First Thursday: The Governor on HORIZON

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Join Governor Janet Napolitano on Horizon and get the latest on her veto fight with state lawmakers.

>> Michael Grant:
Tonight on "Horizon," Republican legislative leaders still unhappy about budget vetoes issued by Governor Janet Napolitano. Plus, the University of Arizona gets the go-ahead from NASA to launch a Mars probe aimed at finding if there was life on the red planet. That's next on "Horizon."

>> Announcer: "Horizon" is made possible by the Friends of channel 8, members who provide financial support to this Arizona PBS station. Thank you.

>> Michael Grant:
Good evening, I'm Michael Grant. Welcome to "First Thursday, the Governor on Horizon." It's Governor Janet Napolitano's monthly visit on "Horizon," where she talks about the latest issues and answers questions from viewers. Tonight, we'll talk to the Governor about the continuing flap over her vetoes of a corporate tuition tax credit and funding for English learners. Earlier this week, House Speaker Jim Weiers and Senate President Ken Bennett were on "Horizon" to give their side of the story on those vetoes, which in some ways has turned into a "she said/they said" situation. A budget deal was hammered out in a meeting between the Governor and the two legislative leaders. President Bennett said he and Weiers never promised to include Democrats when passing a bill providing funding for English learners.

>> Sen. Ken Bennett:
It was in my conference room where we committed to the Governor that we would address the Flores bill for English language learners, but it was never tied to the budget. The budget agreement was the three bills that I referred to, all-day kindergarten and the corporation tuition tax credit and the Phoenix medical school. We agreed later in my conference room that we would not finish the session or sine die without addressing the Flores bill, but we never agreed that after months and months of negotiating the budget, that we would turn the entire budget over to yes or know by the minority leadership on one completely unrelated bill. We said we would address that bill. We worked with them to get an agreement, both sides gave, and that was never tied to the corporation tuition tax credit.

>> Michael Grant: The Governor also issued a veto on a bill that would allow corporations to make donations to school tuition organizations through a tuition tax credit. She says she did so because the bill did not include a provision to end after five years without a vote to keep it going. Weiers responded to the Governor's claim on that issue.

>> Jim Weiers: Michael, I've been asked that question, what did I think, what did I understand it to be, and it's very simple, what was in the amendment. It's not what I wanted it to be, it's not what I thought it should be, it's not what it could be, it's what it was. The language is as pure and clear as you possibly could get. I think that there were six iterations as to that particular amendment, and each one of those as they came up, that never changed. There was never any question; there was never any conversation. There were lots of changes that came about within the final draft of the amendment that was never one of them. So to say that's what I thought it was, no, that's what it was. And when you look at the original legislation, that's what it was. I think it wasn't section 1; it's not exactly hidden in the bill.

>> Michael Grant:
George Cunningham signed off on it, the Governor's budget director. He says that was an oversight, though. He read it too fast.

>> Jim Weiers:
Oh, no.

>> Michael Grant:
Here now to respond to those comments and talk about the veto situation is Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano. How are you, Governor?

>> Janet Napolitano:
I'm fine, how are you?

>> Michael Grant:
I'm okay. Well, I don't quite know how to sort this out. Why don't we start with the tuition tax credit? Here's president Bennett's version, went to you, said, listen, we can't sell our caucus on two things you want, all day-K, and the funding for the university.

>> Janet Napolitano:
That's right.

>> Michael Grant:
We want in return, but with the agreement on the tuition tax credit, we think we can convince our caucus --

>> Janet Napolitano:
He said that, but let's back up. When I vetoed the first budget, I met with leadership, and I said, a new budget has to include the following, it has to include funding for all-day K, it has to include funding for child care. It has to include funding for a new medical school. It has to include funding for CPS and to restore general assistance, and it has to include funding for Flores and a negotiated agreement that you reach on the legislative floor. I never segregated out kindergarten for tuition tax credit. So I think that's one kind of miscommunication, at least, that I'm hearing through this. But the second thing is, when we negotiated the tuition tax credit, that was a big give on my part, a huge give. And I took a lot of criticism for it.

>> Michael Grant:
Your party didn't like it.

