Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Arizona over Proposition 308, the voter-approved law allowing students who attended an Arizona high school for at least two years and graduated here to qualify for in-state tuition regardless of their immigration status. The Department argues that Arizona’s policy conflicts with federal law governing benefits for undocumented immigrants.

Whether the federal government prevails is now a question for the courts. Thankfully, Arizona’s Attorney General Kris Mayes is defending the voters' preference.

But there’s another question worth asking, one that goes well beyond who is eligible for in-state tuition rates or the more complex questions surrounding immigration: how much discretion should states have to solve their own workforce and education challenges?

Arizona voters answered that question in 2022.

Legislators did not quietly enact Proposition 308. Arizona voters debated it publicly and approved it directly.

Arizona asks its young people to stay in school, work hard, graduate, and prepare for a future in which they can support themselves, their families, and their communities. Proposition 308 asks whether that promise should mean something.

In 2022, Arizona voters answered yes. They approved a straightforward policy: students who attended Arizona high schools for at least two years and earned an Arizona diploma should have a meaningful opportunity to continue their education at Arizona’s public institutions.

Reasonable people can disagree with that policy. But it is worth recognizing what Arizona voters were trying to accomplish. They were deciding how Arizona should invest in young people who have already become part of Arizona’s communities, schools, and future workforce.

None of that settles the legal question the Justice Department is raising. Yet, it is hard to understand the federal government’s assertion that other Arizonans’ rights were somehow violated by offering a reduced tuition rate to undocumented but qualified students.

Some of my friends might argue that the federal government also brought a case against Arizona SB 1070 (2010) → Arizona v. United States (2012). At the time, the DOJ sued Arizona because the state was doing more immigration enforcement than Washington wanted, not less. The Supreme Court struck down most of the state law as preempted by federal authority.

In my opinion, providing reduced tuition rates to undocumented students does not violate other citizens’ rights.

Imagine the DOJ pursuing states that provide these benefits:

• Public Library: Imagine a public library deciding to waive late fees for children during the summer to encourage reading. Other community members haven’t lost a right. They still have access to the same books, library, and services. The community simply chose to remove a barrier for one group because it believed doing so served a broader public purpose.

• Senior Discounts: Every day, governments and private organizations offer reduced prices to seniors, veterans, or students. We don’t typically describe those policies as violating everyone else’s rights. We recognize them as policy choices communities make to advance particular social goals.

• Merit Scholarships: When a university awards a merit scholarship to an exceptional student, other students haven’t been deprived of a right. They remain free to attend under the published tuition rates. The institution simply chose to reduce the cost for one student because it believed doing so furthered its educational mission.

• Local Property Tax Exemptions: Arizona communities routinely provide property tax exemptions or incentives for veterans, seniors, or economic development. Whether one agrees with those policies or not, we generally understand them as choices made by elected representatives—not as violations of everyone else’s rights.

Regardless of where one stands on immigration reforms, this moment raises an important question about the relationship between federal authority and state self-government. But the federal government’s approach obscures a fundamental principle that deserves equal attention: local communities often understand their own needs better than Washington does.

In 2022, Arizona’s voters weighed competing values and made a choice. If that choice conflicts with federal law, the courts should say so. If it does not, Arizona’s decision deserves respect.

As our nation becomes increasingly polarized, it is tempting to treat every disagreement as a national battle requiring a national solution. Yet one enduring strength of the American republic has always been allowing different states to pursue different approaches while remaining united under a common Constitution.

Sometimes those experiments succeed. Sometimes they fail. But allowing citizens to make those choices locally has long been one of America’s greatest institutional strengths.

Communities closest to a problem often understand it in ways Washington cannot. They know their employers, schools, and families, and most importantly, they live with the consequences of the choices they make.

When decisions are made locally, people are also more likely to get involved, hold leaders accountable, and understand the tradeoffs at stake. That’s where trust comes from: people believing their voice matters, and that the rules reflect the reality of their own community.

Strong civic institutions are built from the ground up. Preserving room for states and local communities to solve their own problems isn’t just constitutional theory. It’s part of why the American system has worked as well as it has.

But after more than 30 years building companies at the intersection of education, financial services, and technology, including more than a decade building GradGuard,

Like most parents doing the college drop-off, I’ve spent plenty of time thinking about tuition bills, move-in day, residence halls, and meal plans. While we have a budget for the next four years of tuition, housing, and fees, it doesn’t include the cost of an extra semester or replacing a backpack filled with electronics and books essential for coursework.

Other parents often ask me what I recommend and how GradGuard helps. Here is my short list:

1. Know the college’s refund policy. Most families don’t realize how little of their investment is protected if their student has to withdraw. The majority of school refund policies don’t extend beyond the first few weeks of the semester, and even when a school offers a full tuition refund, most do not refund academic fees or student housing expenses. A recent Gallup–Lumina Foundation State of Higher Education study found that nearly 1 in 3 currently enrolled students have considered stopping out of their degree program—often for reasons unrelated to academics, with emotional stress and personal mental health chief among them. A health-related withdrawal can happen to any family, at any time, and often without warning.

2. Consider tuition insurance before classes begin. GradGuard Tuition Insurance can reimburse up to 100% of tuition, academic fees, and eligible housing costs if a student must withdraw for a covered medical reason, including physical illness, injury, or a covered mental health condition. Tuition insurance helps a student get back on their feet after a withdrawal without the added burden of a financial loss. If your school doesn’t offer tuition insurance, then send an email to the admissions, bursar, or parents’ office, as it is the most affordable way for families to protect their investment. Schools that work with GradGuard save students money, with the cost of coverage typically at around $120 for $10,000 of coverage.

3. Know the risks of campus life. GradGuard has paid thousands of claims, and data confirms that campus life carries real property risk. According to Clery Act data compiled by the U.S. Department of Education and NCES, roughly 23,400 criminal offenses happen on campuses annually, including about 6,500 burglaries, 3,500 motor vehicle thefts, and 400 arsons. The Clery Act doesn’t count ordinary larceny — the stolen laptops, phones, bikes, and backpacks that are, by wide account, the most common crimes on campus. In other words, the everyday thefts most likely to hit a student’s wallet do not even appear in the 23,400 figure, which means the true volume of campus theft is considerably higher. Water damage from both accidents and fires can create personal liability for students who cause them. Clery data reports an average of nearly 2,000 fires in on-campus student housing annually.

4. Purchase renters insurance for your student. If you are like us, we have upgraded our students’ laptops and invested in a number of purchases that will help them academically. Considering all of the belongings they’re bringing with them to college, including bikes, books, and everything else, our students have thousands of dollars of property. Many backpacks can cost thousands of dollars to replace if they are stolen, especially since they’re likely holding a laptop, headphones, and other pricey electronics. While our homeowner’s insurance provides some coverage (20% of property coverage), my $5,000 deductible and the certainty that my rates will likely go up if I make a claim for a student loss make renters insurance a more practical alternative. GradGuard Renters Insurance is designed specifically for students. It includes an exclusive student endorsement with a low $100 deductible, no sublimits on electronics, and worldwide property coverage. If you attend a school that already works with GradGuard, your student will also be automatically eligible for preferred pricing of around $15 a month, making renters insurance a smart purchase.

5. Don’t pay twice for student health insurance. Many colleges and universities still require student health insurance. These schools, including both of the schools my kids are attending, require families to purchase their health insurance (often $4,000 or more) and bill students if you haven’t demonstrated coverage acceptable to the school. A big mistake families can make is paying twice for health insurance. Be sure to waive coverage if you don’t need it.

I am optimistic that our twins will have a fantastic college experience. Beyond the personal benefits that make it one of life’s most valuable investments, it is a time of tremendous personal and professional growth.

The overwhelming majority of students will have an incredible experience, and the families who take an hour before move-in to understand their refund policy, coverage gaps for personal property and liability, and their options are the ones who protect that experience, rather than letting one bad semester derail it.

Our twins are prepared, and I am thankful, not just as a co-founder of GradGuard, that relevant protections exist that are designed specifically for the risks of college life. Feel free to contact me with more questions or visit GradGuard.com.

In a world that often has too much information and too little knowledge, I am a big fan of content sources that provide more signal than noise. That is difficult in a climate where promoting noise is a social media business model, but CFA's work offers a model for producing common knowledge that benefits all of Arizona.

The 2026 Arizona Voters’ Agenda offers a useful corrective: a clear view of what Arizonans want from our government and, as a result, what our elected officials are prudent to listen to.

The Arizona Voters’ Agenda aims to be a trusted, nonpartisan source of statewide research identifying the priorities Arizona voters share across political affiliations and generations. The surveys ask about a wide array of issues and topics, and some items do not reach the level of agreement among likely voters required for inclusion. The resulting Arizona Voters’ Agenda is built on where there is broad consensus, focusing on issues agreed upon by the electorate.

By setting a high bar for inclusion—demanding over 50% strong agreement among all voters and agreement across every political affiliation and age group—it ensures the agenda reflects widely supported policies.

This method filters out partisan issues, highlighting priorities with real potential for progress and representing concerns crucial to the vast majority of Arizona’s likely voters. This process not only fosters a nonpartisan approach but also aims to provide practical and actionable policy insights for the state.

In midlife, it is easy to see that election years follow a familiar script. Candidates tell us what is at stake. Parties tell us what to fear. Ads and social media turn complicated challenges into slogans, outrage, and team sports. The result is plenty of noise and not much signal.

