Democracy Dies in Tucson

By Sam Stone

Democrats across Arizona, including Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, are lining up to run to replace recently deceased congressman Raul Grijalva. They’re cueing in vain.

As part of the left’s ongoing efforts to protect “democracy,” Pima County Democrats will anoint Adelita Grijalva to replace her father, former Congressman Raul Grijalva. Here’s how:

In the early 1970’s an ambitious young Democrat named Dan Eckstrom emerged in Tucson. Eckstrom was only 23 when he became a member of the South Tucson City Council, and just 25 when he ascended to become Mayor. Over the next 30-plus years, Eckstrom built a machine that dominated Southern Arizona politics using the same insider-dealing and power-brokering perfected by the Daly-family in Chicago: use government contracts and awards to keep the business community in line; staff jobs and patronage accrued only to favored activists; and politicians who didn’t toe the line were cut off or primaried.

That kind of hardball kept the Eckstrom clan in power until the late 1990’s when the network was stolen from them by an ambitious young Mexican-American acolyte of Dan Eckstrom’s named Raul Grijalva. Grijalva stole the Eckstrom machine, ousted his patron, and used the reins of power to ascend to Congress. Meanwhile, Grijlava replaced the Eckstrom loyalists with his own adherents, most notably current Tucson Mayor Regina Romero and his daughter Adelita, who now sits in the Pima County Supervisor seat her father vacated to run for Congress.

And while Romero has a higher profile, Adelita has been Grijlava’s anointed successor in Congress for many, many years. Romero got the nod for the mayor’s seat because she’s a loyal foot soldier – loyal enough to bow out of the way when the path to congress opened up. And while there may end up being a primary, whoever steps into the ring against Adelita will find themselves outgunned financially and institutionally. Dollars, media coverage, and union support will all go one direction: where the machine tells them to.

How powerful is that machine?

• Grijalva had a lengthy history of drinking and driving. And getting pulled over. But never arrested. Eventually, his staff took away his keys.

• In 2010, I was working with Ruth McClung - the only Republican to come within 10 points of Grijalva. Less than two months out, with McClung closing in on him, Grijalva butchered a debate performance in Tucson and demanded a rematch. During that rematch, at a high school in Rio Rico, Raul Grijalva passed out drunk on the table. Literally. Zonked out. Had to be shaken awake to answer a question by the Libertarian candidate in the race. There were 5 TV cameras and a dozen print reporters in the room. None of them reported it. Not one.

• Grijalva also got sued by a female staffer for his drunken antics in office. Tucson news outlets mostly covered the fact the suit wasn’t for sexual harassment.

There’s more, of course, you can’t run a town out of a bar in South Tucson for decades without some collateral damage…

Like one of the nation’s worst homeless and crime problems…

A bizarre number of vehicles being flipped by potholes…

A stagnant economy being dragged along by the rest of the state…

Or…a minor league baseball park built between the county mental hospital and the jail because the owner wouldn’t fork over a $250,000 bribe to put it downtown, eventually costing the owner millions of dollars in losses and the team being sold to Bakersfield.

I was pretty proud of my dad for telling Grijalva to pound sand on that one, cost be damned. But the cost to the citizens and taxpayers of Tucson for 50-plus years of Chicago-style machine politics can’t be written off that easily. Tucson is a dumpster fire, the Eckstrom / Grijalva machine is the arsonist. Adelita Grijalva will be just the latest firebug.

Note: the opinions expressed herein are those of Sam Stone only and not his co-host Chuck Warren or Breaking Battlegrounds’ staff.