. Republicans are second with 1.44 million, followed by Democrats at 1.26 million, Libertarians at 33,700 and No Labels at 8500. This is the second time Independents have outnumbered the major parties in voter registration, AZ Central reported. They added that both major parties held paid voter registration drives between 2018-2020. This is understandable. Only registered Democrats and Republicans can vote in the presidential primaries because the primaries are run by the parties. Local Democrats encouraged Independents to switch party — even temporarily — in order to vote in the 2016 and 2020 presidential primaries.
When 35% of Arizona’s registered voters face extra barriers to voting in any primary, including presidential primaries, that is a broken system.
“Now, registration of Independents are surging again. In June, unaffiliated voters made up about 53% of new voter registrations in the state's largest county, Maricopa. Independents currently lead Republicans in Maricopa County registrations by about 30,000 voters and lead Democrats by nearly 150,000 voters,” AZ Central writes.
You can see in the table above that voters were much more fickle about voting in the non-presidential years before 2016. The low turnout of 47.52% in 2014 gave us Ducey and Republicans in 100% of the statewide statewide offices. In 2018 and 2022, there were drops in voter turnout in those off years but not as much as in previously cycles. It’s essential to keep voters engaged and voting. It should be easier for Independents to vote in the primaries.
How did we go from Brewer to Hobbs? Thousands of people worked really hard to elect good candidates and turnout more voters.
We have to do it all again in 2024.
For more than 10 years, it has been a tradition for the Pima Area Labor Federation (PALF) and Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) Tucson to host a talk with Nichols when he is in town for the Tucson Festival of Books. This year, he and Senator Bernie Sanders are promoting their book “It’s OK to Be Angry with Capitalism.” More than 100 people packed into the IBEW Hall to hear Nichols. Many of them came carrying copies of the book, hoping for an autograph and a selfie.
Nichols is a regular contributor to The Nation and a guest on MSNBC and Democracy Now. He has written several books including "Uprising" and "Dollarocracy" This video is part 3 of his talk that evening.
Daily Show
Comedy Central won’t let me paste the video into this article.
Click here for the Jon Stewart clip.
Salman and Blanc were elected in 2016 in the same district. Plumlee held one House seat, and the other was open.