A better place to start is with the citizens. The Center for the Future of Arizona’s 2026 Arizona Voters’ Agenda asks a more practical question than who is ahead. It asks what Arizona voters want government to accomplish. Its research identifies priorities that draw majority support from Republicans, Democrats, independents, and voters of every age group.

That matters. The agenda does not suggest that Arizonans agree on every policy detail. They do not. But it does show a broad, workable consensus on the problems that deserve sustained attention—and on the kind of results voters expect from their leaders.

These are not abstractions. They shape whether families can put down roots, whether employers can grow, and whether young people see a future for themselves here in Arizona.

Water may be the clearest example. Voters are concerned about Arizona’s long-term water supply, and they support policies that protect groundwater and make future development sustainable. That is not a rejection of growth. It demands that growth be managed responsibly.

Education reveals much the same instinct. Arizonans understand that the state’s future depends on preparing students for work, life, and citizenship. The question is no longer whether education matters. The question is whether we are producing measurable results, holding ourselves accountable, and improving student outcomes.

Even on immigration, voters often hold priorities that our politics treats as incompatible: secure borders, an orderly legal immigration system, humane treatment of people, and an economy with the workers it needs. The public is asking for solutions that are both serious and workable.

In my opinion, in a time where common knowledge about our society is often missing, the Arizona Voters’ Agenda is more than another poll. It is a useful public standard.

Candidates asking for our votes should be able to speak plainly about how they intend to address the priorities Arizonans have already identified.

At a minimum, every candidate should be prepared to answer five questions:

· What policies will you support to make Arizona more affordable?

· What policies will you support to protect Arizona’s water future?

· What policies will you support to improve education and workforce readiness?

· What policies will you support to strengthen border security while supporting legal immigration?

· In two years, what evidence will show that your policies are working?

Those are not partisan questions. They are questions of competence, priorities, and follow-through. They shift the focus from campaign rhetoric to the work of governing.

An election is not simply about deciding which political team wins. It is to choose leaders who can exercise sound judgment for Arizona’s future.

Arizonans have made their priorities clear. The question for candidates is who is listening? Importantly, who also possesses the courage, character, and leadership qualities to deliver?

I encourage everyone to take a drive to somewhere new in Arizona. Enjoy the journey, the beauty and wonder. It reminds you of our humanity - no matter what our zip code. In addition, I encourage you to sign up to receive the statewide findings, issue-specific highlights, questions for candidates, and updates here.

Source

Center for the Future of Arizona, 2026 Arizona Voters’ Agenda and related statewide voter surveys.

Disclosure

The 2026 Arizona Voters’ Agenda initiative is supported in part by Arizona State University, Helios Education Foundation, Pivotal Foundation, and the Thomas R. Brown Family Private Foundation. The Center for the Future of Arizona acknowledges their support for nonpartisan research and public dialogue about Arizona’s future.

Thanks for reading. Here, I share my observations on life, civics, and society.

The longer I read, the more the shelf felt like a focus group I hadn’t been invited to run. Someone had decided these were the ideas most likely to stop an international traveler for ten seconds. That made the table interesting even before anyone opened a book.

An airport bestseller table is not the culture speaking unfiltered. Publishers, promotions, sales data, and placement decisions all shape what reaches the front. But the display is still someone’s highly commercial theory of what a hurried traveler might buy. Before long I was photographing the covers that stopped me—and noticing the contradictions between them.

There was something almost too perfect about Vulture Capitalism sitting above a “Buy 1 get 1 half price” strip. The display was a designed environment: a working theory of what people would care about long enough to pick up, carry, and pay for. Here is what this particular shelf seemed to believe about us.

I would like to say I stood outside all of this and studied it objectively. I didn’t. Several of the titles made me laugh at the contradictions sitting on the same shelf, and it led me to start taking photos of the most interesting covers.

The mind is the emergency

The loudest theme wasn’t money or politics. It was the inside of our own heads. The Overthinker’s Guide to Making Decisions. Don’t Believe Everything You Think. The Courage to Be Disliked. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. Surrounded by Idiots. The books are not actually interchangeable, of course. But their titles make remarkably similar promises: your thoughts are the problem, and relief begins by learning to manage them.

The older self-help books I remember from the last time I was in London promised achievement: win friends, become effective, get rich. If this shelf is any guide, self-help now sells less achievement than relief. The pitch has shifted from doing more to feeling less. We aren’t buying maps to somewhere better so much as instructions for switching off an alarm in our heads that never quite stops.

The mind as emergency: attention, approval, and the desire for relief.

Money is broken, and everyone knows it

The next theme is wealth, and here the shelf is openly at war with itself. On one side sit Rich Dad Poor Dad and How to Make a Billion in 9 Steps, still selling the old promise that anyone can climb if they learn the trick. Two feet away sit We Need to Tax Billionaires, Vulture Capitalism, and the Bank of England, gently asking Can’t We Just Print More Money?

That isn’t just a bookshelf. It’s an argument, and the argument is the point. I laughed when I saw How to Make a Billion and We Need to Tax Billionaires sharing a table. The same traveler was apparently free to want to win the game and challenge its rules in a single trip. The irony made me smile. The “Buy 1 get 1 half price” promotion made the pairing even better: critiques of capitalism and manuals for becoming rich, bundled by the same retail offer. The shelf suggested that the story many of us learned about how money works no longer feels convincing; even if the desire to get ahead remains.

The shelf sells both the ladder and the argument against it.

Trying to make the world legible

Then came Prisoners of Geography and This Is Fascism: A Wake-Up Call. These are books for readers who may no longer assume the ground is stable. Geopolitics is repackaged as everything you need to know; fascism is sold as an alarm. I can understand the appeal. When the news arrives as a series of shocks, explanation can feel like a form of protection.

And then, the exits

When I travel, I prefer fiction so my favorite part of the shelf offered somewhere else to go other than a reality filled with contradictions. People We Meet on Vacation promised romance, with a Netflix sticker doing part of the selling. Lifelines: Searching for Home in the Mountains of Greece offered the fantasy of leaving for somewhere golden. The quieter outliers- Camus’s The Plague and Brian Friel’s Stories of Ireland- offered recognition rather than a solution.

Together these covers invite escape, relocation, belonging, and the chance to see a life differently. Those are needs too. At the same time, I thought to myself, some travelers would find it equally appealing to purchase one just to signal to other travelers an intellectual interest in literature.

Maps, departures, and different versions of home.

What is missing from the shelf?

Can you tell me? Is it obvious? The world, at least at Heathrow and this bookstore, is much more secular. I don’t think I missed it, but not a single book cover was on faith. Another set of missing books was biographies - not Elon, Steve Jobs, or the usual international figures you might expect.

What does this ask of us?

Traveling alone and in my own thoughts, I thought that there are plenty of ways to read a shelf of book titles, and this was only one display in one airport. Still, the titles looked less like a catalog of wants than a collection of unresolved needs printed in bold.

Yet there may be a message for anyone building a product, a company, a policy, or looking to build a new remedy to the problems these titles suggest.

Three questions stayed with me.

What are we doing to people’s attention? Half of these books are about trying to quiet the mind, while much of what we build is engineered to grab, ping, and hold. Perhaps the more useful design goal is not capturing attention but deciding when it deserves to be left alone.

Where does the design expect trust it has not earned? Skepticism is no longer an edge case. Institutions, brands, and experts increasingly have to show their work. Confidence is not a substitute for transparency that people can inspect and test for themselves.

Are we making life better, or simply making escape easier? The wealth and travel books expose the same tension in different ways. People want to get ahead, get out, or begin again. A useful design can help. A better one might also ask what made the exit feel necessary.

By the time I left the shop and moved on to my departure gate, the shelf seemed to be saying something fairly simple: we are overwhelmed, distrustful, and often tempted by the idea of being somewhere else.

I don’t take that as cause for despair. It is a clear brief for builders—and an uncomfortable one. The question is whether we merely design for the anxieties on that shelf, or build things that give people fewer reasons to feel them.

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It was broad and easy, the smile of a man who was actually glad to see you. Whether we ran into each other at a community event, at church, or—more and more, as the years went on—at the funeral of some old friend, Harry greeted me the same way every time: with warmth, and with a kind of respect that made you stand a little taller.

That smile told you most of what you needed to know about him. Harry paid attention to people. He made them feel welcome and valued. He did it as a teacher, a mayor, a legislator, a congressman, and as a husband, father, neighbor and friend. I was lucky enough to know him in nearly all of those roles.

I met him first through the Mayor’s Youth Advisory Committee. Bringing teenagers into the actual work of running a city was the sort of thing Harry did years before anyone thought to call it a good idea. Through the committee, and with the patient help of Tom Canasi, I started to learn how a community really works and how good leaders listen.

Tom once told me to “talk less and ask more questions.” I needed to hear it. By my second or third year I was asking more, and Arlene Chin had started driving me to City Hall so I no longer had to show up on my bicycle.

But Harry’s reach went well past City Hall.

For four years at Tempe High School he was my teacher and my student council adviser. I was one of thousands of kids who came through his classroom, and somehow each of us walked out believing our ideas mattered to him. He taught us free enterprise and economics, right down to the unglamorous business of balancing a checkbook. More than that, he handed us chances to lead.