>> Janet Napolitano:
They hated it. They believe that that takes money away from public schools, on the other hand, you've got to give something to give other things. This is a bipartisan government we have right now, but it was very clear that it had to be sunset, truly sunset, and we talked about that specifically. Now, what happened is, as so often happens at the legislature, they moved the budget bills, by the time it got drafted, it was late at night the following day, they moved them to the floor, there was an oversight made that was brought to the attention shortly -- a few days thereafter to staff, saying this is a problem, we need to run a trailer, we need to do something to fix the problem, they didn't do that. They adjourned, sine day.

>> Michael Grant:
In other words you are saying your staff called the problem to the legislature's attention?

>> Janet Napolitano:
We did call it to their attention.

>> Michael Grant:
George Cunningham signed off on it.

>> Janet Napolitano:
It was an oversight. He was very frank about that. They delivered a truckload of bills and said you need to sign off in 20 minutes. So a mistake was made. Mistakes were made in other parts and those were corrected. This one is not. The sunset was a very important part of that tax credit. I said before, and I say again, I will sign that tuition tax credit with the five-year sunset as previously agreed, but that's the deal. Now on English language learners, what I was hoping would happen is that for the first time, Republican leadership would actually negotiate something for the Democrats for whom this is such a key and important issue. They did not negotiate. They did not attempt to reach a compromise. They did not address the concerns, either the Democrats or moderate republicans who got up on the floor and said this bill will not pass muster, it does not do what it needs to do to fund English language instruction. They held the budget bills knowing that Flores was part of the overall thing, then they rammed Flores through at the end of the night. They didn't stop and say, you know what, we can't get an agreement with the Democrats or anybody else on English language learners, we better get to the Governor and say we better revisit this deal. They don't do that. They rammed the bill, gave it to me as an all or nothing proposition. In my world, you know, in my world, a deal is all of a deal. They didn't give me all of the deal. So we need to go back. We can fix those two issues, and I will next -- as soon as I can, give them a propose salt on that, once tempers simmer down and they look at the situation from a different point of view.

>> Michael Grant:
Well, in the deal is a deal vein, here's what president Bennett says. He says, all right, if we had a misunderstanding, fine, but the honorable thing to have done would have been to have vetoed all portions of the deal, veto public university --

>> Janet Napolitano:
I respectfully disagree, I respectfully disagree for a couple of reasons. One is the overall budget is a very good bipartisan budget. There is good compromise through the whole thing, and there is really good things in there that will move Arizona forward, and it was crafted in the atmosphere where a number of members of the Republican caucus in particular were saying they would rather shut down government all together than put in all day kindergarten or put in a new medical school, those things we really need to move forward. So rather than do that, I said, no, 95% of this budget is done, it's a good deal, let's sign it, we've got two issues. We've got to correct the sunset provision, which is a correction. I'm not going to back away from that agreement which I made. But, Flores needs to be a real solution to Flores, and what they gave me was not. They knew it. They were told it was not, and they were also told this is part -- you know this is part of the overall budget agreement. Their own notes reflect that. So, here we are. We need to get beyond this. Let me just say this. We can go back and forth, it does Arizona no good. They are the legislative leadership, I'm the Governor. We've all got to get back to the table and figure those issues out and figure out how we're going to deal with each other next year, because next year we're going to have even larger challenges and other things that we need to do for the people, and that's -- what I'm trying to do is not get into the personal attacks and there have been a lot, well, you know, I'm --

>> Michael Grant:
Like the bumper sticker?

>> Janet Napolitano:
Yeah, you know, come on. This is -- you know, this is an agreement that was reached. We had obviously miscommunication on both sides. It happens. You are a lawyer, I'm a lawyer, we've both dealt with this a million times. We have a duty to the people of Arizona to put that behind us, sit down and see if we can work out these issues. I will give them a proposal in how to do that in the near future.

>> Michael Grant:
Speaker Weiers, though, says listen, how logical is it that we would have CEDED control on that issue to the Democrats?

>> Janet Napolitano:
Well, he's misstating what he said. What they said is they would sit down and negotiate an agreement. I will tell you, because I was hearing about it, they didn't negotiate. They basically said, you know what, we'll listen to you, and we're going to ram the same bill we were going to run before. They didn't negotiate. They didn't even try in my view. It was not a good faith effort. And it wasn't an adequate solution. Tim Hogan, the lawyer for the plaintiffs in the Flores matter immediately said, that bill is a nonstarter. It doesn't provide the funding and the mechanism for the funding that the Court needs and that we need.

