You know the Arizona Legislature. It's the bunch that reduces education money for some of the worst-funded schools in the nation, savagely cuts financing for universities, has its hands in the hustles of the Charter School Racket and Private Prison Racket. The worthy solons who sold off pieces of the Capitol area in the Great Recession.
It was the birthplace of SB 1070, the anti-immigrant (really voter suppression) law. This is only one of its creations that helped give the impression that Arizona is one of the craziest and most bigoted states. Anything forward looking, the majority opposes. Tax cuts? You bet. It is the Kookocracy.
But there was a time when Arizona had one of the most respected legislatures in the nation. Yes.
In fact, there were at least two sustained periods in the state's history when the Legislature worked.
This is no small thing because the Legislature is by far the most powerful branch of government in the state. Constitutionally, the governor was barely more than a figurehead — a status that has improved in recent years, but not by much. In other words, Arizona moves ahead, or backwards, depending on the Legislature.
The golden age of the Legislature ran from 1966 to 1986. Here, the most important figure was Burton Barr (1917-1997), the Republican majority leader of the House of Representatives.
Barr, a decorated combat veteran from World War II and a successful Phoenix businessman (selling fixtures to grocery stores), was elected to the House in 1964 as the Supreme Court was deciding the so-called one man-one vote case. This put an end to the old system where each county, regardless of population, had two senators. Not only did it see Arizona gradually shift from a Democratic to Republican state, but it gave political power to the cities, especially Phoenix and Tucson.
Barr was no ideologue. He was interested in crafting laws that would modernize both the Legislature and the state. Although Republicans had a comfortable majority in the House, they ran a spectrum from John Birchers to more pragmatic legislators such as Stan Turley, who served as House speaker and president of the state Senate, and Betty Adams Rockwell.
Instead, Barr wanted results. He was the consummate deal-maker. One of his nicknames, from admirers and detractors, was "Mister Magic." As Alfredo Gutierrez recalls, Barr "was tough, relentless, and hated to lose." At the same time, his integrity was strong and he spurned both ideology and hate. He didn't hold grudges, even in his notable love-hate relationship with Gov. Bruce Babbitt, who had the ability to turn the usually genial Barr into an angry adversary.
Many of Barr's accomplishments — from urban freeways to environmental protection, the Groundwater Management Act, and AHCCCS — came from working with Democrats.
He was a mentor to many legislators, including Democratic House leader Art Hamilton and, most famously, Alfredo Gutierrez, the Democratic leader of the Senate. In the book Burton Barr: Political Leadership and the Transformation of Arizona by Philip VanderMeer, Gutierrez offers a telling anecdote:
At the end of my first session as majority leader of the Senate, we encountered each other as we crossed the mall headed to each other's house; he was bouncing across the mall barking orders at staff who were running to keep up with him, when he saw me. His eyes sparkled, his eyebrows arched, he smiled and shouted out in passing, "They hate you, don't they," referring to my caucus. "Get used to it, kid, they're gonna hate you at the end of every session...if you're good."
Barr's skill at legislation and reputation as a compromiser made him enemies in his own caucus, especially among right-wingers who were rising in power. Among them: future Gov. Jane Hull. This played a pivotal role in Barr being defeated in the 1986 Republican primary by Evan Mecham. To be sure, Barr also ran a poor campaign. But the achievements of the Legislature under his leadership are undeniable.
History is written by the victors, so the Barr era is seen as a triumph over the dark ages that came before it. But this isn't quite true.
The Legislature of the 1950s worked, too, for a growing but still low-population state (1950 population 747,587). Both houses were firmly controlled by Democrats, although most were conservatives ("Pintos") reflecting the Arizona's background as both a Western but also Southern state.
Here the key figure was Sen. Harold Giss of Yuma (1906-1972), the most powerful lawmaker before Barr. Giss was the father of the state parks system, shepherded through successive highway bills, and provided state support for the fight against California for Colorado River water. Giss is badly in need of a biographer.
It is true that rural senators had outsized sway. Also that the Legislature did the bidding of the major industries: copper, railroads, agriculture, and cattle ranching. Nevertheless, in the 1950s it accomplished much — especially lacking the modern institutional tools and staff support that Barr inaugurated.
Since 1986, the Legislature has been capable of moments of sanity. There was "Sue Nation," Carolyn Allen, and other pragmatists. Even in the 2000s, the body managed grudging support for university research, the Phoenix Convention Center, and T-Gen.
But the compromisers and deal-makers for the public good have largely gone away, replaced by ever more extreme ideologues of the right. Dogma is king, made possible by uncompetitive one-party rule.
Also, when Barr and Giss held sway Arizona enjoyed a consensus. It wanted to grow, attract quality industry, gain water security, keep federal dollars flowing, maintain its existing economic pillars, and improve the state's infrastructure. Although newcomers were growing, the state had a deep local economy with businessmen/stewards. Phoenix, which Barr represented, was unquestionably the largest city and most powerful political entity.
