Wrap up with Senate Minority Leader Mitzi Epstein

The Arizona Capitol Times sat down with Senate Minority Leader Mitzi Epstein to talk about the highs and lows of the session, budget negotiations, school funding and Democrats' plan to flip the Legislature.

This interview has been slightly edited for space.

Best and worst moments of the session?

The best moment had to be the repeal of the 1864 ban (on abortion), it was a moment that lasted weeks. I think it was fantastic because people recognized it's about more than just abortion, it's about control. Our caucus saw those who wanted to keep the 1864 ban seemed intent upon controlling not just our bodies but controlling our lives. So repealing it was about personal freedom to choose your own health care and to choose your own life outcome. The repeal was terribly important and we had enormous support from the people of Arizona. I’m so glad to see that a couple of our Republican colleagues crossed the aisle to make sure we got it done. The repeal will cause the ban to not go into effect, and so this timing with the sine die is terrific. We're really glad that the governor and Democrats negotiated hard on the budget to make sure that sine die happened and that we would not drag it out all year.

Worst moment?

Possibly the worst moment was when somebody comes to testify from the public at a committee and they are either thrown out of the room or they leave in tears because the chair has been so rude to them. Those are the real lows and something that I personally really want to see changed. This should be a place of welcome where everybody feels that we want to hear their story, no matter what your credentials are, no matter what it is you have to say. Those are not the moments that show us this is the people's House. I think our Education Committee is one where I have always heard people are happy to testify there and our Finance and Commerce Committee, people are happy to talk there.

What did the budget negotiation process look like from your perspective?

I would always like to see a more transparent budgeting process. I long for the days when the bills were dropped, and it would take a couple of weeks before they were voted on. I would love to see a more transparent process, one that takes a couple of weeks so that the bills can be vetted and so that the people can have a chance to speak up and be heard. Especially so that every legislator can feel they have a chance to speak up because they're speaking for their own constituency, their little part of Arizona.

Do you think that in upcoming sessions, there might be more involvement of the “rank-and-file” lawmakers in the negotiation process?

We need a Democratic majority in the Legislature, and I will certainly make it a terribly important part of any work that I do. The budget has been my purview for the times I've been here but trying to impact the process from the minority is very difficult. So we really need the Democratic majority so that we can make a more transparent process and involve all of the legislators not just three people.

What do you think of the ballot referral strategy that was used often by Republicans this session? What will be the big issue to voters?

Republican legislators have chosen to ignore the governor and do their best to go around her. The huge problem with that is they are pushing some really extreme legislation. You've seen any bill that gets passed here, it gets better when it gets some amendments, people work on it. It can serve more people because you're listening across the aisle, none of that has been the case for these referrals. The thing that's going to drive people out, I believe, is the Access to Abortion initiative. It's about saving lives, it's about the freedom to choose your own life outcome. When Senator Eva Burch gave her speech on the floor this year that had to be one of the best moments that helped people across the nation and internationally, I think, to understand better that abortion health care is so very important.

Small changes to the Empowerment Scholarship Accounts program were passed this session. Do you think that was enough? Can you see further reform being brought to the program in the future?

When I'm talking about the ESA program, I'm primarily speaking to the universal program. I’m fully in support of having an ESA program for special needs students, because they have that right. It is the loosest, goofiest program I've ever seen in my life, and therefore it allows waste, fraud and abuse. It’s wasteful to have a $1,800 Lego set for one child, it's wasteful for a family to use the ESA program to take a ski vacation. With the way the program is designed, we don't know how much other fraud is out there. So it needs a lot more accountability, a lot more transparency, but most importantly, it needs funding. We went from funding public schools, and then the Republicans expanded it to now we fund home schools and private schools. That's a big expansion of what the government does and they had no way to pay for it. We really need to come up with either a way to pay for it or a way to scale it back. This program creates a terrible system of haves and have nots and that's not serving the kids of Arizona, it's not serving our economy, it's not serving anything and we can do a lot better.

What’s going on with Proposition 123?

Nothing. After the election we will hopefully come back with a new majority and write something sensible, practical that is inclusive and bipartisan. I felt like the powers that were trying to write a version that was only from a Republican perspective, and I don't think that would have been helpful, I really believe in bipartisanship and I think that that's what we should be striving for, especially for education.

What do you think should happen next when it comes to water policy?

There are several different groups working on it, and that’s great. When Arizona has good water policy, it's because many people have come to the table. I think we feel that the rural issues are the most imperative to take action on soon because there are folks with taps that are drying up. What we're really standing on in our practice is that water is for everybody, it's not just for the people who have the most money to pay for it. We need our policies to reflect that water can be for everybody and not just whoever has the biggest well gets all the water. We'd have to work something out and then call a special session, so the task forces are continuing to work in the interim.

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