Student council under Harry wasn’t a club. It was an apprenticeship. We organized dances and assemblies, traveled to statewide conferences, ran exchanges with other schools. Harry let us run with our enthusiasm and, without ever making a show of it, helped us build the judgment to turn our ideas into something real.

So many talented friendships were made in his leadership class, including Neil Martin, Cathy Mayorga, Kirstin Walker Tully, Holly Morris, Janee Rollins Gentrup, Nick Thornhill and Jolene Senn.

One of my favorite memories is a Coronation dance that the irrepressible Dub Dellis (senior class president in 1983) decided to turn our high school gym into a tropical paradise, waterfall included. After a full day of building it, the waterfall gave way and sent a small flood across the hardwood of the basketball court. It took just about every towel in the gym to soak it up.

Harry never lost his cool. That was him. He kept his footing even when the kids around him were creating chaos, sometimes literally.

Our class of 1985 was full of talent—Amy Mitchell, Guy Roll, Shauna Olsen, Debbie Hartin, Rachelle Faas, Amy Frischknecht Blodgett, Margo MacLean Rockas, Tina Akins, Brad Curtis, Rogelio Corrella, and plenty more. Harry believed in us, and he pushed us to pull in people from every corner of the school. He taught us that leadership had nothing to do with a title. It was about helping other people take part.

We learned a lot just by watching him run Tempe. He invited students to the Thursday night City Council meetings, and we got to see democracy up close. I couldn’t tell you what any single meeting was about, but I remember how much respect Harry showed the process—inviting anyone in the room to speak, hearing people out when they disagreed with him, keeping the whole thing calm without ever losing his grip on it.

He had critics, of course. Every leader who makes real decisions does. But Harry never confused disagreement with disrespect, and it showed.

Over the years, the calls made under his leadership set Tempe apart from the towns around it. The way the city treated its neighborhoods, its schools, its public art, its growth, and its friendships around the world through Tempe Sister Cities (Regensburg, Germany where I am returning from as I write this) - none of that was an accident. Harry and others spent decades laying that groundwork.

His biggest legacy, though, isn’t in any of those policies. It’s in people.

What Harry couldn’t have known back then was how complicated my life had gotten away from school. My parents were recently divorced; home was with a new family and stability more of an illusion than a reality.

I hid most of that. It was easier to stay busy than to explain, so I said yes to everything—the Youth Advisory Committee, Tempe Sister Cities, Key Club, Boys State, Boys Nation. And at nearly every turn and four years of student council, there was Harry, quietly in my corner.

A word of encouragement from Harry made me feel like I mattered. A bit of criticism made me better. Even when I ignored his advice, the way teenagers do, his steadiness meant more than he ever knew. His confidence in me helped me find my feet. The habits I picked up under him helped earn me an ASU Leadership Scholarship, and not long after, I was standing in front of the Arizona Board of Regents and Arizona Legislature with enough nerve—or nerve enough to be dangerous.

Almost none of that happens without the grown-ups who took me seriously first. Harry did.

His family shaped me too. Marianne—Harry’s beloved Marianne—taught Amy (his oldest daughter and a student council vice president for four years at THS) and me to type at the Mitchells’ dining room table. For as long as I knew them, the affection between Harry and Marianne was impossible to miss, and their marriage became one of the pictures I carried into my own life with my wife Melissa.

Somewhere along the way, he stopped being Mr. Mitchell or Mayor Mitchell or Congressman Mitchell. Harry became a mentor, and then a friend.

I came to understand what his public service cost him, too. Harry gave Tempe decades of Thursday nights. He put up with campaign after campaign, plenty of criticism, and all the ordinary frustrations of the job. He did it because he believed a community gets stronger when decent people are willing to step into the arena.

In a time when politics seems to reward the loudest and the angriest, Harry stood for something quieter and better. He thought about the town’s long-term good instead of his own short-term win. What he said and what he did were the same thing. His integrity wasn’t a slogan; it was just how he lived.

He helped make Tempe a place where neighborhood schools mattered, where the arts had a home, where people of different means could belong, where new industry could grow, and where a kid could make friends on the other side of the world through Sister Cities.

These were design choices. Choices not to expand the city borders without sufficient water to support the growth. Choices to build public schools next to city parks and in the interiors of neighborhoods instead of at a busy intersection.

Over time, the choices made under his leadership helped distinguish Tempe from the communities around it and prepared a path towards even more transformative changes led by Nell Giuliano. The city’s approach to neighborhoods, schools, public art, thoughtful development, economic diversity and international friendship did not happen by accident. Modern Tempe rests on foundations that Harry and others spent decades constructing.

His most enduring legacy, however, may be found in people rather than policies.

Harry was in his early fifties when he was steering kids like me, and I catch myself wondering where my own version of those kids are in my own life. Will I pick up the phone when they call? Will I see what they could become? Will I be patient with their headstrong ideas? Will I be as generous with my time as Harry was with his?

Harry’s faith worked the same way. He didn’t quote scripture at you or advertise how involved he was at church. You saw it in how he treated people—the kindness, the love of his neighbors, the knack for disagreeing without becoming disagreeable. It was Christianity you could watch, not just hear about.

The record can list his titles: teacher, longtime mayor of Tempe, Arizona state senator, member of Congress. Others will tell that part better than I can. What I have is smaller and more personal.

I remember the smile. The encouraging word. The gentle correction. The patience after the waterfall flooded the gym. The Thursday nights at City Hall. The doors he opened for young people who didn’t yet know what they were capable of. The feeling that he thought I might amount to something.

Small things, done over and over, add up to a big life.

Harry invested in me and believed in me, and he made me a better leader. More than that, his example made me a better son, brother, husband, father and friend. There was nothing put-on about the goodness people felt around him. It was what a lifetime of treating people with respect and dignity looks like.

I’ll always be grateful for his friendship—and I know I’m just one of the hundreds, certainly thousands, of people whose lives are better because Harry Mitchell took the time to see something in us.

That’s about the finest legacy a person can leave.

May God bless Harry, Marianne, Amy, Mark and the entire Mitchell family. I am personally grateful for Mark and Amy sharing their Dad with me and the world.

Thank you, Harry—I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to pass along what you gave me – including that warm smile.

John T. Fees

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Lattie was a consequential leader of ASU. Serving as president of ASU from 1990 to 2002. Under his 12-year tenure, ASU launched Barrett, The Honors College, established the Polytechnic campus and raised more than $560 million in the ASU Campaign for Leadership, increasing the number of endowed faculty chairs from six to 80. In a major milestone, ASU earned Research I status in 1994 from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Our conversation sent me back through a decade of moments I had never lined up before. When I did, a pattern emerged—small nudges, kind words, patient corrections offered to a young man who was often wrong but never in doubt.

So I wrote Lattie a letter. What follows is a shorter, public version of it: part thank-you, part reminder to myself.

I first met Lattie in a private dining room at the Phoenix Ritz-Carlton. It was 1988. I was twenty-one, and as student body president, I was asked to serve on the presidential search committee for ASU.

The other people in that room were some of the finest I’ve ever spent time with—Herman Chanen, Molly Broad, Esther Capin, Jose Cardenas, Al McHenry, Don Kirkman, Kristin Valentine, and Jack Pfister among them. For a twenty-one-year-old history major, interviewing candidates of that caliber wasn’t a committee assignment. It was a capstone course I didn’t know I had enrolled in.

Looking back, the choice seems easy, though it didn’t feel that way at the time. The field included Gordon Gee and Condoleezza Rice. But hearing Lattie’s story convinced me that Arizona would be best served by his leadership. He was a superintendent’s son, like me; a former student body president at NAU; a man who had imagined a bigger life from a modest start and then gone out and built it. Listening to him, I began to imagine new possibilities for my own.

When it became clear that Lattie was the front-runner, I joined a small subcommittee that flew to Burlington to speak with his colleagues at the University of Vermont. Our hosts had arranged a full day of structured conversations in a conference room. About an hour in, I grew restless and asked if I could walk the campus.

I stopped students, staff—anyone who would talk to me—and asked what they thought of President Coor. Everyone said some version of the same thing: great, accessible, the real deal. But the person who sold me was a landscaper. When I asked about President Coor, he lit up. “Oh, Lattie—he’s just great.”

No title. No distance. Just Lattie.

That combination—first-name approachability joined to serious intellectual heft—distinguished him not only as a candidate, but throughout his tenure.

I had a few jobs post-college, and while working in private industry, I volunteered with the ASU Alumni Association. Seeing Lattie at university events, he encouraged me to consider a career in higher education. With help from several other mentors, I was hired as associate director and chief operating officer of the university’s alumni association.

I was still in my twenties: headstrong, not fully formed, and more certain than I had any right to be. Lattie was gracious to me anyway—every single time. We traveled together, hosted alumni events, shared long meals, and worked closely to advance his vision for the university.

I was on campus for only three years, from 1993 to 1996, but I remain proud of that stretch. I co-chaired the committee that created the sunburst logo ASU still uses some 30 years later. We helped bring the first Super Bowl to campus and expanded the Medallion of Merit program to attract more National Merit students.

Eventually, I also learned something important about myself: for all my belief in the transformative power of higher education, I didn’t have the temperament—or the patience—to make a career of it.

