>> Coming up on Arizona PBS on Arizona horizon, the journalist's roundtable and a look at the week's top story including the governor signing controversial bills into law.

A look at the controversial new voter registration law signed by the governor and on break it down, why black suicide rates are on the size, especially among the young.

That's ahead.

Welcome to Arizona horizon.

This is Friday and it's time for another edition of the roundtable and joining us are Howie Fisher and Mary Jo Pitzel and Stacey Barchenger.

Good to have you all here and Howie, let's is start with the controversial bills and the abortion bill and 15 weeks and no acceptions.

>> We pushed the governor on the idea of why no acceptions and he believes there should be none for rape or incest and because they could get abortions up to the 15th week and he's OK with it.

>> And we wait for the Supreme Court because the Supreme Court has to make a decision and we just sit around and wait.

>> I suspect a lawsuit or two while we're waiting for the court and what they're opinions will be out by the end of June?

>> Uh-huh.

>> So a couple of months to wait.

>> Stacey, I think for, what, the life-threatening conditions and did he go further on this, or is this, let's sign it and move on?

>> It was let's sign it and move on and of governor in his 7.5 years signed every measure and they have been abortion restrictions because of the political make-up and the legislature, but, I mean, this is something we welcomed and he has said if the past he thinks the Supreme Court was wrong in Roe versus Wade and thinks they should overturn it and this is a step in the direction of what they think is legally sound abortion policy.

>> You have to remember that there are some folks up there who are movers behind the scenes and I specifically think about Kathy Harrett and there's a long record of successes and who can adopt and foster care and certainly the bills we'll talk about in terms of gender reassignment and she has been by his side, you know, long before he was elected in 2014.

And she is constantly up in gallery and the lawmakers know she's there and bringing people to affect their decisions.

>> Quickly, as far as the impact of this on political race, this is an election year and is this something the banner will be held high for those who find this a good thing?

>> This is how we mention the Arizona policy and they put out a score card and highlighting this strongly, the conservative base of voters.

>> Here is what's interesting in terms of not just the people who voted for it and the people who are running and you look at Craig Mays, running for attorney general.

On a local level, the democratic candidate for county attorney has been all over the radio saying if this law is passed, I will not enforce it because it's a waste of time and effort and this will be a high profile issue on all levels.

>> Stick with the transgender bills, Howie, one involving surgery and girl's sports.

>> These are fascinating questions because there is no issue particularly in Arizona.

I think that the AIA, Arizona and scholastic association says there were 16 people who are applied for and granted this.

In most cases, transgender girls wanting to participate in girls in sports.

What they're saying, you have this swimmer at the university of Pennsylvania who several years into being on the men's team there suddenly said I'm a woman and setting new records and that has inflamed a lot of people.

And this was the one I thought the governor might veto.

The governors of Indiana and Utah, both are republicans, vetoed it.

The Utah governor said there aren't a lot, and four in Utah.

He was so concerned about their mental health.

He said I want these children to live and ostracizing them will hurt them.

>> He got overridden by the public legislature in Utah.

What's interesting about this ban on the transgender sports is that, you know, how he said the AIA had very few requests for transgender youth to play in youth sports, girl's sports and talking about younger people and the opponents are saying, look, this is what my child needs to fit in and identify and these are not competitive sports where you're competing for an olympic birth.

They are sports more for fun on the lower level.

>> AIA takes in on a lower-case basis and that makes sense.

The University of Pennsylvania is taking it and let's slow down on this.

When you're talking recreational sports, the critics of this signing say, you're talking about a fair and balanced playing field and what do we do with the other kids?

>> That ignores the politics of everything, right?

This is such a political issue right now.

Republicans are taking this on across the country and this is a win for republicans like we were just talking about ahead of a midterm election, something to go to the voters anding talk about about protecting the women's sports.

>> The particular bill the governor signed, the feds are saying hold your horses a bit.

>> If you're under 18, you may not get irreversible gender surgery.

You can get hormone treatments with parent's permission and everything else.

From the governor, you should wait until you're 18.

The department of justice sent out a letter to all state's attorney's general saying what part of discrimination do you not understand saying surgery is available for other people with parental content.

A 17-year-old can get breast implantses with parental content without running afoul and this is different and we'll overrule parent.

What the DOJ said, no, parental rights are important here and you're running afoul some constitution and statutory issues.

>> The governor said, basically, these people are not old enough to make this decision and the adults should be making the decision.

>> Well, that's what the parents of these youth are saying, that the government shouldn't be getting involved in our healthcare decisions, but the legislature in it wisdom decided they know better than the parents of these transgender youth and we should not allow that.

I mean, there's a case to be made for moving cautiously when a child is seven years old and identify with the opposite gender.

You won't jump real fast, but that's long been the purview of parents and now it's the state.

>> The testimony here, pretty emotional from the parents of these kids.

>> Of course, yeah.

A huge decision and an interesting part of the debate that the governor was asked is, how do you support parental rights in one aspect, like, in your child's education in a public school, but when it comes to this, you, the state, want to step in and, like, no, you and your families don't get to make these decisions?