>> Michael Grant:
Is it really a level of funding issue or more the delivery mechanism, either the grant system or not a grant system?

>> Janet Napolitano:
Right. It's a little bit of both. It's funding for the long term to make sure that our intention --

>> Michael Grant:
Some assurance to build up to a level?

>> Janet Napolitano:
And the intent is to do that. We do that all the time in this state. You know, we say we're going to start here and we know in the end we're going to be at a different level but we'll be measuring as we go so we get the proper amount. But the process issue is equally important. What the bill that was sent to me did was create a huge bureaucracy within the Department of Education. School districts would have to write grants, which means you are spending money on grant writers as opposed to teachers of English, which is where we need to spend our money, and there was no assurance year to year what schools would get based on population or anything else. And so, that is very problematic. I think there are some things we can do that will build accountability into the program that will allow us to make reasonable assumptions about what is necessary, and to fund it. And like I said, we will -- we are talking with a number of people now, Democratic legislators, folks in the education communities, folks in the school districts, particularly those most heavily impacted and we hope to have a proposal that we can get back to the table on and say okay, guys, let's finish the deal.

>> Michael Grant:
When will that happen?

>> Janet Napolitano:
As soon as we can do it. Because I think that the only thing that's going to get legislative leadership, quite frankly, off of the he said/she said stuff is to have something to say let's go back to the table and work out these last two issues.

>> Michael Grant:
Why not send it to the federal court. Tim Hogan can guess pretty good, he's got a pretty good track record.

>> Janet Napolitano:
He does.

>> Michael Grant:
Still, you've got a bill in front of you that you don't like --

>> Janet Napolitano:
Right.

>> Michael Grant:
But why not run the thing down to the judge and say, okay, here's what we passed, is it right?

>> Janet Napolitano:
Yeah, a couple of reasons. I thought about that, and several things, that's a long delay. It's very -- these things take time in federal court, and I would like to see if we can get something resolved before the school years starts. The second is, I find this an ironic argument by the legislative leadership who are all the time criticizing judges for being activist judges and doing the job that the legislators were elected to do. This is a job that should be done with the legislators with an agreement by the executive branch if we can get there. We owe it to ourselves to try before throwing it to the court.

>> Michael Grant:
Is there a philosophical issue involved here, the Republicans wanting to have English immersion instruction as required by law, Democrats favoring more the bilingual model?

>> Janet Napolitano:
I don't think that's the issue. That really doesn't come up. It was the overall amount of funding in the long term and the mechanism by which monies would be distributed to the school districts. Those were the two pressure points, and, again, in my view, this was part of the overall budget, and I had said from the beginning, an adequate solution to Flores was key to the budget. I didn't say anything about CEDING control to the Democrats, but if they wanted me to agree to, you know, the compromises on funding for the Department of Corrections and the Department of Environmental Quality, and all of those other things, this has had to be done adequately. It wasn't. Sign the stuff that was done that we clearly all agreed to, that's done. Now, let's fix those last two issues.

>> Michael Grant:
Legislators say that the damage is irreparable. Is that just in the -- they seem to be sincere about that.

>> Janet Napolitano:
Well, you know, again, I think time goes past. I mean, in my view, I had a very different view of that budget agreement than apparently they did, and that's unfortunate, and we're going to have to do some things next year to avoid those misunderstandings. I don't -- you know, I don't give them evil intent or bad intent. I had no bad intention, but in my view, the corporate tax bill they sent me did not comply with our agreement, and that was on something that was very expressly discussed about the sunset. And on the Flores matter, on English language instruction, not an adequate solution. We need to go back to the table and fix it.

>> Michael Grant:
Our first viewer question relates to the acrimony in the legislature. "Do you foresee any return to bipartisan action in the Arizona legislature and what changes do you think are needed to

>> Janet Napolitano:
I wish we had more bipartisanship at the legislature. The Democrats were effectively not talked to, included in. When the Republicans ran their first budget, the senate minority leader Linda Aguirre had to go to the Republican caucus to get a copy. Even routine courtesies were not followed. I they we had need to return to the daze of yore where people could disagree but still hang out in each other's office and talk about things. That communication is not there. The only thing that makes the legislature bipartisan is they have to deal with the Governor of the other party. Now, that's -- that gives us a government of checks and balance and so forth, but in my view, some of the older legislators who are long gone now, would be helpful if they would talk to their colleagues now in the legislature and say, hey, guys, settle down, we're all Arizonans. In the end we're elected to do all of the Arizona people's business.