There is plenty more I could tell you. Lattie came to my wedding when I married Melissa Soza, my best friend from college. Around the same time, he and Elva began dating, and the rest of us delighted in watching them dance with us at university functions—to Tony Bennett after a Super Bowl performance, or in a country two-step after an ASU barbecue.

In 1996, I left ASU to support Melissa through her doctoral work at Harvard. Our first two boys were born there. I finished my MBA and co-founded my first business, working to build the first of several innovative solutions for colleges and universities.

But the lesson I most want to pass along is one Lattie delivered from the stage, again and again, to audiences large and small. He called his remarks “the shortest commencement address of any university president in America.”

It had two points.

Keep learning.

No matter how well we’ve prepared you, he would say, we haven’t prepared you for the changes ahead. Develop an internal gyroscope—a zest for learning, an appetite for it. Keep adding to your skills. Explore and master new things: another language, an entirely new field. Do that, and you’ll discover one of life’s great secrets: If you keep learning, you can remain successful and vital at any age.

Help others.

Help others learn, just as family, friends, teachers, and counselors helped you. Help your brothers, sisters, and cousins. Get involved in your community. Continue the American tradition of neighbor helping neighbor. In doing so, you’ll discover another of life’s great secrets, one every parent and teacher knows: There is no greater joy than watching someone you’ve helped flourish. It transforms that person’s life—and enriches your own.

I’m fifty-nine now, older than Lattie was when we met, with five children of my own. I find myself wondering about the young men and women whose calls I should answer, whose small crises deserve the patience and warmth Lattie so freely gave me.

Remembering his influence is really an instruction to myself: Stay open to the people who walk into your life. Pick up the phone. Offer the nudge.

Lattie was never my professor. But he was a patient teacher, a mentor, and a model for how to serve a family, a community, and a circle of friends.

What his kindness taught me is the simplest possible idea, and the truest: Small things add up to a big life. The nudges, the smiles, the words of encouragement—they make all the difference.

Thank you, Lattie. Because of your kindness to me, I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to pass it on.

In Arizona, the need for business leaders to lean in is even more vital. The 2026 election landscape is challenging:

• federal cuts to election-security funding,

• executive actions asserting authority over state election law,

• repeated federal demands for Arizona’s voter data,

• and in-state conflicts over election operations discussed in the July 4th edition of the Wall Street Journal.

Last week, I moderated an hour-long webinar discussion with officials and leading experts on the election-risk landscape and its implications for Arizona’s economy.

The briefing also featured new survey data on Arizonans’ trust in elections — and what voters across the political spectrum think about election transparency, accuracy, and accessibility. The panel included the following community leaders.

• Kate Brophy McGee, Chair, Maricopa County Board of Supervisors

• Garrett Archer, Elections Analyst, ABC15 Arizona

• Amanda Burke, Executive Vice President, Center for the Future of Arizona

• Roy Herrera, Election Law Expert; Founding Partner, Herrera Arellano LLP

It is clear from the discussion that the conditions for a contested election are in place and continue to build. Prolonged uncertainty over vote counting, certification, or election outcomes doesn’t just erode public trust; it drives market volatility, workforce anxiety, and lasting reputational harm to Arizona.

Fortunately, Arizona’s elections have safeguards: paper ballots, public testing, audits, bipartisan oversight, judicial review. That system deserves respect and protection, not politicization.

Ahead of Tuesday’s primary, 57 Arizona business leaders, including me, signed on to a statement by Leadership Now Arizona, a centrist coalition of business leaders, making that case: election legitimacy isn’t a partisan issue, it’s an economic one. We are committed to: standing with election officials and workers, calling out disinformation regardless of who spreads it, defending Arizona’s constitutional authority over its own elections, and affirming certified results no matter who wins.

Protecting a well-designed election system isn’t a political position. It’s a commitment to the rule of law.

Even beyond Arizona and particularly at our nation’s 250 anniversary, I am proud to stand with fellow business leaders — Republicans, Independents, and Democrats — on this.

Nationally, Leadership Now has assembled hundreds of business leaders who share this commitment. In addition to the brief video below, the organization has prepared a memo that can help organizational leaders learn how to become involved.

In my opinion, caring about our election administration is good business. We need to be on guard for the risks that can disrupt our communities and the efforts by adversaries, both foreign and domestic, that seek to disrupt our society.

The economy and the businesses that fuel it depend on the rule of law and a stable system of elections that are respected for their fairness and accuracy. Elections should be free of intimidation and violence in all of its forms.

In Arizona, the system is built to work. The task now is to use it. Civic participation strengthens our workforce, our communities, and ultimately our economy. Participate, vote and join other community leaders who agree by signing on to Leadership Now Arizona’s statement:

Thanks for reading. Subscribe and you will receive my thoughts on timely topics vital to business, education, civic health and more.

As I shared during my presentation, my qualifications to speak on the topic do not stem from being a political scientist or a well-trained theorist.

However, I think I am very much like my neighbors and friends who care about our community and share a concern that politics and polarization have become dominant themes, often distorting the real discussions required to move our communities forward.

While I could discuss this at the national level, my focus here is on how polarization is impacting Arizona. As I was preparing my remarks, I found myself staring at two seemingly contradictory realities.

The first was Arizona’s remarkable success.

Over the past decade, Arizona has become one of America’s great economic success stories. New companies continue to relocate here. Capital is flowing into the state. Population growth remains among the strongest in the nation. Advanced manufacturing investments are transforming our economy. Entrepreneurs continue to choose Arizona as a place to build.

By almost any economic measure, Arizona is winning.

However, the second reality was harder to ignore. Trust is collapsing.

Americans - and particularly Arizonans - increasingly view those on the other side of the political aisle not merely as people with different opinions, but as threats. Many have stopped talking to friends and family members over politics. Confidence in institutions continues to decline. Election distrust remains elevated. Citizens report feeling exhausted by the constant state of political conflict.

So here is the paradox that stuck with me. Arizona is thriving economically while struggling civically. Most of our leaders are focused on the economic side of that ledger, and I understand why.

But I’ve come to believe our hardest and most important challenge sits on the other side. The biggest infrastructure project facing the state over the next decade isn’t a highway, a chip plant, a reservoir, or a transmission line. It’s rebuilding trust.

The Infrastructure We Cannot See

Say the word infrastructure, and most people picture physical things: roads and bridges, airports, the power grid, water systems, and broadband. Those investments matter because they let commerce and communities function. But there is another kind of infrastructure that gets far less attention, and it’s the one I want to talk about.

When it’s strong, communities can argue about hard questions without coming apart. They can lose an election without deciding the whole system is rigged. They can take on real problems because they have enough trust banked to act together.

When it weakens, the opposite takes hold. Every disagreement turns existential, every policy fight becomes a moral crusade, and every compromise starts to read as betrayal.

The 2000 book Bowling Alone by Robert D. Putnam is a landmark discussion that identified this risk and argued that American community life is declining due to a loss of “social capital”—the networks of relationships and trust that bind society together.

Arizona has spent decades investing in its economic infrastructure and almost none of that same energy on the civic infrastructure underneath it.

The Collapse of Common Knowledge

As I kept working on the topic and in discussions with the team at the Leadership Now Project, I landed on a phrase that organized everything else: common knowledge.

Not what any one of us knows on our own, but what we hold in common — and how that shared understanding holds up communities, institutions, and democracy itself. Steven Pinker wrote a whole book on the subject in 2025, and it has shaped much of my thinking about a practical way forward.

For most of modern American history, that common knowledge formed on its own, through shared institutions: the local paper, the Rotary and Kiwanis clubs, churches and schools, business associations, the ten o’clock news, the conversation at a neighborhood gathering. People disagreed constantly about what should be done, but they mostly agreed on what was actually happening. That second part is the one that matters. Democracy doesn’t require us to agree; it requires us to share a reality.

That shared reality is getting harder to hold onto. We now take in information from wildly different sources. Instead of Casey Kasem sharing the week's top music charts on the radio or Walter Cronkite reading the national news, there are Spotify playlists and thousands of podcasts that will narrowcast to an individual’s specific interests.

Many Arizonans live in news deserts, where almost no one is doing local journalism. Others live on digital islands, fed a steady stream of content by algorithms that profit from keeping them there — algorithms tuned to reward emotional engagement over accuracy. Political operators have every reason to amplify conflict, and news organizations are fighting for attention in a market that keeps splintering. Add it up, and neighbors can end up living in genuinely different informational worlds.

As Pinker puts it, societies weaken when their citizens stop sharing a baseline reality. I suspect that’s going to be one of the defining problems of this century.

The Incentives Are Working Exactly as Designed

If there is one thing running a company has taught me, it’s that incentives matter more than intentions. People tend to talk about polarization as though it simply happened to us, the way weather happens. I see it differently. I see systems doing exactly what they were built to do.

Social media platforms make money from attention. Political consultants make money from fear. Advocacy groups raise money on outrage, and news outlets increasingly live or die by engagement. Candidates win primaries by exciting the most intense voters rather than assembling the broadest coalition.

None of that is irrational — it’s people responding sensibly to the rewards in front of them. And when the rewards favor conflict, you get more conflict; when they favor outrage, outrage turns a profit; when they favor tribal identity, the tribes only harden.

Which is why I don’t think the answer is mostly about asking people to behave better.

The harder and more useful work is redesigning the systems that currently pay them not to.

