What should come next for a re-elected Ducey
On a night when many Republican governors were expected to fall across much of the country, Arizona’s Republican governor, Doug Ducey, was coasting to re-election.
The outcome had not been in doubt since late September, when an Arizona
Republic/Suffolk University poll showed Ducey beating Democratic challenger David Garcia by double digits.
For Ducey, victory means more than another four years to govern. It is affirmation that a plurality of Arizonans support his leadership — no small thing for the Charlie Brown of Arizona politics.
The original Charlie Brown, the cartoon character, was a Midwesterner who was so ferociously humdrum he could blend into the wallpaper at his own birthday party. Doug Ducey from Toledo, Ohio, is equally challenged. When they handed out DNA, he chose the bottle labeled “plaid.”
But boring is triumphant today, and for all the abuse heaped upon this particularly plain man, the people of his state have assertively said they want more.
So what to do if you are Doug Ducey, riding a wave of approval for the next four years?
1. Get in front of water
There may be no more important issue facing the state than the water crisis emerging in the Colorado River Basin.
Climate-change-induced drought and increasing water consumption in Western states is threatening to drain Lake Mead. New projections by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation indicate there’s a one-in-five chance that Mead could fall to 1,000 feet of elevation by 2026.
If that happened, the lake — the largest reservoir in the United States, which supplies some 20 million people in the states of Arizona, California and Nevada and parts of Mexico — would be on the verge of dead pool, when the water level is so low it cannot drain through the dam’s outlet.
Any impending movement in that direction is likely to trigger a firestorm of publicity from the world and national media questioning the sustainability of large metropolises in the desert, such as Phoenix.
Arizona needs to be in front of this, and the governor needs to lead.
Arizona frittered away too much time in internecine squabbles between the Arizona Department of Water Resources and the Central Arizona Water Conservation District, losing a year of progress on the drought contingency plan.
That plan prescribes how much water the states of Arizona, California and Nevada must leave in Lake Mead as water levels sink to critical points. Arizona has a subordinate position on Colorado River water and thus must contribute and agree to the plan that promotes greater regional cooperation.
While the governor has delegated negotiations to others in his administration, he needs to be hands-on to show how serious the stakes are and to forge a timely agreement among the many water stakeholders.
The governor also needs to lead without apology on a long-term strategic plan that ensures Arizona is aggressively and responsibly pursuing other sources of water that will allow this state and its economy to thrive.
Our forerunners in Arizona audaciously planned for a future of growth with reclamation projects such as Theodore Roosevelt Dam and the Central Arizona Project. Even in a world of heightened environmental consciousness, Arizona needs to start planning for additional sources of water such as desalination plants and pumping and treating abundant brackish groundwater.
2. Accelerate education funding
The governor as politician did a masterful job managing the teacher salary crisis that led to #RedForEd. He essentially defused an explosive issue that could have cost him his office.
But his #20by2020 teacher pay raise, to be phased in over the next few years, still leaves the public-school system well below pre-recession levels of spending.
He can dramatically change that by using a higher-than-expected increase in state revenues to accelerate his funding of district additional assistance and his 20 percent teacher pay raise.
The state general fund is booming. In September, Arizona enjoyed another stellar month, leading to collections totaling $1.04 billion, or an increase of 15.8 percent over the prior year, reports the Joint Legislative Budget Committee.
By accelerating the funding of what the governor has already promised to phase in over the next two to five years, he could just about restore all the (noncapital) cuts made in K-12 education on an inflation-adjusted per-pupil basis from the pre-recession period.
That would be a huge accomplishment in his second term, and should take priority over any additional tax cuts.
3. Reform charter schools
Scandal has rocked Arizona’s pioneering charter schools. Some charter operators have selfishly lavished themselves in profits while threatening the integrity of the entire system.
If that system isn’t reformed and soon, these scandals, revealed by the dogged reporting of The Republic’s Craig Harris, could shake the foundations of the charter-school movement.
Ducey can help protect charter schools by working with the Legislature to put in place commonsense reforms that stop the obscene profit-taking we’ve seen from some operators while still keeping the system free of excess regulation.
Charter schools work. Parents are voting with their feet so that now there are some 500 charter schools in Arizona. In fact, all of the growth in Arizona public schools is happening in the charter, not district, sector.
4. Hire better people
The governor has been ill-served by some of the people he has hired to fill important roles in his administration.
The latest is Parks Director Sue Black, whom he suspended along with her top deputy after The Republic reported that Arizona State Parks and Trails had repeatedly developed state land while ignoring laws that protect Native American and other archaeological sites.
The Ducey administration has been beset with administrative ineptitude. The governor forced his Lottery, Juvenile Corrections and Economic Security directors to resign following allegations of misconduct and questionable firings of state employees.
The buck stops on the executive desk on the Ninth Floor. Ducey 2.0 needs to take greater care to ensure that people of high character and high quality are hired to run the important offices of this state.