By Howard Fischer
Mail | X: @azcapmedia

PHOENIX — It might not be as entertaining as watching members of the British Parliament pepper the prime minister with questions on C-SPAN, but one Arizona legislator wants to bring in the governor for a question-and-answer session in front of the cameras.

Borrowing from the British idea, Rep. Alexander Kolodin wants Arizona’s future governors to have to face the Legislature the third Wednesday of every month to answer at least a few questions from lawmakers. He presumes it would make for good TV.

The Scottsdale Republican said he does not foresee this as becoming an opportunity for members of the party that does not control the governor’s office to ask “gotcha” questions. But he said even if it devolves into that, viewers will get a chance to see — and judge — whether the lawmaker who posed the question is being fair.

And Kolodin said a governor might score points for giving a well-reasoned answer to a snarky inquiry.

The way his House Bill 2051 is crafted, members of the governor’s own party also would get a chance to pose their own questions. Kolodin said they are free to ask what could be considered softballs to make the state’s chief executive look good.

The real beneficiaries would be voters who could get a close-up look at government, the issues — and the people making the decisions, Kolodin said.

Kolodin acknowledged what occurs in Parliament — and what could happen here — could be seen as just so much theater, designed more to score a point than to actually get meaningful information.

“That’s an interesting way of characterizing it,” Kolodin said.
But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Consider, he said, the level of knowledge many Arizonans have of government.

Kolodin, a former junior high school teacher, said they are probably most informed about national issues “even though the level that most impacts their day-to-day lives is state and local.” He said having even a monthly televised Q-and-A session between the governor and lawmakers from both parties could raise the level of public awareness of what’s going on at the Capitol.

“In the U.K., having question time — and there’s research on this — increases levels of civic knowledge, civic engagement in the general public,” he said. And, to put it in the context of being theater, “it’s a compelling show.”

That, he said, compares with when lawmakers have hearings on pending legislation, hearings that already are available for live and delayed viewing on the internet.

“You’ve got to be a glutton for punishment to sit and watch one of our committee hearings,” Kolodin said.

“So to have something where you have the executive branch and the legislative branch face to face, discussing the policy issues, debating the different perspectives, working through the issues there on TV, that’s something I think would be really useful to fostering an informed citizenry, which is healthy for the republic,” he said.

All that, however, still leaves the possibility that someone will use the opportunity to ask a question designed more to embarrass than to educate. Kolodin said that shouldn’t be an issue.

“By the time you get to be governor of the state of Arizona, you’re pretty used to dealing with questions in a political context,’’ he said.

“It’s not like the governor is some high school student standing up there going, ‘What do I do here?’” Kolodin said. “She’s the freakin’ governor.”

And if it is a loaded question?

“I suspect voters will appreciate and look with favor on a governor who’d give a good answer, especially one to a tough question,” he said.

“Voters are going to go, ‘Hey, you know, that question was really a gotcha question but she handled that with such grace,’” said Kolodin. “That would make voters potentially like the governor more.”

And not necessarily “she.” He pointed out the measure, if approved and signed by Hobbs, would not take effect until the 2027 legislative session — when Hobbs may or may not still be governor.

The concept got no traction from Rep. Nancy Gutierrez, D-Tucson, who is the new House assistant Democratic leader.

“Didn’t we fight a revolutionary war to not have to do this sort of thing?” she said. “I think we have more pressing issues to address than this one.”

The idea actually is not new. Jonathan Paton, who was a Republican state senator from Tucson, introduced a nearly identical proposal in 2010.

“It kind of guarantees that the public gets a chance to see their leaders in action, both legislative and executive branch, in an environment where there’s an exchange of ideas,” he said at the time.

Paton said voters would “kind of get to judge their ability: how well prepared they are, how well-spoken they are,” since he presumed all this would be televised.

But Paton couldn’t sell the idea even to members of his own party. And the bill died without getting a hearing.