That’s also why I’ve started thinking about polarization less as a partisan fight or a moral failing and more as a design problem. I find that reframe oddly hopeful. Design problems have solutions.

If you’re working on this, let’s talk.

Thanks for reading. These are thoughts & observations I share for discussion. Join in and subscribe to see which other topics I consider important to highlight.

In Arizona - we became the first state to refuse to honor Dr. Martin Luther King by creating a state wide holiday. A couple of years later, however, Arizona became the first and only state to vote to honor the courage of Dr. King.

Here is my post from more than a decade ago. I think it is as true in 2026 as it was in 2015.

“While I was in graduate school for my MBA, I read for the first time Dr. Martin Luther Kings Letter from a Birmingham Jail from April 16, 1963. This letter may seem like unusual reading for MBA students and mostly dedicated capitalists, as Dr. Kings letter addressed themes of leadership and social justice.

After reading the view of local clergy, Dr. King wrote his letter in the Birmingham Jail on scraps of paper and completed it on a legal pad provided by his defense attorneys. It is interesting to consider that an MBA program would require reading Dr. Kings letter, but as I share below his words are powerful reminders that the words and conduct of leaders are powerful.

I encourage you to read the letter for yourself and consider the lessons on leadership that are contained within his well chosen words:

“I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word tension.

I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth.Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals. For years now I have heard the word Wait! It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity.

This Wait has almost always meant Never. We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that justice too long delayed is justice denied.The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter.There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that an unjust law is no law at all.How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.

Real leadership requires this understanding of justice and the courage to articulate and demonstrate such conviction. What is interesting to me is that leadership is fundamentally defined by having the courage to express your views - despite opposition, despite fear, despite overwhelming odds.

It is courage that defines leadership. Even though it may not have the same impact as Dr. King, re-reading the letter reminds me that business leaders need similar courage. In big and small things. We need the courage to speak the truth.Looking back it is easy to understand why Harvard Business School required 900 emerging leaders to read Dr. King. Dr. Kings letter is one of the best illustrations of expressing the courage required of leadership.

It is very difficult to appreciate the context for his arrest, the violence, and unrest that surrounded him - yet his letter captures so many complex emotions, speaks about enduring values and illustrates the courage that is needed by anyone who assumes the mantel of real leadership.

Do yourself a favor and take the time to read Dr. Kings entire Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Take from it what you will, but I hope that Dr. Kings example will inspire each of us to find the courage to give voice to the values we know to be true.

Thanks for reading my Substack! Please subscribe to help me improve my observations and insights on the challenges that face our society.

Schools design most of those decisions with real care. The housing contract, the meal plan, the payment schedule — they know that how you frame a choice drives the outcome as much as the choice itself.

But the most consequential decision a family faces gets left to chance: what happens to the money when something goes wrong, and a student has to step away.

The numbers are hard to look away from. One in three students seriously considered stopping out in the past six months. Among those who left carrying loans, 35% now name that debt as the very reason they can’t go back. A single unprotected withdrawal becomes a permanent one — the debt stays, the degree never comes.

It reminds me of Nudge: the framing of a choice often matters more than the options inside it. And yet, when a family hands over tens of thousands of dollars for a semester, the design just goes silent. Only 58% of schools even put their refund policy where the decision is actually made. Just 2% of finance leaders think students understand what they’ll get back.

We call that a disclosure problem. I think it’s an architecture problem.

When no protection is offered at enrollment, “no protection” becomes the default — not because a family chose it, but because no one ever built the choice.

Families with money absorb the loss. Families without it carry it, often for good.

That’s the gap we built GradGuard to close, and more than 700 institutions have closed it with us. More than three-quarters of students who’ve received a paid tuition insurance claim tell us they’ve re-enrolled or plan to once they’re well.

Colleges already accept that design shapes behavior. The harder thing to accept is that this design isn’t just operational. It’s moral.

As I send my own kids off this fall, that’s the part I can’t let go of.

And if you’re a university official: reach out. I’d welcome the chance to show you how GradGuard’s mission helps more than 700 colleges and universities educate and protect students from the risks of college life.

Students and families deserve more than a default they never consciously chose.

Thanks for reading. Subscribe if you are curious to see what I am working on and my observations on modern life and the challenges facing our society.

I was wrong.

Today, the volume of information, outrage, commentary, and distraction is relentless. Most of us wake up and immediately begin drinking from a firehose. That is why trusted filters matter so much. Over time, I’ve learned to rely on a small number of people who consistently separate signal from noise.

One of those voices for me has been Axios CEO Jim VandeHei.

Over the weekend, VandeHei shared a summary from his new C-suite newsletter that crystallized something I’ve been wrestling with for months:

“We’re living through the most disorienting societal moment since World War II. Almost nobody in a position of power is explaining why, or what to do about it.”

He continued:

“This is so much bigger than politics. It touches our jobs, our companies, our communities and our realities.”

Then came the part that really stayed with me. Despite Americans being wealthier, safer, and longer-lived than at almost any point in history, trust in nearly every major institution continues to collapse. Consumer sentiment is near historic lows. Confidence in government, media, higher education, organized religion, and even science has eroded dramatically.

And yet one institution stands apart.

According to the 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer, Americans now trust “my employer” more than government, media, or almost any other institution.

It is tempting to interpret this as a victory for business. I don’t think it is. I think it is evidence of institutional decline.

When confidence erodes in government, universities, churches, media, and civic organizations, the human need for leadership and stability does not disappear. People simply begin looking elsewhere for it. Increasingly, they are finding it — or hoping to find it — at work.

Axios framed this as a moment for CEOs to step into a leadership vacuum. I agree. But I also think the challenge is larger than communication strategy.

The deeper challenge is whether leaders are willing to help rebuild trust itself.

That starts with honesty.

Employees do not expect certainty. But they do expect candor.

One of the advantages of getting older is becoming more comfortable admitting how often you were wrong. I certainly have been. I’ve started businesses that missed projections repeatedly before succeeding anyway. I’ve made strategic decisions that looked smart at the time and terrible six months later.

Most entrepreneurial progress comes from some combination of optimism, conviction, and the willingness to move before the evidence is fully settled. That is a landscape certain to include mistakes. The best entrepreneurs I know were lucky to be right more than they were wrong, but they are not perfect.

Indeed, being wrong is not the same thing as being dishonest.

For years I’ve admired Max De Pree’s idea that the first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. That sounds straightforward until you actually try to do it during periods of uncertainty.

Right now, reality includes economic anxiety, declining trust in institutions, political fragmentation, and the rapid arrival of AI into nearly every profession.

Most organizations are still trying to determine whether AI represents leverage, disruption, displacement, or some combination of all three. Employees deserve more transparency than they are getting. They want to know what is actually changing, which skills will matter, what leadership truly believes, and whether the organization intends to invest in them during the transition.

The truth is that many leaders do not fully know yet.

Ironically, admitting that uncertainty may be one of the few things that still builds trust.

I also appreciated Axios emphasizing character and competence. Durable institutions require both. Merit matters. Accountability matters. Fairness matters. Not as slogans, but as operating principles people can actually see and feel.

Another point that deserves more attention is the visible erosion of civic confidence and patriotism, especially among younger Americans.

No company can solve that problem alone. But leaders can still model gratitude, stewardship, and responsibility toward the communities and country that made their success possible.

And leaders can — and I would argue must — defend the institutions that make free societies and free markets possible in the first place: the rule of law, fair elections, independent courts, and due process.

At their best, businesses do far more than generate profits. They create stability. Opportunity. Belonging. Upward mobility. They help people believe the future can improve.

That may sound idealistic. I increasingly think it is simply practical.

When traditional institutions weaken, people do not stop searching for leadership. They just change where they look for it.

Which leaves a harder question for those of us who lead organizations:

Are we merely managing companies, or are we also helping strengthen the social fabric around us?

Credit to Jim VandeHei and the team at Axios for starting a conversation worth having.

Thanks for reading. I promise to share my honest observations that I think are vital to consider. Most are curated ideas at the intersection of business, civics and leadership.

The article is a good example of the value of how speaking up with others is more useful than speaking up alone.

Here is an early and longer draft of our collaboration. I invite comments and happy to find other community leaders to speak with through or work with the Leadership Now Project.

It usually starts the same way.

An issue comes up in a leadership meeting — something affecting employees, customers, or the broader community. Maybe it’s immigration enforcement disrupting the workforce. Maybe it’s the fear employees carry when someone they love worries that a routine traffic stop could become something far more serious because of how they look. Maybe it’s rising costs putting pressure on families, employers, and local communities all at once. Maybe it’s a policy decision that could ripple through the economy.

And then someone asks the question:

Should we say something?

Almost immediately, the hesitation follows.

What if we get it wrong?What if we alienate customers?What if this becomes political?

For years, conventional wisdom offered a simple answer: stay out of it.

That answer no longer works.

Because the truth is this: when instability reaches your workforce, your customers, and your community, it is already a business issue.

Across Arizona, business leaders can feel that reality. They see these pressures showing up inside their companies and around them. But many still worry that speaking up creates more risk than staying silent.

That instinct is understandable. But in this environment, silence is not neutral.

Silence is a choice. And Because increasingly, it is a costly one.

Trust has shifted — and business leaders need to recognize what that means

One of the defining features of this moment is a collapse of trust in many of the institutions that once held public confidence. In The Changemaker’s Toolkit, Catherine Alonzo — my co-author in this piece — argues that much of what feels overwhelming today is tied to that erosion of trust.

