Ducey mostly sticks to common themes
The first State of the State address of Gov. Doug Ducey’s second term offered a highprofile chance to lay out a series of new, cutting-edge initiatives for the next four years, shaping his future legacy within the state and beyond its borders.
With a few minor exceptions, he didn’t take it.
Instead, Ducey stuck largely to the script of the past four years during his 39-minute speech Monday, returning to common
“It was just eight months ago that we delivered a 20 percent pay raise for hardworking teachers. To anyone out there considering using these resources somewhere else, I have one message: Don’t even think about it. These are raises teachers earned, and they are raises we are going to fulfill and protect.” Gov. Doug Ducey
themes while renewing a call for bipartisan collaboration made at his inauguration ceremony.
As he had in past addresses — and his reelection campaign — Ducey boasted about the state’s much-improved financial situation and “booming economy.”
He emphasized responsible spending, reduced regulations and a commitment to education. He built on past proposals, including his “Safe Arizona Schools” plan and the state’s Teachers Academy.
Ducey pushed for approval of a regional drought plan for the Colorado River, which needs to be finalized by Jan. 31 if the state doesn’t want federal officials to step in. And he repeated a stance he took last year supporting an end to legislative immunity, which protects lawmakers from facing civil processes during the legislative session or 15 days before its start.
His announcements about new initiatives were short on specifics, though more information is expected Friday, when he releases his executive budget proposal.
Ducey said he wants to expand a program that would recognize the outof-state occupational licenses of new Arizona residents, for instance.
He said the state would buy back several buildings sold during the Great Recession, including the House of Representatives, where he spoke Monday, and other buildings at the Capitol.
Ducey also called to increase the state’s rainyday fund from its current $450 million to about $1 billion to protect against future downturns.
The governor spoke to a more narrowly divided House than he did in 2018.
Many of the chamber’s new and re-elected Democrats have credited widespread outrage over the state of public education funding for their November wins.
Ducey’s speech seemed to account for that, focusing on education issues and reaffirming he’s “not here just to work with Republicans on Republican ideas.” He revisited a campaigntrail promise to devote more money “above and beyond inflation” to public schools and committed to supporting Career and Technical Education programs in his budget.
“It was just eight months ago that we delivered a 20 percent pay raise for hardworking teachers,” Ducey said, referring to the teacher-pay proposal he pushed through after a massive teacher walkout last spring. The governor has promised to fund the second of three phases — a 5 percent boost in teacher pay, which will cost $165 million — this year.
“To anyone out there considering using these resources somewhere else, I have one message: Don’t even think about it,” he said. “These are raises teachers earned, and they are raises we are going to fulfill and protect.”
Continuing with the theme of rewarding teachers, Ducey promised to devote “more dollars” and ”more support” to the Arizona Teachers Academy.
That initiative, announced in 2017, was designed to help address an enduring teacher shortage. But as of last year, the academy wasn’t yet funding four years of free college for aspiring Arizona teachers as envisioned.
“Already, 221 students have started moving through the program,” Ducey said, recognizing 2014 gubernatorial rival Fred Du Val as the mastermind behind the concept. “This year, we plan to significantly expand it.”
The governor also alluded to charter-school reform, which has bipartisan support after several high-profile scandals involving charter operators last year.
Though “healthy choice and competition brings about innovation,” he said, “we also know improvements can be made: more transparency, more accountability, and granting more financial review and oversight over taxpayer dollars.”
As expected, the governor stressed the urgency of finalizing regional drought plans for the Colorado River, which provides 40 percent of the state’s water supply.
“Here’s the bottom line: We’re in a 19-year drought,” he said. “It’s going to get worse before it gets better. Arizona and our neighboring states draw more water from the Colorado River than Mother Nature puts back.”
The governor has vowed to put an extra $30 million toward protecting water levels in Lake Mead. If Arizona legislators and other officials don’t work out a deal to protect water levels by the end of the month, the federal Bureau of Reclamation is expected to intervene and implement water cuts.
“(Finalizing a drought plan) will require compromise,” Ducey said. He recognized former Gov. Bruce Babbitt and former U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., who were in attendance, as leaders on bipartisan water policy.
“No one stakeholder is going to get everything they want,” he said. “Everyone is going to have to give. And I’ve been impressed by the willingness of those involved to do just that.”
Sticking points among Arizona leaders negotiating the drought plan include a future water supply for developers and funding for Pinal County farmers to drill wells and pump groundwater.
Ducey has said he will not sign something that undoes hard-won agreements.
One of the new ideas Ducey unveiled Monday involved expanding the state’s occupational-license recognition program.
Currently, Arizona allows for spouses of service members deployed to Arizona to have their occupational licenses automatically honored. The governor’s proposed expansion would extend that benefit more broadly, to all new arrivals to the state.
He called licensingboard members “bullies,” implying they were an unnecessary bureaucratic hiccup. He put three questions to them: “What do you exist to do? How do you know if you’re doing it well? And, who would miss you if you were gone?”
“If people want to work, let’s let them work,” he said, adding that “100,000 people will move here this year” and “there’s a job available for every one of them.”
Speaking broadly about the economy, Ducey said Arizona had added almost 300,000 new jobs during his first term and recovered from the depths of the recession.
The state has a projected $900 million surplus, but Ducey cautioned against spending freely.
He proposed to put $550 million in the state’s rainy-day fund ”to protect public education, to protect the pay raises our teachers have earned and deserve, to prevent budget gimmicks, Band-Aids and massive cuts down the line.”
The governor doubled down on opposing tax increases this session.
Ducey took a moment to remember fallen lawenforcement officers, acknowledged the work of his multi-agency Border Strike Force and broadly pledged to invest in lawenforcement agencies.
He focused on school safety in more detail, promoting the “Safe Arizona Schools” proposal his office crafted last year. It was endorsed by the National Rifle Association but failed to advance in the Legislature after taking hits from both parties.
The plan called for more police officers and mental-health counseling in schools; a schoolsafety tip line; and a new class of restraining order to restrict dangerous individuals’ access to guns.
“These are solutions that will make schools safer, and it’s time for us to get it done,” Ducey said. “I’ll be including some elements of this plan in my budget that you’ll see Friday, with an even greater investment than I proposed last year.”
That greater investment includes “enough dollars to put a cop on every campus that needs one.”
“This is simply too important an issue to let partisan politics and special interests get in the way,” Ducey said. “We’ve got a responsibility to do something for our kids, and we’ve got to do it this session.”
The governor also repeated his position on legislative immunity, calling it an “unnecessary law.”
“No one — not me, nor you — is above the law,” he said. “Let’s show the people of Arizona that their elected leaders will live under the same laws as every man and woman in this state.”
Lawmakers from both parties said they appreciated the governor’s focus on bipartisanship.
House Speaker Pro Tempore T.J. Shope said Ducey’s remarks indicated he was aware of the need to collaborate with Democrats to get things done in a more closely divided Legislature.
“I actually think that sometimes, the numbers being what they are, they kind of force that reality on you: that you have to work together in order to get anything done,” said Shope, a Coolidge Republican. “I thought the tone was perfect.”
Democrats said they’d remain skeptical until seeing tangible signs of their ideas being included in the Ducey’s proposals.
“I’m happy to work with him, but he needs to understand that working with us means compromise,” said House Assistant Minority Leader Randy Friese, D-Tucson.