>> Michael Grant:
Realistically, though, and this is certainly not a phenomena peculiar to the State of Arizona, you see it at the federal level and other states as well, it does seem to be a less bipartisan cooperative short of relationship than, for example, you might have seen in the 70s or '80s, either here locally or at the federal level?

>> Janet Napolitano:
Yeah, we have really seen the rise of partisanship. I'm trying my best to get through that. If you look at my cabinet, for example, I've appointed a number of Republicans to the cabinet, Betsey Bayless, former Republican secretary of the state, candidate for government. I just appointed Sue Gerard, former Republican chair. To be the new DHS director and to recognize that there are lots of points of view within Arizona. Unfortunately, at the legislature, they really have drawn some pretty hard lines. facilitate bipartisanship?"

>> Michael Grant:
Our second viewer question relates to a measure supporters hope to get on ballot in November of 2006. It would change the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage, civil unions and domestic partner benefits. "Signatures are being gathered to place a proposed amendment on the ballot to say that marriage is only between one man and one woman and to deny civil rights to unmarried persons. Suppose this gets on the ballot and suppose the people approve. Will it not then go to the courts and be struck down because of two subjects instead of just one?"

>> Janet Napolitano:
I think that's an interesting legal question. You know, if it were simply restricted to same-sex marriage, it would be a single subject and that would be one issue. But it's a much broader amendment than that. It would apply to heterosexual couples who are unmarried, all kinds of different family arrangements. It would preempt cities that are offering domestic partner benefits. I think both the city of Tucson and Phoenix offer that. It would say you can't do that for your own people. Now realize the private sector, virtually all large employers in Arizona have domestic partner benefits. You've created an economic system where you have even more incentives for people not to go into the public sector. I'm not sure that's a smart thing. So that's -- in my view, that's a very debatable point whether it complies with the single subject requirement.

>> Michael Grant:
Neither one of us can accurately predict what the Arizona Supreme Court will do, but their ruling on the Clean Elections amendment, I think that was last election cycle on the single subject rule would indicate you've got to draft these fairly narrowly.

>> Janet Napolitano: Yeah, I would deduce that from that ruling, but each case gets argued on its own grounds, and whether there'll be a challenge or not, who can say, whether it'll be before the election or after the election, who can say. Who can say whether they will gather sufficient signatures to qualify for the ballot. So a lot of unanswered questions here.

>> Michael Grant: Arizona Governor, Janet Napolitano, thank you for being here again.

>> Janet Napolitano: Thank you.

>> Michael Grant: Some exciting news for the University of Arizona today. NASA has given the university approval for its Phoenix Mars probe, which will be launched in 2007 to look for evidence of life on Mars. The probe will be aimed at the Martian arctic and be expected to land in 2008 on a spot on Mars that would be the equivalent to Greenland on earth. The purpose of the mission is to probe the ice beneath the surface of the soil and try to find evidence of life. The probe has been named the Phoenix because it is actually a Mars polar lander. An earlier Mars polar lander crashed on the surface of Mars in 2000, and the final mission of the Mars polar lander was cancelled. When the U of A put in for a grant, it suggested using the polar lander which was in storage. Before the Phoenix probe was approved, it underwent six months of scrutiny by NASA. The U of A has already received $386 million in federal grants for the mission. Here now via satellite from Tucson to tell us about the Phoenix Mars probe is Peter Smith, a U of A professor who will be heading up the Phoenix probe mission. Peter, congratulations.

>> Peter Smith:
Thank you very much.

>> Michael Grant:
Between ASU and the U of A, I think this is becoming a red planet kind of state.

>> Peter Smith:
Well, Arizona is a lot like Mars, but without the cactus. It's really a state where Tucson, Phoenix and Flagstaff have been heavily involved in the Mars missions all the way back to the Viking missions and before.

>> Michael Grant:
Peter, you mentioned in the newspaper this morning that this was like a bar mitzvah. Elaborate on what you meant there.

