Rep. Phil Lopes - AZ

Phil Lopes is the minority leader in the Arizona House. He represents Tucson, where he has lived for over thirty years since he helped found Pima Community College. Outside the legislature, Lopes works as a health care consultant, seeking to expand coverage to the uninsured, work reflected by legislation he is carrying in the House to provide health care for all Arizonans. Lopes served in the Peace Corps in Latin America in the 60s and is fluent in both Spanish and Portugese. He agreed to respond to a few questions from PLAN. Arizona was one of the first states to adopt public financing of elections. How has that reform impacted elections and politics in your state?

Less, but not total, dependence on lobbyists for funding is a positive. More females, Hispanics, and extremists -- mostly right wing -- are running.

As Minority Leader in the House, you've been an outspoken proponent of both clean elections and universal health care. How are those stances playing with voters?

Both very positive but universal health care more positive, was able to easily generate 300+ emails to a committee chair to hear the bill. An Arizona Republic poll in December showed 81% of voters in favor of universal access to insurance. Clean Elections recently got a great boost with the expulsion from the House of a member who violated Clean Elections laws. Understand it is first time ever that such an expulsion was due to anything other than impeachment. Voters unfortunately dont know as much about CE as they should but that is improving.

How do you make progress when you%u2019re in the minority?

The caucus, especially me personally, have struggled with how to measure effectiveness. It is not the number of bills passed. I am convinced, tentatively, that it has do do with influence, influence other members, public, votes, debate, discussion, etc. But, how to measure? Caucus has developed values statement, and issues to focus on for session and '06 election cycle. These documents have served us well with the public -- I do a lot of public speaking -- and Dems, but I'm not sure how they have influenced our behavior. Also, we are trying to do more coordination in debates, especially on floor. We have gotten some positive feed back from policy wonks but not sure how or if it has increased our influence. PLAN could make a big contribution if it could held define effectiveness, conceptually and actually, for Progressives when in the minority.

We're witnessing case after case across the country and in Washington of corruption among officials, including heavy handed lobbying tactics in Congress. How do you unify your caucus around progressive proposals without stooping to threats or bribes?

Since Clean Elections has taken most money out of reelection, bribes are too risky. Since we are in such a minority, our votes rarely count, we are not important enough to threaten or bribe. It is clear that certain lobbyists have enourmous influence with the majority, writting bills, directing disposition, etc.

What's your big goal for next legislative session?

In the middle of this session, important to keep Caucus united on such things as TABOR, anti-immigrant bills, and teaching English to monolingual children. Next goal is to increase number of Dems in House -- taking a lot of my time -- then get myself reelected leader next November.