>> And to that point, what gets lost in this is every time one ever these bills comes up like in education, we have a parent's bill of rights in Arizona saying you have say in the upbringing of use child, except for this and that's what gets lost.

>> The governor at the time of the signing had great concern and great empathy for the mental health of kids and what did you ask the governor and what was his response?

>> I said, governor, do you believe there are actually transpeople and there are folks that this is a psychological disorder and there are to people born into the wrong bodies.

I said, governor, look, I know you believe in gays.

You have gays on your staff.

What about transpeople?

Wouldn't answer it.

And today, suddenly, after I think looking at the press on it, suddenly said, of course, I believe in transpeople, and, this is just the media stirring things up.

Why couldn't he have said this yesterday.

Why not said, Howie, I believe transpeople exist?

>> In his bill statement, he said he believes transgender people should have the dignity and respect of any people, but when asked the question at a press conference, those words could not come out of his mouth, which is confusing to me.

>> It's confusing unless you look at the political realities and does this governor want to say, yes, they do exist in this political climate?

>> Well, he said it today.

>> But not when originally asked.

>> Nobody installed a chip in the back of his brain.

>> That declaration adios.

>> He stepped it back and waiting for a bill that would allow nurses other healthcare staff who had temporary licenses waiting for a bill to land on his desk to extend the period of their license.

He got that, signed it into law and then, on was that Wednesday, very busy Wednesday for us in the state house bureau, he issued an executive order, getting rid of the emergency.

>> Part of the reason he kept it around, his executive order precluded local governments from doing certain things like mask requirements or closing businesses.

And he wanted to wait until he had already had a bill on his desk that said local governments can't close business and that was reigning in Flagstaff, phoenix mayors and said governor, when you were telling people to unmask, we didn't think it was healthy.

>> On the other hand, there was nashing of teeth and has that died down or rumbling underneath?

>> I'm not sure where that bill is, but they want to reign in the governor and they don't want to go through another pandemic like this and have the governor with a two-year or an emergency order or however you have to renew it.

They want veto power.

>> That's the thing.

The way it's set up, the governor can call an emergency meeting any time and you want to extend it, you have to call the legislature into session or if we disagree, the emergency goes away.

You can't call a new emergency on the same thing.

The fact is, lawmakers say, what part of the equal branch of government are we?

They were so annoyed that none of this happened.

Some of the bills that have passed to try to get a signature are for the next governor.

It wouldn't be this governor.

>> I'm glad you pointed this out.

That's my favorite detail of the whole bill, January 2nd, 2023, after Ducey is out of office.

>> That might be why the bill will do well.

[ Laughter ] >> Perhaps we can have a selection.

[ Laughter ] >> Every week, the attorney general and attorney of state is going after each other.

Now the attorney of general, they want them to look into this equal system and what's going on here and what's the latest?

>> The online system where candidates can get signatures.

After redistricting, secretary Hobbs says we have to take it down.

The system won't hold two maps and she got it up earlier.

Bernovich as been yelling and screaming.

What is complicating this for the attorney general, you may remember, he had a state bar complaint against him by the secretary of state to sue your own clients, including the secretary of state.

To farm it out to Brian MacIntyre had nothing to do with that.

But I think he decided, let me find another republican attorney to decide where go from here.

>> That system is back up.

>> It was down for, like, two days -- I'm sorry, two weeks and a day and went back up yesterday and the secretary of state's office said because there was a colossal great effort from the county election's officials and their staff to make this happen.

That means for the next couple of days, if somebody wants to sign a candidate's petition, they can do that, which is what prompted the absence of that is what got him upset in the first place and brought some complaints.

And most candidates adjusted and got signatures on paper.

I don't think it will disqualify anybody.

>> Let's talk about the political side of this.

>> Oh, no, shocked.

>> Politics involved.

[ Laughter ] >> He's running on the republican side and if he survives that, he has to go up.

And everyone is trying to weaken everybody else and if this went how an election year, it wouldn't have gotten this far.

>> The equal system is from an election year.

And why Cochese county?

>> An appointed county, too, and I don't know much about him.

I was in contact with Mr. MacIntyre and look, the fact it's back up, that will figure into my decision and it's interesting because the law says, the secretary of state shall maintain this website.

Well, what if it's physically impossible to maintain the website?

Is that a defense?

And that's what the county attorney will decide.

>> Bennett, a familiar name around these parts for a variety of reasons, what do you know, I think I'll run for senate.

>> Six days to collect all signatures, it will be interesting to see how that turns out.

>> Former secretary of state, plays the guitar, likes to sing and also likes to be the spokesperson for the self-styled much maligned audit and will that help him?

Goodness gracious, that's Karen Fann's district and he's in.

>> Whether he's in or whether noel Campbell takes that primary, it will be interesting and it's a republican district, concernly.

And there are a lot of election doubters, if you want to call it, particularly in the G.O.P primary and the fact he played a role, won't hurt.

He wanted Barack Obama's birth certificate.

>> It could cut both ways, in regards to the audit, he was there to be the liaison and got locked out but those running the audit because they didn't trust him because he was talking to skeptics of the audit.