>> Peter Smith:
I meant, it's like a rite of passage. We've gone from planning our mission, and believe me, we have planned and planned every detail of how we're going to do our mission, and it's quite a complex endeavor. Landing on Mars is never easy. So we've planned and planned, and now we've had an independent review that's going to allow us to go with NASA's approval, towards the build it, test it and launch it phase of our mission. So this is sort of like, going from childhood to adulthood. That's what I meant.

>> Michael Grant:
I talked a little bit about the polar lander. It's going to be retrofit somewhat; correct?

>> Peter Smith:
Yes, this was a mission that was actually built to launch in 2001, and because of the crash of the polar lander, the mission was cancelled, because they were afraid that the same problems that plagued the polar lander would be plaguing this mission, and so we're able to resurrect that mission, which has been in a clean room at Lockheed Martin in Denver, put new instruments on it and now we're getting it ready to fly to Mars.

>> Michael Grant:
All right, now, the mission is to test for life, historically, on Mars. Take it from there and explain to us how you hope to do that.

>> Peter Smith:
Well, let me start back a few years when we discovered that much of the northern plains was underlain by a thick ice sheet, and this was discovered in 2002 by an instrument that actually probed through the surface sort of like MRI scans can probe into your body using gamma Rays. So we found the ice under the surface, and now we want to learn about it. We want to know how it interacts with the water in the atmosphere, and we want to know what kind of chemistry is associated with this ice, and is this the kind of habitat that organisms could exist in on Mars. Is it a place where organisms are even living today. So our mission is not about roving around on the surface like the two rovers that are there now. It's not about studying the ancient Mars, it's about landing where we know ice is and digging down to that ice and doing chemistry experiments to understand what's happening in that habitat.

>> Michael Grant:
How far do you have to dig? I mean, I would think obviously the capabilities of the probe would be limited somewhat.

>> Peter Smith:
That's correct. As far as we can dig is about three feet below the surface, however, the estimates for where the ice is go from four inches down to a foot and a half, so we really feel very comfortable that our digging tools are long enough to find the ice. And then it's the ice, soil interface that we're looking at as a habitat.

>> Michael Grant:
This is interesting. I'm trying to envision this. It sounds to me like this is a huge ice sheet, or ice sheet of some size. It has a relatively thin layer of soil sitting on top of it. Any speculation how -- it seems a strange combination to me.

>> Peter Smith:
Well, it's not a coincidence here. What happens is the water vapor in the atmosphere can diffuse into this soil in the winter and freeze, and then in the summer, the upper layers diffuse back into the atmosphere and this interaction, breathing, if you like, between the water and the atmosphere and the ice on the surface as been going on for a very long period of time, certainly many millions of years, and it's set up sort of a balance between the ice and the atmosphere, and so it's -- you are actually able to calculate how thick that layer would be, and it seems to agree with the measurements we've made.

>> Michael Grant:
Why would the ice be a particularly fertile shopping ground for evidence of life?

>> Peter Smith:
Well, we know that Mars changes its climate over time. Over 100,000-year period, the polar axis of Mars actually shifts from one angle to another. On the earth, ours is fixed 23-1/2 degrees. On Mars it can vary. Therefore the climate can warm and cool. If this ice melts, you have liquid water interacting with the soil, and we think that's the real environment that life could live in. Right now it's frozen. Any organisms might be dormant or there may be organic molecules protected that are precursors of life. That's the kind of situation that we're looking for.

>> Michael Grant:
All right. Well, Peter Smith, excellent news, obviously, for the University of Arizona, and excellent news for Arizona. I guess space is just becoming a big part of the State's process, and we congratulate you on it.

>> Peter Smith:
Thank you very much.

>> Michael Grant:
You can check out a transcript of tonight's show or see what's coming up on "Horizon" at our web site. It's at www.azpbs.org. When you get to our home page, scroll down and click on the word "Horizon."

>> Reporter:
State lawmakers say they'll stick to their guns on funding for funding for English learners and a corporate tuition tax credit, both bills vetoed by Governor Janet Napolitano. Plus, President Bush's approval ratings are down. All topics on the Journalists' Roundtable on Friday on "Horizon."

>> Michael Grant:
In fact, those subjects and more tomorrow on the Friday edition. Thank you for joining us on this Thursday. I'm Michael Grant. I hope you have a great one, good night.

Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano:;Peter Smith:U of A professor;

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