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Arizona Republic

Who is most worth watching in 2019?

After a watershed election with seemingly a gazillion new faces in elected office, perhaps the better question is who isn't worth watching.

For better or worse, there is no shortage of people who could make big waves in the coming year. But here, in no particular order, are 10 you might want to keep an eye on.

Noah Karvelis: Agitator for education

What will the #RedforEd movement, led by Noah Karvelis, do for its second act?

The first one was a doozy – getting a fiscally conservative governor to blink on demands that teachers in Arizona get a whopping 20 percent pay raise.

It wasn’t all rosy for #RedforEd, of course. Many knocked it for a six-day teacher walkout that didn’t garner the movement any more concessions. A smear campaign targeted Karvelis and another leader as agitators planted in Arizona to advance a socialist agenda.

Others pointed to the movement’s support for a citizen-led initiative to tax the rich for education funding – a court challenge knocked it off the ballot – as proof that its endgame is political partisanship.

No one questions the political force that #RedforEd is. And Karvelis says the fight is far from over.

While not all its moves have been mapped out, the movement plans to have a presence much earlier in the legislative session – not wait until lawmakers are well into the budget process, as was the case earlier this year.

Karvelis says it has newfound supporters – bus drivers, custodians and other non-teaching staffers – to mobilize, especially if there isn't a detailed plan to fully restore education funding. There is a powerful "core of embers ready to ignite a major fire," he says – in the form of rallies, walkouts or another run at a ballot measure to produce money for schools.

The dark horses of the water debate

Expect the fight over water to get hot and heavy early in the session, as lawmakers are under the gun to approve Arizona's participation in the Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan (DCP). The proposed three-state agreement aims to keep more water in Lake Mead, which supplies 40 percent of the state's water and has a one-in-five chance of falling to a catastrophically low level by 2026.

But winning approval hasn't been so easy, as a months-long effort to level out the impact of the plan's cuts within Arizona has proven. There are many disparate interests, and they all have valid claims to an ever-more limited supply of water.

Most eyes will be on the debate's central players, including Gov. Doug Ducey, House Speaker Rusty Bowers, Arizona Department of Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke and Central Arizona Project General Manager Ted Cooke.

But there are a cast of lesser-known characters representing the interests of farmers, cities and tribes that also could make or break this deal. Because while there is broad support for an implementation plan that would provide water and money temporarily to these interests while they plan for a drier future, that support also is tenuous.

And there are still a lot of details to work out before lawmakers take a final vote. Getting the House and Senate to bite on DCP – and the state investment required to pass Arizona's implementation plan – will not be easy, particularly if any dark horses balk at the details.

Arizona lawmakers: Yep, all of them

The Arizona Legislature will be more of an unknown than it has been in a long time, perhaps going back to 2001, when control of the Senate was evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats.

Both chambers have entirely new leadership. Republican control in the House has been narrowed to a razor-thin 31-29. The Republican caucuses feature more moderates than they have in a while, particularly in the Senate.

Will any of this change the way the Legislature operates?

Republicans are used to reaching an internal consensus with the governor, and then ramrodding the result through the process. There have been rare eruptions, such as the temporary seizure of power by moderate Republicans and Democrats to pass a Medicaid expansion. But the ramrod has been standard operating procedure.

Achieving such an internal GOP consensus may be much more difficult this session. Will Republicans still attempt to forge one until failure becomes obvious? Or will there be a greater openness to working with Democrats from the beginning? And on the important stuff, such as the budget?

And if there is such a willingness on the part of Republicans, will Democrats respond constructively? Or will they prefer to have political issues to use in the next campaign rather than dilute their message with compromise?

There are no obvious answers to any of those questions.

Martha McSally: A senator, after all

Which Martha McSally will go to the Senate?

Early indications are that it will be Martha the kinder-gentler moderate who shows up at the Capitol in January, not the Trump-thumping McSally who lost to Kyrsten Sinema in November.

McSally was gracious in her concession speech to Sinema, and she went out of her way to mention John McCain after being named to fill the remainder of his Senate term by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey.

