Think Tank looks at the citizen movement Save Our Schools

They say that there are two things you should never watch being made too closely: sausage and legislation.

Our guests this week took an altogether too close look at the latter, did not like what they saw and decided to do something about it. And the movement, Save Our Schools Arizona, was born.

Our guests, Beth Lewis and Sharon Kirsch, along with a handful of other educators, were in the gallery of the Legislature in 2017 when they watched, after midnight, as the Legislature made a series of last-minute alterations to several bills, including a radical expansion of private school vouchers.

These educators decided to pursue a citizen referendum to undo what the Legislature had just done. This required that they collect about 76,000 signatures in about two months. At that time, they numbered a half-dozen volunteers who had never undertaken such an effort before. And they had no money.

All the political “pros” were skeptical that these novices could take on such an undertaking on short notice and without funding. They organized 2000 volunteers and collected 111,000 signatures. But the signatures had to be validated; could they pass muster? The verification process yielded 87% valid signatures, about the cleanest batch of signatures in recent memory.

In this week’s Think Tank, we meet two of the group’s leaders and discuss their origin story and plans for the future. Save our Schools Arizona has become a potentially transformative voice in Arizona politics that could change Arizona politics for years to come.

The Think Tank airs on KTAR 92.3 FM on Saturday 6-7 p.m. and Sunday 9-10 p.m.

Podcasts are available after broadcast. Older shows are archived at www.mikeoneil.org.