After tremendous pressure from his constituents to resign, Senator Rich Crandall announced on Monday that he will be resigning from the Arizona Legislature effective August 16. According to Rita Watson, Crandall’s assistant at his new position as director of the Wyoming Department of Education, Crandall started his job in Wyoming on August 1st.
According to Watson, he was travelling on behalf of the state of Wyoming last week and was scheduled to begin the Wyoming Department of Education orientation process on Monday.
It was the fact that Crandall had started his position that prompted demands for his resignation by his constituents. According to Capitol insiders, Crandall spoke to Senate president Andy Biggs on Monday about the impropriety of holding two jobs for two separate state governments. Crandall says he prides himself as a multi-tasker.
It is that multi-tasking that had Crandall’s constituents concerned. They are concerned that his loyalties no longer are with them as he makes his way across the country advocating for Wyoming schools rather than Arizona’s schools.
And it looks as if the image of Arizona in Crandall’s rear view mirror is not a pretty one.
According to an article written by Wyoming Department of Education PR staff, Tom Lacock, “Over the past two sessions, the make-up of the Arizona State Legislature began to bother Crandall and he said factions within his own party made sessions grueling.”
Despite his work with the Democrat minority, the State’s Governor Brewer, and a handful of corporatist Republicans to pass the most expansive government program in Arizona’s history through the adoption of Obamacare Medicaid expansion, Crandall says he didn’t get enough done. “It became tough to do any real big policy things,” he said. “It feels like the last year and a half, I spent the majority of the time voting ‘no,’ on bad legislation. At the end of the session you look back and say, “What did I do to move the needle?”, and literally, you would say nothing. It was at that point I decided to retire from the Senate this summer and pursue my dream job as a state school chief.”
While Crandall doesn’t feel that he has done enough, his constituents believed he did too much; the majority of Republicans in Arizona opposed the Governor’s expansion. Still, they did wish he would have done the right thing and resigned earlier when he took the Wyoming position. They said that he was obligated to fully represent them and cite the fact that his new job necessitates loyalties to Wyoming in the tight race for federal education dollars and access to private grants, among other things.
Still, fiscal conservatives don’t worry about a race for federal funds so much as they are concerned that he has a history of not being available to his constituency and his absence would have exacerbated the problem.
The Chair of Crandall’s Legislative District 16, Jerry Clingman said, Crandall’s “position was really confusing people.” LD16 members had discussed what they could do to make sure Crandall stepped aside so that the District would have a senatorial representative in the state, but decided that there was little they could do but appeal to him to do the “right thing.” They said they had to rely on his “graciousness,” but doubted Crandall had any.
According to a Tweet by Crandall shortly after meeting with Biggs, it was Biggs who was gracious and “wished me well” when he accepted Crandall’s resignation. “Same to him,” Crandall tweeted.
Biggs continued in a gracious vein by telling a Yellow Sheet reporter, “People assumed that we hate each other,” but “we get along very well. We just disagree passionately on many issues.”
It is the way Crandall treats people with whom he disagrees that has concerned many constituents over the years.
This last legislative session Crandall was behind the threatened coup and unseating of Biggs as president in the effort to cram through the Medicaid expansion. Senator Pearce, Crandall, and the Governor opted instead to simply “roll” Biggs by making the unprecedented move to call a Special Session while the Legislature was in Regular Session and force a vote on the bulging budget they favored and the buy in to Obamacare.
More ruthless perhaps were his actions during the last election cycle when Crandall threatened fellow lawmaker, Brenda Barton, due to his fears that she might provide testimony against his daughter for vandalizing his primary opponent’s signs.
It is Crandall’s primary opponent, former legislator John Filmore, who is expected to be the front runner for Crandall’s spot. That spot will be filled through appointment by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.
Filmore was a very popular legislator. The boundaries of his Legislative District were redrawn after the last census, and he was forced to run against Crandall. Corporation-backed Republicans spent 4 to 1 in favor of Crandall against the grassroots favorite.
Many have questioned if Crandall’s dissatisfaction with his state, and the upheaval in his private life, having recently separated from his wife, and a new job full of conflict-of-interest pitfalls was too much for one man, even a multi-tasker like Crandall.