Journalists’ Roundtable: Ducey endorsement, Brnovich, ESA voucher expansion

On this Friday’s Journalists’ Roundtable, we have with us Laurie Roberts of The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com, Bob Christie of The Associated Press, and Steve Goldstein of KJZZ radio.

This week Roundtable covered:

• Karrin Taylor-Robson and Kari Lake Endorsement
• Mark Brnovich
• ESA Voucher Expansion
• Governor Transportation Tax

Karirin Taylor-Robson and Kari Lake

Laurie Roberts: “It was a necessary thing to do, everybody was waiting for it to happen. It sets up the proxy war of Donald Trump versus Doug Ducey.”

Bob Christie: “Ducey came out the day ballots went out so that people see in the news that Ducey says vote for Robson, the next day the ballot comes in the mail, boom – hopefully she gets a little hit off it.”

Steve Goldstein: “I believe it’s possible that the Salmon-Ducey combination is gonna get some of those undecided Republicans right now. We know that the people going for Kari Lake are not undecided.”

ESA Voucher Expansion

Bob Christie: “It is a sea change for the school choice crowd that has focused on Arizona for decades, we started it with charter schools, then there was open enrollment, then we have the STOs, the tax credits and now the vouchers.”

Steve Goldstein: “Well clearly, many Republicans are fixated on this idea. The governor wants to have school choice, he wants to get praised by Goldwater Institute but also national groups as well.”

Laurie Roberts: “There is no accountability in this bill, there’s no requirement that kids ever get tested. So if you’re the kid at Phoenix Country Day I’m quite sure you’ll get a good education. But what about the flyby night school that comes in here and offers an education for exactly the cost of the voucher and proceeds to put most of the money in their own stock portfolio. There’s no way for us to account for whether those kids are getting a decent education.”