Yet few who’ve watched this political drama will forget the sharp rebuke of McSally in August by McCain’s daughter Meghan McCain, who tweeted about McSally’s “inability to even mention my father's name when discussing the bill named in his honor.”

All eyes were on the McCain family after Ducey's announcement. Cindy McCain was gracious in response to McSally being appointed to finish her late husband’s term.

So goodwill would appear to be the starting point.

But McSally will have to face voters in 2020 if she wants to keep that Senate seat – and she'll have to get through a GOP primary before she can face the general election voters who rejected her pro-Trump campaign in 2018.

How will McSally play this? As the moderate who hopes to persuade general election voters in two short years? Or as a politician who can woo GOP primary voters?

As if these stakes weren't high enough, McSally will face the kind of scrutiny that would be applied to any politician who replaced the iconic John McCain.

McSally has proven herself to be a capable politician. Questions about how she handles this latest challenge put her on every political junkie’s “must watch” list.

J.P. Holyoak: Pot crusader

The face of the legal marijuana movement that failed with Proposition 205 in 2016 will be back with another push for the 2020 ballot. He’s just short of giddy about its chances.

And why not? Prop. 205 barely lost.

That year, four states — California, Nevada, Massachusetts and Maine — approved use of recreational marijuana. Four other states, including nearby Colorado, already have legalized adult use of the drug.

Public opinion favoring the decriminalization of marijuana continues to grow. And …

“In between 2016 and 2020, 5 percent of the oldest population will pass away,” J.P. Holyoak said. “The younger generation tends to support marijuana more, the older generation tends to oppose … For that reason alone, we’ll be in a good position.”

Trend lines aside, legal marijuana advocates will amass a lot of money to fight the anti-side’s messaging, which most certainly will include teen drug use and road safety.

Holyoak doesn’t foresee much trouble gathering enough signatures to qualify a measure for the ballot, despite the higher signature threshold (signature requirements will be tied to voter turnout in the 2018 election) and the tougher “strict compliance” standards on petitions imposed by the Legislature.

Will the electorate find fault with other details of the measure — such as the number of dispensaries allowed to sell the drug and who gets dibs at the licenses? We’ll know when petitions get pulled this summer.

Sal DiCiccio: Phoenix's change agent

Conservatives like Sal DiCiccio have historically been relegated to the margins of the otherwise progressive Phoenix City Council.

Not so much these days.

DiCiccio finds himself with greater influence and consequence now that Mayor Greg Stanton has been elected to Congress and two Democratic council members have stepped down to run for his seat (who are now locked in a runoff election in March).

That has left issues that were foregone conclusions in a much more precarious state. Witness the proposal to renovate the Phoenix Suns arena, or the rejection this month of a water-rate increase to replace aging pipes and withdraw stored water in times of shortage.

But DiCiccio created his own opportunities, too. He is behind the efforts of two initiatives that run counter to the preference and will of the city council.

One of them calls for halting the expansion of light rail and diverting the city's portion of the project's funding toward street maintenance. The second would reform how Phoenix calculates and funds public pensions. One, or both, may be on the ballot in a special city election.

DiCiccio may just upend the rules on enacting public policy before he's through.

Raúl Grijalva: Tree hugger with a challenge

As the ranking Democrat in line to chair the House Natural Resources Committee, Rep. Raul Grijalva will have a bigger microphone and an important choice in the next Congress.

That committee oversees the Department of Interior, and Grijalva’s call for Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s resignation was met with a nasty tweet from Zinke. An editorial in USA TODAY called Zinke's tweet a “sophomoric gesture” and the “kind of violation of decorum . . . (that) has become the new norm for deflecting attention from sleazy behavior.”

Rumors swirl about Zinke’s future at Interior, but it is unlikely that any replacement Trump might appoint would wear a green enough cape to escape Grijalva’s scrutiny. The congressman from southern Arizona is not reluctant to criticize the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back environment regulations or to push back against industry threats to natural resources. This is important.