At the same time, one institution has remained unusually credible: the workplace.

According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, people consistently rank “my employer” and “my CEO” among the most trusted voices in society — well ahead of Congress and many other public institutions.

That matters.

Because trust is not just a privilege. It is a form of responsibility.

If people trust business leaders more than public institutions to tell the truth, then business leaders do not have the luxury of pretending these moments are not theirs to lead through.

Civic stability is an economic issue

Too often, business leaders are encouraged to think of public/civic issues as separate from business performance.

They are not.

Stable democratic institutions, predictable policy, and community trust are not side issues to economic growth. They are the operating conditions that make growth possible.

When those conditions weaken, businesses feel it quickly: in workforce disruption, in recruiting and retention, in consumer confidence, in operating costs, and in the overall health of the communities they depend on.

This is not theoretical.

Earlier this year in Minnesota, immigration enforcement actions created significant disruption for local communities and employers. One analysis estimated the economic impact at roughly $200 million, including $80 million in direct losses to local businesses and restaurants.

That is what civic instability looks like when it hits a balance sheet.

A healthy economy cannot be built on fear, instability, and institutional distrust.

That is not a political statement.

They do.

The real question is business leaders are willing to respond before the damage compounds.

Business voice matters most when it is coordinated

The good news is that business leaders do not have to navigate these moments alone.

In Minnesota, companies and business coalitions came together to speak publicly about the economic and community consequences of immigration enforcement policy. They signed onto a shared statement that helped reframe the issue around economic stability and community impact — and their coordinated voice contributed to de-escalating the situation.

That matters.

Because one of the greatest barriers to business leadership is not disagreement.

It is isolation.

Many CEOs are not unwilling to lead. They are simply reluctant to stand alone.

That is why collective action matters so much.

Courage is easier to find when you are not the only one standing.

When business leaders move together, they create strength, legitimacy, and a measured level of protection no company has by itself.

Arizona has seen this before.

In 2014, when SB 1062 threatened both the state’s reputation and its economic competitiveness, Arizona’s business community stepped forward. The bill was widely criticized as enabling discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community, triggered a coordinated response from and business leaders inside and outside the state made clear that the reputational and economic costs would be real. That unified pressure mattered. Governor Brewer vetoed the bill.

It was a reminder that when business leaders act together — clearly, credibly, and with conviction early — they can shape outcomes that matter to the future of the state.

So what should leaders actually do?

Start with your people.

If you want to understand whether instability is affecting your business, do not begin with headlines. Begin with the people inside your organization. Employees are often the first to feel the impact of policy shifts, community fear, and economic uncertainty.

Listen closely enough, and they will tell you what is really happening long before a dashboard or quarterly report does.

Then recognize the power of acting with others.

Business organizations, chambers, and groups like Leadership Now Arizona exist for exactly this reason: to help leaders move from private concern to public clarity.

Not every issue requires a statement. Not every moment calls for a press conference. But every serious leader should know when silence becomes its own kind of message.

And increasingly, it does.

Organizations, chambers, and groups like Leadership Now Arizona exist for exactly this reason: to help leaders move from private concern to public clarity.

This is not about becoming political, Business leaders do not need to become activists or partisan actors. But they do need to understand something fundamental:

The long-term health of business is inseparable from the long-term health of the community, civic norms and institutions around them.

That is not politics. That is leadership. “Silence is not neutral. Silence is a choice. And increasingly, it is a costly one.”

Back in that meeting room, the question will keep coming:

Should we say something?

More and more, the better question is:

Who will we say it with?

Because no business leader should have to do this alone.

And when business leaders move together, they do more than protect their companies.

They help preserve the conditions that allow free enterprise — and free communities — to survive and thrive.

Subscribe for free to receive new posts and join me in discussions that I believe are vital to strengthening our community.

Arizona is once again in the national spotlight as the state heads into the high-stakes 2026 midterms. Ongoing risks—harassment of election officials, political violence, and attacks on democratic norms—threaten both our democracy and our economy.

Join Leadership Now Project and Arizona business and non-profit leaders to learn how community leaders can play a critical role in ensuring secure, fair elections and supporting civic participation, as a stable, trusted democracy is the foundation of Arizona’s competitiveness.

WHY ATTEND?

Hear directly from state leaders and democracy experts.

Understand what’s at stake for Arizona’s economy and reputation.

Get practical tools to engage your networks, colleagues, and employees.

Explore opportunities to foster informed dialogue across workplaces and communities.

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Greater Phoenix Leadership Greater Phoenix Economic Council Arizona State University Valley Leadership Arizona Technology Council Arizona Tech Investors

Other friends see the news cycle as a series of distractions from what really matters - the truth of the corruption, cruely and chaos that fills our news feeds.

It is useful to recall, that life often imitates art. If you don’t think so, take a moment to watch the move Wag the Dog, where the President of the United States produces distractions to cover up scandals.

As we watch ICE become activated just in time to change the narrative from the “Divorce” of Elon Musk and his allegations against President Trump, it is ever more important to find voices that provide clarity and insight into the contradictions in clear sight.

While the actions of ICE appear to be arbitrary, the timing is not, as it works perfectly to distract the public’s attention from the wealthiest man in the world agreeing with the sentiment that Trump should be impeached.

For my friends who wonder where the clear thinking is, I want to share some quotes from voices I respect. The first is a respected attorney, business and community leader who dares to express clear thinking in his column below.

Dan’s Substack

The Coming Political Singularity

The Coming Political Singularity…

Read more

a year ago · 9 likes · 2 comments · Dan Mahoney

While Dan makes several useful points, there are two that I want to highlight that seem timely for this weeks news.

“The Abdication of Fiscal Conservatism”

Republicans once campaigned on cutting spending, shrinking government, and balancing budgets. But in recent years, rhetoric and reality have diverged. Under President Trump’s first term, the GOP presided over an unprecedented explosion of federal spending. Today, with debt-to-GDP ratios climbing steadily, Republicans in Washington appear no more eager than Democrats to seriously engage with entitlement reform, discretionary spending, or long-term budget sustainability.”

Immigration Hypocrisy

And there’s another layer of inconsistency here. On immigration, Republicans have long held that no deal on amnesty should be entertained until the border is secure. The logic is clear: don’t give away a permanent concession in exchange for a temporary promise. Yet on fiscal policy, many of the same voices now argue that we should reduce taxes without requiring any corresponding immediate reductions in spending. That is the economic equivalent of granting amnesty before border security—ceding ground permanently while pretending discipline will come later. If we are unwilling to trade amnesty for border security, why are we so quick to trade tax cuts for more debt?

I also recommend following whose keen observations help to parse out the actions of elected officials from the policies they claim to promote.

His post this week - is essential reading.

Freedom Circus & its Clowns

Robert Robb

Biggs, Musk, and the disgusting abomination

After Elon Musk described the budget reconciliation bill as “a disgusting abomination”, Arizona U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs tweeted: “He’s not wrong. This sentiment would have been much more impactful before the vote, when my @freedomcaucus colleagues and I were catching flack for fighting tooth and nail for more spending reductions. As it was, we voted to adv…

Read more

a year ago · 13 likes · Robert Robb

My favorite point he makes is “Biggs is running for governor. In my view, his vote to reject Arizona’s Electoral College votes for the 2020 election should disqualify him – morally and politically, not legally – from that, or any other, elected position.”

Biggs is hardly a serious person. His greatest acheivement is being lucky enough to win the lottery. He is a dishonest showman that claims a commitment to the Constitution with no evidence demonstrating the courage to uphold this duty.

He and the Freedom Caucus are not trustworthy. Robb correctly describes this below:

In determining policy and law, the founders gave predominance to the legislative branch, not the executive branch. The president can make recommendations and veto legislation. But Congress was intended to exercise independent judgment about the right course of action for the country. The president was then supposed to administratively execute that course of action, irrespective of whether he agreed or disagreed with it.

I don’t know how one maintains a claim to be a constitutionalist while supporting Trump, who sedulously attempts to usurp the legislative role through executive orders and proclamations, rides roughshod over the constitutional separation of powers and due process, is seeking to undermine the independent judiciary, and turns the power of the government against private-sector entities and political opponents. In my opinion, Biggs forfeited any claim to constitutional fidelity when he argued that federal judges could be removed other than through impeachment, which requires as contorted a reading of the Constitution and its intent as found in any liberal jurist’s opinion.

I highlight this quote and conclude with another vital insight from Dan Mahoney where he highlights the cost of their hypocrisy.

The True Cost of Populist Drift

Some will argue that this realignment simply reflects democratic adaptation—that parties must evolve to reflect the priorities of the electorate. But adaptation is not license for incoherence. A party without philosophical fidelity will inevitably become a vessel for grievance and expediency. Democracy must be anchored by responsibility. Populism without principles is a shortcut to mob rule. We should listen to working Americans, yes—but leadership means making tough choices, not just echoing anger. Fiscal irresponsibility wrapped in populist language is still irresponsibility.

Many voters today demand benefits without costs, protection without competition, prosperity without restraint. Both parties are obliging, offering fiscal profligacy dressed up in populist rhetoric. Republicans do it through tax cuts without spending cuts. Democrats do it through stimulus and subsidies. The result is the same: an unmanageable debt, a distorted economy, and a political culture that punishes responsibility.

