I told Rosa from behind my menu that I couldn’t make up my mind. “Oh, come on. The choice is easy. Scrambled or sunny side up?”
“That’s not what I meant. Prop 123. Are you for it or against it?”
Romero sulked. “There goes a perfectly beautiful morning. Can we please talk about something--”
Rosa said, “I’m for it.”
Sour Frank said, “I’m against it.”
Rosa persisted in taking my order. “Whole wheat or white?”
“I want to make up my mind on this proposition, Rosa. Why are you for it?”
Sour Frank said, “Because she thinks Gov. Doug Ducey’s harebrained scheme is the best deal she can get for her kids.”
Rosa glared at Frank. “I can speak for myself, Frank. It’s not just my kids. I have a lot of friends who are teachers. They are so demoralized and tired of living paycheck to paycheck. Passing Proposition 123 will mean a pay raise. Not years from now. Not 10 years from now. But, now. My kid’s school is on life support. Half the teachers have left.”
Frank sighed. “I get it, Rosa. The schools are broke. A lot of the teachers I know have said, ‘To hell with Arizona’, gone ‘Django’ and left this miserable plantation. But still, it’s a cockamamie scheme that will raise taxes and will amend our constitution in a way that--”
Rosa doubled down. “If we don’t take this deal it will be years before--”
Frank sighed. “Don’t you get it, Rosa? Privatizing all of public education is what Ducey, and the Koch brothers, are all about. They’ve got Koch-funded think tanks at NAU, ASU and the U of A, a Koch judge on the state Supreme Court, and Ducey wants to add two more seats! That’s what the Koch dark money is all about. Completely privatizing education. We’re just mice in a Koch lab. This ain’t no democracy.”
“My kids are in school now, Frank. Today. They can’t find teachers willing to replace the ones who left. I’m desperate.”
Frank shook his head. “Who made us desperate? This is just a band-aid to stanch the bleeding from the cuts that they inflicted. Their thumb prints are all over the ax handle. And you’re willing to trust them? In 10 years when the state trust land money runs out we’ll be stuck back at square one with an arbitrary spending limit.
“And the lawsuit on behalf of the will of the people will have been dropped.”
Rosa said: “The will of the people? You’re kidding. In this Koch-owned plantation? Get real.”
“What about the will of the people? Doesn’t ‘We, the People’ mean anything to any of you anymore? We voted to increase funding and our state took us to court. I thought the will of the people meant something.”
Romero stopped eating breakfast. “Should I vote ‘no’ and hope against hope that voters will turn these anti-education wing nuts out of office?”
Rosa spoke the truth in a subdued tone. “It ain’t going to happen, Romero. Not in this right-wing wasteland.”
Romero smiled. “Well, in that case, could I have some salsa for my omelet, Rosa?”
“Tough choice,” I told my fellow diners.
Gomez, the Tohono O’odham tribal cop disagreed. “Not for me. It’s an easy choice. I’m voting against it.”
“Why?” I said.
“When I was a boy my grandfather told me an old story about a cavalry officer named George Armstrong Custer. The Sioux called him ‘Long Hair.’ He had been warned not to challenge the Sioux by a Cheyenne named Rock Forehead.”
“You’re making this up.”
“Shush. ‘Long Hair’ was arrogant. He led his men into Little Bighorn in spite of the warning. Every last soldier was killed. It was a massacre. After the battle Sioux and Cheyenne women returned to the killing fields and found Custer’s body. They pierced his ear drums.”
“Why?”
“So he could listen better.”
Sour Frank said, “Perhaps this is the turning point, Gomez. Perhaps we, the people, have had enough. Did I tell you Prop. 123 will change wording of state constitution from ‘We, the People’ to ‘We, the private school lobby?’”
Rosa couldn’t laugh. “Our Legislature won’t listen if the people vote this thing down. They’ll keep stalling in court. They’ll even interpret the “No” vote as a mandate to spend less on education. They listen to a different master. And it’s not we, the people.”
