The Arizona education wars are turning into a series of Republican-on-Republican, tag team cage fighting matches. The whole thing is getting pretty ugly. That’s what cage fighting is all about, of course, getting ugly; that’s its allure. Me, I don’t watch the sweaty-body grappling on cable TV, but I’m a big fan of the political variety, especially when the fighting is between the couldn’t-happen-to-a-more-deserving-group-of-folks Republicans, in or out of office. The “Trump vs. The Field” primaries, the Phoenix skirmishes . . . pass the popcorn, hon, this is really good.
Ed Supe Diane Douglas’ antics, mainly directed at the state school board, have been the main source of jibes and jokes in the media. She’s a novice who says and does silly stuff in her pursuit of her education agenda, throwing tantrums, suing the board and seeing if she can win by taking her marbles, or her websites, and going home. That all makes for easy, eye-rolling commentary. It also makes people forget that, since she took office, Douglas has made some of the most sensible statements about education coming from a Republican in a long time, including a school funding plan that’s head-and-shoulders above any other AZ Republican proposal I’ve heard, maybe ever. Much as people like to say she’s harming our schools, so far as I can tell, she isn’t. Maybe she will in the future, it’s certainly possible, but not yet. She’s gumming up the privatization works a bit and giving the state board fits, but I haven’t seen how it has hurt kids in a way that’s comparable to, say, the legislative cuts to education which have been going on for years or Huppenthal’s vendetta against TUSD’s Mexican American Studies program.
Douglas is an easy target, a side show, a distraction, but Doug Ducey is the big dog. While he smiles and keeps his hands clean, his political friends attack, sometimes in the light of day, sometimes leaping out of dark alleys. Ducey does not like to be challenged. His dark money henchman, Sean Noble, went after Mesa Superintendent Michael Cowan when he wouldn’t behave. These days, Ducey’s target is state treasurer James DeWit, who opposes Ducey’s plan to tap into state land trust funds and is being ostracized and trashed by Ducey and his surrogates. My favorite surrogate attack was on the breibart.com website, written by Lisa de Pasquale. To put her comments in context, she calls Ann Coulter her mentor, loves Scott Walker and calls Ducey “the Walker of the West.” De Pasquale accuses DeWit of “throwing a bureaucratic hissy fit” and “sid[ing] with unions and liberals.” The graphic in the article portraying DeWit as Doctor Evil “HOLDING ARIZONA KIDS RANSOM FOR $2 BILLION!” is worth the price of admission.
But then again, DeWit hasn’t exactly taken the high ground. While attacking Ducey’s education plan, he said during a recent presentation, according to the Republic’s Laurie Roberts, “cleaning up all the misinformation the Governor’s Office keeps putting out about this plan is like following around a dog with diarrhea. It doesn’t stop.” Not even the dog diarrhea reference can stop me from grabbing for another handful of popcorn.
Roberts says DeWit told her, referring to Ducey and his crowd:
“They’re not good guys. That’s the part I’m realizing. Some of the stuff I’m starting to see is they’re just not good people and they’re not honest people and they’re not moral people.”
Right now, the biggest political story in the state is education funding. The fact that there are three—count them, three—Republican proposals to increase funding shows how the public tide has turned against the way the state has starved our schools. Two of the plans, from the governor and the legislative leaders, are stalls. Only Douglas’ “AZ Kids Can’t Afford to Wait!” plan addresses the immediacy of the problem. But Ducey holds all the cards since he has the dark money and other powerful forces behind him, and he likes to win—pretty or ugly, he doesn’t really care. The other two are depending on rounding up enough legislative and popular support to push back against Ducey. Maybe Ducey will piss off the wrong people and they’ll start going after him the way he goes after his enemies, and his brand will be tarnished. We’ll have to keep watching. We’re still in the early rounds of the fight, and so far there have been blows struck but no clear winners and losers. It’s already good viewing, and it’s just getting going. Stay tuned.
This article appears in Sep 10-16, 2015.
The question really is how many BILLIONS of state funding for public education is being stolen by the state legislature. Currently we are waiting to hear if it’s $1.3 or some fraction of that as the court determines.