Some days, and today is one, the best we can do is to concentrate on the reality as we see it. The best leaders define reality accurately.

In my opinion, Democratic society depends upon truthtellers who reflect this reality with meaningful context. Voices like these give me confidence that truth-tellers can emerge and benefit us all. I encourage you to subscribe to each of their SubStack accounts.

I greatly respect Stephen Richer for his principled stand in defense of free and fair elections during his tenure as Maricopa County Recorder. He performed his duties—or as he puts it, he did his job—as Recorder of Maricopa County, one of the nation’s largest and most politically significant jurisdictions, from 2021 to 2025.

So yesterday, it was my honor to present Leadership Now’s 2025 Leadership Award to Stephen Richer at Hearst Tower in New York City.

During his tenure, Richer oversaw voter registration, early voting, and public recordings. Amid extraordinary political pressure, he stood firm in rejecting false claims of election fraud, upholding the rule of law, and ensuring the legitimacy of Arizona’s elections.

In my view, Stephen exemplifies the courage and leadership necessary to uphold our democracy. At a time when truth was under siege, he stood firm in defense of facts, transparency, and the rule of law. His commitment to nonpartisan election administration—despite relentless efforts to undermine public trust—embodies the very spirit of the Leadership Now Award.

As I reflected on Stephen’s example, I was reminded of Teddy Roosevelt’s timeless words from “The Man in the Arena”:

“It is not the critic who counts… The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood… who errs, who comes short again and again… but who does actually strive to do the deeds…”

Stephen Richer has been in the arena. He has taken the blows and borne the cost of doing the right thing—not for applause or political gain, but because he believed in the integrity of the democratic process.

Defending democracy requires all of us—especially those with the resources and networks to make a difference—to take risks, speak up, and lead. Stephen has shown us what that looks like in practice.

The Annual Leadership Award presentation was part of a day of programming at Leadership Now’s Annual Meeting, which included remarks from North Carolina Governor Josh Stein, Senators John Hickenlooper and Ruben Gallego, Harvard Business School Professor Deepak Malhotra, and former DHS Assistant Secretary Elizabeth Neumann. Sessions explored the risks facing our institutions and the role of leaders across sectors in shaping a resilient future.

About the Leadership Now Award

Since 2018, Leadership Now has honored individuals who demonstrate courageous leadership and a commitment to the rule of law—often at significant personal or professional cost. The Annual Leadership Award recognizes those who put country over party and stand firm in moments that test institutional independence and public trust. Leadership Now is proud to celebrate leaders from across the political spectrum who embody these values and contribute to a more resilient democracy. Previous honorees include former U.S. Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) and Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth and former Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt.

About Leadership Now Project

Leadership Now Project is a membership organization of business leaders committed to protecting democracy as a foundation for a thriving economy and political stability. Leadership Now Project takes action—investing in leaders, influencing policy, responding to risks, and partnering to drive solutions. Leadership Now’s membership is national, with members in 25+ states and chapters in 8, drawing on extensive business and alumni networks to drive local and national impact.

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John Fees and Elizabeth Neumann capped the morning with a fireside chat on the importance of addressing rising political polarization, grievance-based violence, and growing distrust in our institutions through collaborative solutions—and the critical role that business and civic leaders can play. John is a CEO and founding member of Leadership Now Arizona, an organization that engages business leaders in strengthening democracy. Elizabeth is a former Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism at DHS and author of Kingdom of Rage.

Arizona, a state long celebrated for its pioneering spirit, diverse communities, and vibrant economy, now stands at a critical juncture. While the 2024 election is in the rearview mirror, political polarization, grievance-based violence, and growing distrust in our institutions continue to erode our democratic foundations. These challenges extend beyond politics, threatening the very social fabric that has sustained Arizona's progress.

The statistics are alarming. Surveys from the past few years have indicated that 26.2% of Americans—over 68 million people—believe violence is usually or always justified to advance a political objective. While most will not commit a hostile act, scholars and violence prevention practitioners know there is a link between the level of support for political violence and an increase in violence. With only 800,000 law enforcement officers nationwide, of which 14,000 are based in Arizona, the responsibility for protecting democratic processes and institutions—and those who have sworn to uphold them—cannot solely rest on law enforcement;

Arizona has seen harassment and threats against elected officials, poll workers, and civic leaders, exemplified by the 2022 attack on former House Speaker Rusty Bowers’ home and Shelby Bush’s troubling rhetoric aimed at Stephen Richer, the former Maricopa County Recorder.

Business and civic leaders in our state have a vested interest in addressing these challenges head-on. Our companies, communities, and way of life are at risk—but we have the tools and resolve to drive change.

First, we need to acknowledge the severity of grievance-based violence, a growing threat demanding immediate attention. Instead of despairing, we can take proactive steps towards solutions. This begins with strengthening community bonds and restoring trust in our institutions.

Doing so is not just a moral imperative; it’s a strategic necessity for businesses to thrive. When employees, customers, and communities feel safe and respected, it fosters stability and trust—both essential for a strong economy. But when they don’t, their grievances spill over into the workplace and the broader business environment.

Earlier this year, the Edelman Trust Barometer revealed a widespread sense that the system is unfair and businesses and other institutions are making things worse and eroding trust across all institutions, including business. When grievance levels are high, respondents indicated they are more likely to support what Edelman calls “hostile activism”—including online attacks, the intentional spread of disinformation, violence or threats of violence, and damage to public or private property.

To constructively address grievances and restore faith in our democratic institutions, business and civic leaders should use their platforms to model civil discourse and condemn unacceptable conduct in workplaces and public spaces. Strong civic institutions are essential for fostering sustainable growth and innovation.

Collaboration is also key. As community leaders, we should proactively partner with government, law enforcement, and community organizations to address the root causes of polarization and violence. This includes advocating for policies that strengthen democratic institutions, support public servants, and promote civic engagement. Leadership Now Arizona, of which John is a co-founder, led the way last year by issuing a statement in support of election officials and condemning threats against them.

Finally, investing in community resilience is vital. Initiatives like the Arizona Town Hall, which gather diverse stakeholders to address complex challenges, demonstrate how open dialogue can build consensus and mitigate the grievances that fuel extremism.

Just as we seek to protect and restore democratic integrity, we should also exercise caution in approaching legislation. As business and civic leaders, we have a duty to speak out, to ensure that state policies—such as Prop 314—foster unity, not division. By prioritizing rational, inclusive approaches over grievance-driven rhetoric, we can support Arizona’s future as a strong, resilient state.

The path forward is challenging, but by uniting, we can reclaim Arizona’s democratic promise. Arizona has always been defined by its pioneering spirit and resilience—from the Copper Kings era to the rise of the tech industry, Arizonans have continually overcome challenges.

Now is the time to confront this new threat with the same resolve, by stepping up, taking risks, and leading by example. The future of our state, and our nation, depends on it.

By John Fees & Rich Nickel //January 22, 2025/

In 2016, seeing the correlation to Arizona’s economic competitiveness, the state set a bipartisan goal for education attainment. Known as Achieve60AZ, the goal calls for 60% of Arizona adults ages 25 to 64 to have a workforce certificate or an associate’s or bachelor’s degree by 2030.

In the nine years since the goal was passed, Arizona has increased attainment by only 6%, to 48%. With approximately 4.3 million working adults ages 25 to 64 and only five years to go, Arizona will need 500,000 more degrees or certificates than we have today to hit the target.

Creating those half million additional degrees and credentials should be squarely on the agenda for the executive and legislative branches of Arizona government as well as for Arizona’s business leadership.

The case for doing so is undeniable. Billions to Gain research released by Helios Education Foundation and Education Forward Arizona, shows that:

• If Arizona increases postsecondary enrollment by 20%, the expected economic gains will exceed $5 billion — each year.

• Arizona could see nearly $8.7 billion in economic gains if underrepresented groups enrolled and completed education after high school at the same rate as their peers.

• Higher attainment leads to increased revenue and reduces public expenditures.

• Individuals benefit through higher earnings, improved health, and greater community contributions.

This is more than just an education issue: Creating more degrees and certifications is fundamental to Arizona’s economic growth and our quality of life.

Voters want this too. Indeed, they’re demanding it. Polling from Education Forward Arizona’s Everything to Gain campaign shows strong support for expanding opportunities to education and training:

• 95% of Arizona voters support increasing career training programs such as apprenticeships and professional certificates.

• 93% back the expansion of advanced placement and dual enrollment courses for high school students.

• 89% favor increasing online education and training programs for working adults, parents, and rural residents.

Still, despite evidence of the benefits of postsecondary education and extremely strong voter support for it, Arizona leaders simply aren’t doing enough to reach the Achieve60AZ goal.

Last week, Gov. Katie Hobbs spoke of reaching “Arizona’s Promise” in her State of the State Address, an ideal she described as the ability to “build a good life for yourself and your family and leave your kids with a better tomorrow.”

But the FY2026 Executive Budget proposal is not ambitious enough to make serious traction in creating the college degrees and workforce certifications needed to generate the economic growth that will put Arizona’s Promise in reach.

Restoring funding for some of the essential programs decimated in last year’s budget is necessary, but for a budget proposal that mentions the state attainment goal, it is not sufficient to help reach it. To make meaningful progress toward the half-million degrees and certificates Arizona needs, investments in programs like dual enrollment and student financial aid must be substantially higher. And, if Arizona is to hit our Achieve60AZ goal by 2030, these investments need to be made now.