But the question of how Grijalva uses his newfound power in a Democrat-controlled House makes him worth watching. In the next Congress, Grijalva will have to find a way to stay focused on serving the environmental needs of Arizona and the West – without getting sidetracked into Twitter wars or partisan bickering with Trump appointees on cable news shows.

Athena Salman: Fledgling firebrand

Rep. Athena Salman is a wave-maker. The Tempe Democrat came into office in 2017 with one of the largest and most outspoken freshmen classes in state history. But even among that brassy group, she is the assertive one, refusing to stay quiet on the backbench as she learns the ropes of lawmaking.

An unabashed atheist, 29-year-old Salman made noise early when she gave a humanist invocation that didn’t mention God. Attacked by Republicans, she dug in and stood by her constitutional rights.

Upon learning that women inmates in Arizona were denied adequate feminine hygiene products, she launched a legislative and social-media movement to compel the state Department of Corrections to make supplies more available. She also stood with a half-dozen other women to accuse Rep. Don Shooter, R-Yuma, of sexual harassment, eventually leading to his ouster.

Salman reminds some of an earlier Democrat firebrand named Alfredo Gutierrez, a lawmaker who became a force in the 1970s and ‘80s by lighting a torch under the Republican caucus. Expect Salman to loudly stand for her issues, including better public education, humane immigration reform, reproductive rights and LGBTQ equality.

Recently, the 72-year-old Gutierrez took a step back from his professional life, saying he didn’t want to spend the “seven or eight good years (he has left) arguing with right-wingers.” No problem. Athena Salman is taking up where he left off.

Andy Biggs: Conservative thought leader

A funny thing happened when Andy Biggs got to Congress: he became voluble.

During his four years as Arizona state Senate president, Biggs was highly effective – arguably the most influential legislator since Burton Barr, who ruled the legislative roost in the 1970s and 1980s.

Biggs was a consequential counterweight to Gov. Doug Ducey in the Legislature, something that has been absent since he departed for a successful run for the U.S. House.

But in his state legislative days, Biggs didn’t really try to influence the public debate much. He worked mostly behind the scenes, coming up with policy alternatives and then quietly cobbling together the votes for them.

In Congress, Biggs hasn’t shaped legislation that much. He’s a member of the Freedom Caucus, a sharply conservative minority within the Republican caucus, which is about to become the minority party in the House. A minority of a minority will have difficulty influencing events.

In Congress, however, Biggs has become a prolific column writer and advocate. Mostly for conservative media, but not infrequently for traditional media as well.

Biggs makes the public case for the conservative position and often in defense of the Trump administration. He’s very good at it. His advocacy tends to be well-reasoned and persuasive, not inflammatory.

Ideas percolate in politics, fortunes change. To keep an eye on what congressional conservatives are thinking and advocating, Biggs is increasingly someone to watch.

Sandra Kennedy: Utility shaker-upper

Sandra Kennedy will become the only Democrat, the only woman and the only person of color on the five-member Arizona Corporation Commission.

Voters responded to Kennedy’s pledge to bring change to the ACC and restore public confidence in the utility regulator, which has been the subject of controversy on a number of levels. That includes a rate increase for Arizona Public Service, which was approved after campaign spending by APS and its parent company Pinnacle West Capital Corp. in 2016 – and speculation that these two gave millions in “dark money” to influence the ACC race in 2014.

Kennedy faces challenges in pursing her stated goals to increase use of rooftop solar and other renewable energy sources. She will have to find allies among the GOP members of the ACC, and that may not be easy.

But she can also look to the public for support and leverage.

It’s an old joke to say the ACC is the most important agency you’ve never heard of. But that’s too true to be funny. What the ACC does affects everyone in the state who switches on a light. Literally.

The ACC sets water, electric and gas utility rates and policies, as well as overseeing things like securities, railroad crossings and pipeline safety.

If Sandra Kennedy can find a way to focus public attention on the day-to-day significance of the ACC – and not just the continuing scandals – she will be doing the state a great service. She may also find that public attention makes the task of finding allies on the commission a bit easier.

This is an opinion of The Arizona Republic's editorial board. What do you think? Send us a letter to the editor to weigh in.

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