In those days, this was not incompatible with conservatism. The culture wars, Tea Party, climate change and its deniers, hyper-sprawl, and the notion that light rail is a "socialist" plot (but, WBIYB) were far in the future. So were the stark priorities, needs, and values dividing cities and suburbs.
Today's atmosphere, with a broken Republican party, would not allow a Burt Barr into politics, much less the pinnacle of power.
So the Legislature has worked before for a common good. This history would suggest it can again. But not without fundamental change.
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My book, A Brief History of Phoenix, is available to buy or order at your local independent bookstore, or from Amazon.
Read more Phoenix history in Rogue's Phoenix 101 archive.
Wonderful perspective. Thanks Jon.
Posted by: Arizona Eagletarian (@AzEagletarian) | February 23, 2015 at 04:28 PM
Excellent historial perspective. Were the development and sprawl boyz influential before the 1990s (Fife Symington era)? I recall you mentioned in a previous blog that land fraud was rampant for many years. Were members of the legislature complicit in this or was it mainly relegated to out of state land barons? If you know of any interesting stories of land fraud or real estate hustles from the past, it would make a good blog post.
Posted by: Happs | February 23, 2015 at 05:59 PM
Laws were introduced in the Barr era that were much tougher on land fraud.
The construction industry and builders were influential, but nowhere near where they are today. For one thing, they were offset and balanced by a much more diverse and local economy. Also, hyper-sprawl hadn't really taken off yet.
Posted by: Rogue Columnist | February 23, 2015 at 06:04 PM
"The worthy solons who sold off pieces of the Capitol."
Keep in mind that "pieces of the Capitol" were sold off as a means of "borrowing" to prevent further state budget cuts (including education).
Posted by: Sanjeev Ramchandra | February 23, 2015 at 06:08 PM
Question for Rogue: much of the shift among formerly solidly Democratic states in the South toward solidly Republican politics, happened in response to passage of the Civil Rights Act and to related race-based reforms of the 1960s. Give that Arizona was once part of the Confederacy, what part did a similar dynamic play in Arizona's blue to red shift that occurred at about the same time?
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | February 23, 2015 at 08:13 PM
Also, can Rogue (or anybody else) tell me which party controlled the Arizona state legislature (House and Senate) by year from 1950 through 1980? One would think the Internet would be a font of information, but info prior to the early 1990s is difficult to locate. Maybe someone with a scholarly book?
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | February 24, 2015 at 12:11 AM
Sanjeev, did ja miss the tax cuts that were made instead of paying off that overpriced loan?
Or the fact that the tax cuts were done in spite of facing another fiscal crisis when the other band aids flew off due to courts blowing up other illegal uses of funds?
So, we did sort of save education, but at the price of long term budget stability, and yet another round of savage cuts to education and to state government.
You get what you pay for, and the modern Republican party is buying a small corrupt state government that doesn't work.
Hope you enjoy paying for that, and getting even madder when your taxes go up to deal with the mismanagement.
Sucker.
Posted by: Concern Troll | February 24, 2015 at 08:39 AM
Emil, it is cracker politics in a cracker state.
I am just waiting for the Huey Long to come and turn this place over big time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_%28pejorative%29
And full disclosure, some of my ancestors were crackers.
Posted by: Concern Troll | February 24, 2015 at 08:42 AM
Emil,
Democrats held the majorities in the Senate and usually the House in the 1950s. There were several sessions of "coalition" rule in the House where Ds and Rs came together to elect a certain speaker.
Republicans have held control of the House since 1966. Democrats had control of the 1974 and 1976 sessions in the Senate; otherwise, all Republican control.
Migration was the biggest single reason behind Arizona's relatively rapid switch from a Democratic to Republican state. And, as time went on, the "Big Sort" was at work. Midwesterners came to a place that seemed to mirror their political views.
Contrast this with slow-growing New Mexico, where Democrats maintained control for decades.
Republicans were also more politically adept in running campaigns. Race no doubt played a role, but mostly in newcomers seeking to escape racial turmoil in the "old" cities of the Midwest and East.
Posted by: Rogue Columnist | February 24, 2015 at 08:59 AM
Its a good, hopeful column Rogue. Your sentence "Also, when Barr and Giss held sway Arizona enjoyed a consensus." might be a bit misleading since the two overlapped briefly in the leg. Giss was there from 1948-1973 and Barr from 1964-1986. Phil V's book about Barr, which is available, makes the useful point that Giss/Barr represented a transition from rural to urban power in Arizona, nicely illustrated in this Reg Manning cartoon https://www.facebook.com/ASUARCHIVES/photos/a.762448097127446.1073741837.232254060146855/847159611989627/?type=1&theater
Another cool tidbit about Giss was his effort to divert controversy over the renaming of Arizona State College to Tempe University, which sparked student outrage and a march on the capitol depicted here http://www.asu.edu/vppa/photogallery/50thgallery/7.htm
Giss had unrivaled power and yes, someone should write about this guy!