I will note that one of his partners in merriment is rusty Bauers running for the state senate so if they get elected, it will be a happier place than we've seen.

so you have to figure, he's in.

>> The nature of some of these people is their ability to self-district on the campaign trail and I'm not saying Ken will, but the kinds of questions that Mary jo and Stacey and I ask and I won't put my money on Ken being in just yet.

>> Same old, same old.

School funding and who wants that.

>> It was put up in the house by the appropriation's committee and it's a sweeping change to how we fund K12 schools testimony is limited to three people, pro three people against they each got two minutes and adding time for questions and this whole thing was done in an hour and sent on down the pike and so this is now in the legislative stream.

And it won't -- the early analysis from the budget committee shows that charter schools would all gain because the bill would increase the amount of money that goes into the basic state aid and charter schools get 100% of money from that pot, so there you go.

And about 121 school districts, mostly rural and small, you know, could stand to lose funding at a time when most will tell you they can't afford.

>> Some of the formulator includes districts with teachers with lots of experience and that penalizes you.

Explain, please.

>> Well, to be fair, we have monkeyed four decades with the formula and I want to goudge my eyes out and there have been great in equities and the small school waits and special needs and time to take a bigger look.

But rather than bringing in everyone, including the 2 and some school districts that represent most of the kids that go to school, this was brought together by certain tax groups, charter school groups who came up with something and Michelle Yudall, who heads the house education committee said, you know, if we brought in everybody, we would never get anybody done.

If you don't bring everybody, you'll have school district superintendents and look, superintendents -- talking about Yavapai county and I know them after they saw this thing went running to Karen Fann and I think if she's not going to approve it and you go nowhere unless you get everyone involved.

>> One of the other interesting things is public districts, if it becomes law, public districts would opt in and they would have to raise property taxes, right, to cover this opt-in fee.

>> Yes.

>> So where are landowners and people in Arizona going to fall?

>> That's the concern with poor districts and rural districts.

>> But the opting in and only certain districts would be eligible and they cannot have any override money fueling their budgets.

And the trade-off will get rid of this and a lot of the transportation money comes from a property tax and this would get rid of that and instead use state money and so, even if a district has to ask for voters to raise property tax for general school operations, they would lose the tax that they pay for transportation.

Whether that balances out -- >> But it's more complicated.

>> And that's my point, it is complicated, Mary Jo.

We've talked about that on this program for years, the education formula, it popped up Monday on a striker.

>> 101 pages on the last committee hearing of the year and as Howie noted and not with all stakeholders involved and this will go behind the scenes there's go to be a lot of lobbying and work done, the representative acknowledging making changes to them and this is not going over well and just I happen to ask senator Paul Boyer and talking about him a lot and he is the chairen of the education committee and senate.

>> But talk about the in equities and part of the problem of depending on property taxes is we have a district that have industrial prompt, 50-cents on the tax rate raising many times more than the Roosevelt district in south phoenix which is largely residential and it's not equitable in terms of the opt-in and what do you do?

You say, yeah, you can't go to your bonds the reason they have bonds is because the state backed away from the legal requirement to build all new schools.

So schools were creating bonds.

>> Good look with some of these districts if you have bonds.

They said we can never get this kind of stuff.

>> Rural districts with the same issue and to Howie's point, capital construction money and a lawsuit going on right now.

If you're going to take a holistic look, why don't you just work on that lawsuit and bring all of this other stuff in and get a bunch of people and watching paint dry and do a study.

Governor Ducey created the classroom's first initiative, had a task force and studied, studied and concluded and the recommendation was, we need more funding.

>> It always comes down to that.

>> There are republicans there and we saw this with the override and expenditure limit, who insist that we're not going to get more money until we get results.

The district says, how do you get results if we are 48th, 49th or wherever we are.

>> The repeal, can you help with that at all?

[ Laughter ] >> It was a big deal for awhile and we're running out of time, and this could go forever and what's the latest?

>> We're still hearing there's discussions about whether they can get enough votes to support the plan to chop down the time that this flat tax would phase in and having discussions about having a special session about this.

>> Would the governor -- the quote, unquote, grand bargain and you get your lower tax and you get education funding up to at or near the level of property 208, which is adios and would the governor sign something like that as long they gets that tax?

>> I don't know.

>> No indication one way or another?

>> I asked him a couple of weeks ago about his support for repeal and replace and he told me I was speculating and wouldn't even answer my questions and I don't want to speculate.

>> A grand bargain is by no means guaranteed.

It's not a given.

>> That's the other problem, any grand bargain, 220 school districts, 236 if you count the education, somebody will win and somebody will lose, unless you make it a total state function and the state pay for everything and all of the teacher's salary or school buses, somebody will win and somebody will lose and that's going to be the hard part.

>> They have time to figure that out and time to figure the education and they have time to figure everything out.

>> Not like we're getting out of here in 100 days or day 84.

>> Thank you all for joining us and great discussion and good to have you all here and that is it for now.

Thank you for joining us and you have a great weekend.

Coming up, how some valley restaurants are rebounding from the pandemic and on break it identity, why black suicide rates are on the rise, especially among the young.