Word: arizonas
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...since, Bruce Edward Babbitt has made a remarkable career of being underestimated by his political opponents. His wife once described him as a "shy, skinny intellectual with little public-speaking ability." Yet he pushed himself through successful campaigns for student president of Notre Dame, attorney general and Governor of Arizona and now, at age 49, into the biggest race...
After returning home to Arizona in 1967, Babbitt practiced law in Phoenix. A former colleague, Anne Bingaman, recalls that "in a firm of young workaholics, Bruce stood out as the one who never ate lunch and came in on Sundays." Babbitt donated many hours to pro bono cases, but was little involved in politics. Then another epiphany. While representing the Navajo tribe in a voting-rights case against the state, Babbitt realized, "My God, the attorney general has the largest law firm in Arizona, and it's devoted to the defense of racial discrimination. What it ought...
Unlike such antipoliticians as Jimmy Carter, Babbitt learned and relished the levers of power, including the veto, the initiative, patronage and press leaks. Republicans controlled the Arizona legislature, but it was not veto proof, and Babbitt would threaten to sink the pet bills of legislators if they didn't accept his program. He made good on such threats a record 114 times...
Babbitt's finest achievement as Governor was his passage of landmark legislation to protect the lifeblood of Arizona's rapid economic growth: its scarce underground water. This came only after a dramatic charade in which Babbitt enlisted Cecil Andrus, then Secretary of the Interior. The two agreed that Andrus would threaten to cut funding for a major water project dear to powerful economic interests in Arizona unless the state managed its groundwater better. "I went home and called him an overreaching federal hypocrite," Babbitt recalls with a grin. Then, having immersed himself in the arcana of water management, Babbitt mediated...
...perennial struggles beween Arizona's copper unions and its union- busting managements have influenced Babbitt's ideas on what he calls "workplace democracy." He believes government should encourage profit sharing and worker ownership of companies and end tax breaks for "companies like General Motors, which lay off thousands of workers while paying big bonuses to executives...