Recalling the Huppenthal Controversy of '05

It was an interesting summer for Arizona's Legislative District 20 last year. In the interest of being up to date, here's an article by Dave Wells recalling (no pun intended) the controversy involving State Sen. John Huppenthal and the movement to recall him from office:

There’s hardly a voter who doesn’t want to improve schools and reduce crime. Poll after poll shows voters love it if someone else pays for it, so reducing taxes is always a hit. But while these may be the Senator’s stated objectives, they are also purposely ambiguous so prospective voters can agree with the principle and not be disturbed by the details.

But in practice the details matter. In February, Senator Huppenthal raised the dander of some parents in the Kyrene School District when he told them frankly “the cavalry (i.e., the legislature) isn’t coming” to save Kyrene from its budget predicament. At the same time, the Senator remained an outspoken critic of the merits of all-day Kindergarten, while being a prime supporter of using state funds to support religious schools through vouchers.

The conclusion reached by many of these parents was that Senator Huppenthal’s notion of improving education meant Kyrene would continue its slow starving of resources. As I noted back in February (http://makedemocracywork.org/archives/31/), Kyrene like most districts faced a 5 percent increase in costs, but the legislature had not been meeting those obligations leading over time to a dramatic pairing down of administrative staff and extracurricular activities including dropping athletics for middle school. This year the bleeding continued as the legislature ultimately rose base school funding by only 3.7 percent.

So, amid all the boasting of great things he's done for education, Huppenthal and the Republican-controlled State Senate have been slowly strangling our public schools while trying to shift as much public money as possible to private schools. And parents became so irate at this and other issues that they launched a Recall campaign against Huppenthal.

The Recall garnered 5,000 votes, not nearly enough to result in a recall election, but enough to show that there were more than a few people in our district that found Huppenthal's position on education offensive.

Of course, extra credit goes to Huppenthal for threatening to get the names of the 5,000 Recall Petition signers and to go visit each of them, personally, and set them straight. Very classy, Senator.