As far as the circus in Phoenix is concerned, Douglas is the only one standing up for a continuing and reliable source of education funding. As an elected official can she be fired by the guv? Safier’s right, bring on the popcorn and your favorite beverages as the Republicans whip themselves into a frenzy (or at least a slow speed OJ Simpson sort of entertainment spectacular).
Check out this Forbes article featured on the Gov’s website, by a PR exec, Travis Brown, who was no doubt paid well by some dark money to blow sunshine where the sun don’t shine. Brown makes it sound like Arizona is an economic powerhouse and that Ducey’s plan to raid the state land trust to put more money into K-12 is all pros and no cons. Here’s the money quote, urging the elimination of the state income tax:
“There’s no need for such an innovative and financially attractive place as Arizona to slap a growth-discouraging premium on doing business in the state.”
Innovative and financially attractive? Really?
http://azgovernor.gov/governor/news/2015/0…
While I certainly concur that Diane Douglas’ solution to school funding is the most sensible recommendation to come out of the Administration, the fact that she makes the recommendation makes it almost DOA. Her never ending antics and the fact that she has alienated almost everyone that she interfaces with makes her to easy to just ignore. We need a Superintendent that has some credibility and who is respected by the policy makers…..DD just is not that person.
We need to have an initiative to restore the 1 cent per $1 sales tax that was in existence briefly under the Brewer administration but make sure to goes to education and not to corporate tax cuts. Ducey opposed the extension of that sales tax, but it’s clear that we need new revenue to support vital programs such as education. Ducey’s proposal to take money from state land trust to temporarily increase educational funding is bad. It’s basically stealing money from future children’s educational needs to temporarily fund education now. According to the Arizona Capitol Times, state Treasurer DeWitt says “Ducey’s plan falsely promises mroe money for schools, when it actually just gets them money now at the expense of greater returns later.” A 1 cent sales tax initiative would allow Arizonans a good alternative to the duplicitous Ducey plan.
Brian,
Good idea, I’d accept it, except…. ” but make sure to goes to education and not to corporate tax cuts” is a non-starter for the same reason TUSD school bond issues fail – a complete lack of trust that the monies will be spent as intended. The state is already sitting on $1.3 billion earmarked for the schools using the same sales tax increase you suggest. Isn’t this a case of “fool me once….”
The state legislature has shown they cannot be trusted anymore than local Baja politicians who, similarly, collect needed exceptional revenues and make them disappear.
For a good laugh read the following very old story from the TW’s own Margaret Regan.
http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/at-last…
The kids could have learned a great deal at those museums – only they never were built and the money is long gone. (I was looking forward to the IMAX theater).
Safier hasn’t taken the hint that his “pass the popcorn” approach to the state’s elected officials’ battles over education is offensive to some. He’s used this gimmick so often of late that at this point it’s not just offensive, it’s also downright boring and repetitive. Yawn….turn out the light, hon….there’s nothing good on tonight.
I don’t like the language Safier uses about Douglas, her “antics” and “she’s a novice” who “does silly stuff” and “throws tantrums.” Frankly, I think the man is a bit of a misogynist. And his repeated assertions that Douglas isn’t doing much harm…certainly not as much as Huppenthal would be doing…are self-serving. He’s trying to defend himself from the charge that, involved as he was with the outing of Huppenthal’s anonymous comments, he and his cronies got us out of the frying pan and into the fire with our State Superintendent of Education.
DeWit sounds like he dishes out some plain talk: ““cleaning up all the misinformation the Governor’s Office keeps putting out about this plan is like following around a dog with diarrhea. It doesn’t stop.” Wow. Reminds me of another “leader” we hear quite a bit about these days in Tucson, who lies so frequently that he produces a constant need for “clean up” and damage control.
As for the other DeWit comment, ““They’re not good guys. That’s the part I’m realizing. Some of the stuff I’m starting to see is they’re just not good people and they’re not HONEST people and they’re not MORAL people.” This also reminds me of someone I know locally. I’m wondering, David, if you can guess who?