Proposed funding for dual enrollment is at only 30% of where it was two years ago and only 20% of what education leaders asked for then. A bedrock strategy in many other states, dual enrollment enables high school students to earn college credit. Data show that dual enrollment can reduce eventual college tuition costs and accelerate degree attainment. Students taking dual enrollment classes in Arizona are twice as likely to attend college. Yet only 24.4% of Arizona high school graduates in 2022 took at least one dual enrollment course. Many more need to.

Arizona’s first statewide financial aid program (actually titled Arizona Promise) gets a $40 million total request in this year’s budget. That may look like a lot. But in order to fulfill the promise, by making higher education more accessible and affordable for students and families, Arizona must invest hundreds of millions more. Many states do invest hundreds of millions in financial aid, and the top five states each invest more than one billion.

Underfunding effective programs and restoring funding to the inadequate levels some other programs were at two years ago isn’t progress. Substantial investments in postsecondary education and training are required to move Arizona’s economy forward. And new and innovative programs and incentives must be created if the state is serious about meeting workforce demands and achieving Arizona’s economic promise.

We need more than merely replacing budget cuts of the past. What’s needed in Arizona today is leadership — from the executive and legislative branches and from business — that imagines what can happen when Arizona’s promise is truly fulfilled. We need leadership that commits to high performance at all levels of our education system. We need leadership that provides access to a high-quality education for all students, regardless of zip code. We need leadership that assures accountability. And we need leadership that creates policies and incentives so that all students have access to a path toward a credential that helps fulfill Arizona’s economic growth and their place in it.

Rich Nickel is president and CEO of Education Forward Arizona. John Fees is co-founder and CEO of Next Generation Insurance Group and board chair of Education Forward Arizona.

Making pronouncements regarding people who are not even members of their club demonstrates their oversized view of their self-importance. The two-party system has created platforms for individuals to feel good about themselves and their proclamations.

MCRC has done this before and claims its censured list of 2023 as an “achievement”. This is just another example of the self-importance of a political class where gestures like announcements are viewed as achievements.

The 2023 list includes six people I know to have good character.

• County Recorder Stephen Richer

• County Attorney Rachel Mitchell

• Maricopa County Board of Supervisors - Bill Gates, Thomas Galvin, Clint Hickman, and Jack Sellers.

MCRC Gets More Wrong than Right

Yesterday MCRC’s statement can be listed as a 2024 “achievement” by expanding its Censure List to include 40 former Republicans, Democrats and Independents. Revealing the inability to alphabetize as well as to identify accurate party affiliations, the MCRC published this list of individuals who are officially censured.

Censure Statements for Non-Members but Silent for the shameful Shelby Bush.

MCRC confuses activity with achievement. What would be more impressive is if they would condemn the actual conduct of its actual members. Example number one is Shelby Bush whose videotaped lynching statement was condemned by The Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Phoenix.

The shame on the GOP is that no one had the courage or common sense to Censure Bush, but this is the same group of people that recognized her as the 2023 "volunteer of the year."

Stop Paying for the Elections of two Private Organizations

The MCRC’s conduct is another reminder of why Arizona should not be using taxpayer funds to pay for private party-controlled primary elections. The rent-seekers who lead these parties and sit together designing pronouncements while remaining silent when colleagues suggest lynching as acceptable must be neutered.

Party leaders are like modern-day social media influencers, the only difference is that instead of relying on Instagram or TicTock, they rely on tax-payer-funded elections for their private organizations.

To be clear, using public funding for partisan elections is a problem because Independent and unaffiliated taxpayers are not granted the same privilege to participate in the primary elections.

Independent voters are treated unfairly

There are more Independent voters than either Republicans or Democrats, yet Independent voters are not treated fairly in the primary and there are very few independent elected officials. All taxpayers contribute to funding primary elections but Independent/unaffiliated voters must take an extra step to participate. 

• Independent/unaffiliated voters are required to compromise their principle of non-affiliation and must select a party ballot to participate in the primary election.

• Independent voters lack resources that historically support voter turnout, leaving many of these voters unaware of their eligibility to participate in primaries. Only about 10% of unaffiliated voters choose a partisan ballot.

• Independent/unaffiliated candidates must collect up to 6 times the number of signatures compared to partisan candidates. 

Replace Censure Statements with Real Competition

What Arizona needs is competitive primary elections where the voice of Independents is restored.

Every industry has welcomed innovation and improvements as a result of competition… except one. The absence of competition has led to a limited range of choices for voters, often perpetuating the status quo and stifling innovative approaches to improving our state.

It's time for a new, fair, and competitive system that serves the interests of the people, not just a select few GOP committee members who lack the courage to condemn the unbecoming and hateful misconduct of their peers yet issue statements to censure people who are mostly no longer if ever, registered Republicans.

Restore Election Integrity by Making Arizona Elections Fair

Our Declaration of Independence states that “all men are created equal.” It is a fundamental American value that not every Arizonan is afforded. 

As a fellow censured Arizonan Chuck Coughlin asks: “Are all voters and all candidates treated equally under Arizona law today?” 

“You know the answer to that question is an unequivocal no.  For an independent candidate to run, they must collect up to six times as many signatures to get on the ballot.  Even then, they cannot appear on the Primary Election ballot, which their taxpayer dollars pay for.  Moreover, an independent voter must request either a Republican or Democratic ballot to vote in a Primary Election, in which they themselves cannot run.  Requesting a ballot permits you to vote for one party or the other, to be forced to vote for a straight ticket of a party you are not even a member of.  None of that is fair.  None of that is right.”

My request is to ignore these grandiose partisan voices who censure others and look for opportunities to support the change we need in our election system.

Adam Goodman and I shared our views in the Arizona Republic this weekend about the importance of safe elections.

In our opinion, a healthy, functioning democracy is the cornerstone of a strong economy. However, the well-documented threats to our democracy, and particularly to our elections, are creating new risks.

Political violence and election uncertainty can disrupt employee productivity, hinder consumer spending and create government dysfunction, directly affecting business operations and stability. 

______________________________________________________________________

What if you went to work every day concerned for your safety and that of your coworkers? Tragically, in this era of deep mistrust, that is what many of the public officials in Arizona who administer our elections must endure. A poll by the Brennan Center found that 45% of local election officials said they fear for the safety of their colleagues.

Nearly one in three election officials have been harassed, abused or threatened because of their job, and more than half of respondents expressed concern that the attacks will make it more difficult to retain or recruit election workers in future elections. 

This is real for Arizona election workers.

Worker threats, turnover is unacceptable

Secretary of State Adrian Fontes felt live shooter training was necessary for his workforce. One county election official’s dogs were poisoned. After 10 years of service, the Yavapai County recorder resigned in the face of relentless threats that led to law enforcement protection. 

Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer felt it necessary to invest in fences, guards and bulletproof glass to protect the election workers in his county from threats fueled by disinformation and conspiracy theories. 

This is outrageous and unacceptable, and it’s having a serious impact on our state.

According to a report by Issue One, a group working to make democracy more inclusive, 98% of Arizonans will see the 2024 election administered by someone other than the officials who administered the 2020 election.

This represents more turnover than any other state. 

Election uncertainty creates business risks

As Arizona business leaders, we often focus on driving growth and innovation within our organizations. Yet, amid our daily pursuits, we must not overlook our role in nurturing the democratic fabric of our communities.

A healthy, functioning democracy is the cornerstone of a strong economy. However, the well-documented threats to our democracy, and particularly to our elections, are creating new risks.

Political violence and election uncertainty can disrupt employee productivity, hinder consumer spending and create government dysfunction, directly affecting business operations and stability. 

Business leaders are particularly well-positioned to act. The 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer found that business is the most trusted institution, and 62% of respondents expect CEOs to manage changes occurring in society, not just those occurring in their business. 

Therefore, we have launched a new organization, Leadership Now Arizona, a group of Arizona business and community leaders — Republicans, independents and Democrats — who stand for a strong democracy in our state.

It's our duty to speak up. Please join us

We have prioritized four principles: 

• We believe that the stability of our economy hinges on the integrity of our democratic institutions. 

• At a time when election results are being unduly called into question, we stand against election denialism and for nonpartisan and transparent election policy and administration.

• We denounce threats and harassment directed toward election officials and elected representatives in our state.

• We pledge to work toward building a modern, responsive democracy that works for all Arizona citizens. 

Our first initiative is a commitment to using our voices and influence to speak out against attacks and threats on those administering our elections. These public servants deserve our thanks and our support.

To that end, we’ve written an open letter to these administrators: “We will ask our colleagues and peers, along with our state’s elected officials, to stand with us, support election officials across the state, call out election denialism where we see it, and commit to efforts that defend our democracy from further attack.“ 

The letter to election officials has been signed by a cross-partisan group of more than 45 business leaders, many of them CEOs, including Peter Fine of Banner Health, Sharon Harper of Plaza Companies, Glenn Hickman of Hickman’s Family Farms and Kate Wells of the Children’s Museum of Phoenix. 

We invite other business leaders across the state to join us in actively protecting Arizona elections, election workers and volunteers. 

John Fees is the CEO of GradGuard and Adam Goodman is the CEO of Goodmans. 

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