Posted by: Rob Spindler | February 24, 2015 at 12:34 PM
Thanks, Rob. Yes, Giss tried to make a compromise that would ease opposition to ASU by the UofA by suggesting the name "Tempe University." The result was protests at the Capitol by ASC students.
Posted by: Rogue Columnist | February 24, 2015 at 01:50 PM
Spot on historical perspective and description of where Arizona currently finds itself. It's devastating for the people who have tried to restore the public's trust in government and work for the common good. I've never had such an undemocratic experience as I did when I served in the Arizona House '07-'09. As a teacher with more than 25 years experience at the time, I also served in the Legislature, it was appalling to even be in the same room with legislators actively working to dismantle public education. Arizona needs a lifeline. Increased civic participation. I don't know... I commend those still there who continue the fight.
Posted by: Jackie Thrasher | February 24, 2015 at 03:23 PM
Thanks, Rogue. So 1966 was the watershed year?
A possible problem with the Midwest migration theory of Arizona's shift from Democratic to Republican politics: from 1960 to 1965 Arizona's population only increased from 1.32 to 1.58 million; some substantial portion of this was from new births rather than migration (the tail end of the Baby Boom); and not all of the new arrivals were Republican or even of voting age (migrating families brought children).
Don't forget that by 1964 Republican proponents of the Southern Strategy (appeal to Democratic white voters disaffected by racial reforms) had taken control of the GOP:
"As the conservative journalist Robert Novak reported after attending a meeting of the Republican National Committee in Denver during the summer of 1963: “A good many, perhaps a majority of the party’s leadership, envision substantial political gold to be mined in the racial crisis by becoming in fact, though not in name, the White Man’s Party.”"
http://www.salon.com/2013/12/22/how_the_gop_became_the_white_mans_party/
Barry Goldwater, the GOP candidate for President in 1964, was one of only five senators from outside the South who voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Arizona was also the only state outside the South to vote for him in the presidential campaign.
At the time of the U.S. Civil War, "many people in the area were pro-slavery, with business connections in southern states", a fact which contributed to the secession of the "Confederate Territory of Arizona".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_Arizona
Attitudes are passed on from generation to generation. I believe you've written some blog articles about the former division of Phoenix into racially segregated areas "across the tracks".
None of this is conclusive, of course. I'd like to see contemporaneous political writings and speech transcripts from the early to middle 1960s to get an idea of the place of race in Arizona's shift from Blue to Red politics.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | February 24, 2015 at 04:39 PM
I finally found some solid figures:
http://www.asu.edu/lib/archives/goddard/results.htm
You can see that House Democrats in Arizona dropped from 69 percent of seats in the state House in 1959 to 56 percent in 1965, the last year before the court-ordered redistricting referenced in the blog above. In 1967 (the first year after) Arizona Democrats in the state House had dropped another 11 points to 45 percent.
The differences in the state Senate are far more stark. Democrats went from 93 percent in 1965 to 47 percent in 1967. It's safe to say that the Arizona Senate was the domain of landed interests (large ranchers) and businessmen.
Also see this, which mirrors what Rogue wrote above:
"With the 1966 election, reapportionment, based on population, significantly transformed the state landscape and shifted political power from rural areas to the rapidly growing urban areas of the state, particularly Maricopa County."
http://www.asu.edu/lib/archives/goddard/politics1.htm
It's interesting that a power shift from rural to urban areas gave Republicans such an increase in power, given the fact that cities like Phoenix and Tucson are, today, the only significant evidence of lingering Democratic control of politics (local).
I don't think the rural population of Arizona was concerned at the time about busing to the suburbs and other "forced integration". But I suspect that the urban population was, out of all proportion to the possible results, given the demographics of the period. Mere suspicion is not documentation, however.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | February 24, 2015 at 05:36 PM
NY Times: Where We Came From and Where We Went Aug.19, 2014
MIGRATION INTO ARIZONA
Arizona is always in the news for how it deals with immigration from Mexico and Central America, but there has also been a change in domestic migration patterns. Long a destination for retirees from the Midwest, the state has experienced even more growth in recent years with transplants from California and other Western states.
Posted by: Eugene Debs | February 24, 2015 at 10:10 PM
Arizona Pols in action.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/P5_Msrdg3Hk
Posted by: cal lash | February 25, 2015 at 04:12 PM
Great perspective. Just one note: Democrats controlled the Senate in 1991. Current Pinal County Supervisor Pete Rios served as Senate president.
Posted by: Gary S. | March 01, 2015 at 05:50 PM
Once upon time we were on our way to becoming a progressive Western state, then we decided to become a regressive Southern state.
Posted by: Brad | November 30, 2017 at 02:49 PM