Guests - Joel Strabala, Betsy Smith
Kathleen Winn Returns to Tucson With a Reminder About What Really Lasts
Kathleen Winn returned to Tucson after attending her 50th high school reunion in Chicago, an experience that offered a rare break from politics and a reminder of how much life changes over half a century.
The Class of 1976 had planned to open a time capsule buried in front of the school 50 years earlier, only to discover that construction work had accidentally damaged it several years ago. The disappointment was real, but the reunion itself became the better time capsule: classmates who had scattered across the country—and in some cases outside it—were suddenly together again.
Some had become Republicans. Some had become Democrats. For one evening, none of that mattered.
Winn had also lost her mother just days earlier, which made the trip especially meaningful. Many of her classmates had known her mother and remembered gatherings at the Winn family home, including a party thrown for a classmate accepted into Annapolis. Hearing stories she had forgotten—or never knew—gave the weekend an unexpected depth.
“If you get an opportunity to go hang out with people that knew you way back when, before you or whoever you became, take the opportunity,” Winn said. “It was definitely worth it.”
Then it was back to Tucson, where an election is approaching quickly and the political stakes could hardly be more different from a nostalgic reunion.
Joel Strabala: Check Your Voter Registration Before October 5
Joel Strabala, who serves on the Pima County Election Integrity Commission, joined Winn with a basic message for Arizona voters: check your registration now.
The registration deadline for the November 3 general election is October 5. Early ballots are scheduled to begin going out October 7, with many voters expected to receive them between October 7 and 9.
Strabala said the Election Integrity Commission had recently discussed a Supreme Court action affecting a Trump executive-order-related dispute involving mail ballots, the Postal Service and citizenship verification. According to Strabala, the practical effect for Pima County voters is that early ballots will continue to be mailed and processed much as they were during the primary.
Voters dropping off an early ballot at an early voting site can also show identification and have that identification verified when the ballot is submitted. Strabala said the procedure does not dramatically speed up the recorder’s sorting process, but those ballots do not have to go through the usual signature-verification step.
The benefit becomes more significant close to Election Day.
“If you show your ID when you drop off a ballot and have the ballot stamped and initialed,” Strabala said, those ballots can move more quickly toward tabulation after Election Day.
For Winn, the larger point was simpler: voters routinely check the warning lights on their cars and make sure important paperwork is in order. Their voter registration deserves the same attention.
“Check your registration,” she said.
Voters Want Information Beyond Candidate Names
Strabala said volunteers knocking doors are finding voters receptive to information not only about candidates, but also about propositions, school boards and judges.
Those down-ballot contests can be difficult to research. Campaign websites tell one story. Political organizations tell another. Mailboxes fill with glossy pieces crafted to provoke rather than inform.
Winn said she returned from Chicago to a mailbox stuffed with political mailers attacking candidates she knows personally. What struck her was how disconnected many of the claims seemed from the actual records of the people being targeted.
Strabala said one particularly intense target group appears to be white Republican women.
Winn, who joked that she qualifies for that demographic rather neatly, rejected the idea that women vote as a bloc or can be moved by a strategically designed postcard.
“I definitely do my research. I definitely think for myself,” she said. “The women that I know and hang out with are all independent thinkers.”
Her advice was to treat every mailer as advocacy, not authority.
Proposition 320 and Arizona’s Education Spending Problem
Education quickly became one example of why voters need to look past campaign slogans.
Strabala discussed Proposition 320, which would require at least 60 percent of certain school operational spending to reach classroom-related purposes. He said Arizona schools once devoted something close to that percentage directly to classrooms and, during that earlier era, performed considerably better nationally.
Today, he said, statewide classroom spending averages around 52 percent, while Tucson Unified School District is even lower.
At the same time, Arizona has fallen to the bottom of national education rankings cited during the discussion.
For Winn, that creates an obvious question: if education receives enormous amounts of state funding but performance continues declining, is the problem simply the amount of money—or where the money goes?
She argued that administrative growth has consumed resources that should be reaching teachers and students.
“If you spend money in the classroom on the students that you’re supposed to be educating, maybe they do better,” Winn said.
The broader lesson extends beyond schools. Government routinely asks taxpayers for more money while paying far less attention to whether existing dollars are producing the promised results.
Strabala’s Ballot Classes Translate Government Language Into English
Strabala is helping conduct public sessions designed to explain Arizona’s ballot propositions in ordinary language.
The presentations cover statewide initiatives as well as local Pima County measures, and Strabala said the purpose is to translate legislative and legal wording into something voters can actually use.
He said the team conducted similar presentations in 2024 and received strong feedback.
That work is especially important because the opposing sides often describe the same proposition in radically different language.
Strabala pointed to Proposition 142, which supporters describe as prohibiting certain DEI policies in Arizona government and education. Opponents, he said, characterize it as eliminating DEI and affirmative action.
He also cited Proposition 318, intended by supporters to protect girls’ sports by restricting biological males from competing in female athletic categories. Opponents, Strabala said, describe the measure as allowing politicians to “police kids’ bodies.”
For Winn, that is exactly why voters need more than a campaign slogan.
“It’s languaging,” she said. “They’re hoping you don’t do your homework.”
Strabala’s sessions are intended to present what the measures actually do, including the financial consequences that may not be obvious from their political labels.
Voting on Policy, Not Political Marketing
Winn argued that Arizona’s upcoming election offers voters an unusually clear choice because the differences among candidates and policies are no longer subtle.
She criticized Gov. Katie Hobbs for vetoing legislation that Winn described as bipartisan and said voters should judge state leadership not by advertising but by results.
She also returned to allegations involving state spending and contracts, arguing that political affiliation should not shield public officials from scrutiny.
Public office is not supposed to be personal power, Winn said. It is public service.
“You shouldn’t reward theft. You shouldn’t reward corruption. You shouldn’t reward people that lie to get their way because they don’t want to lose power,” she said.
Her larger appeal was directed at voters who have become cynical enough to believe participation no longer matters.
“That’s what they want you to believe,” Winn said.
Water, Cost of Living and Proposition 425
After Strabala’s segment, Winn returned to two issues she believes deserve far more attention before ballots arrive: Arizona water and Pima County spending.
She warned that proposed reductions in Colorado River allocations could have major consequences for Tucson, which has relied heavily on Central Arizona Project water. Winn argued that any substantial reduction would eventually affect availability, rates or both.
She credited Tucson with doing more than many communities to conserve water and capture rainfall but said conservation alone does not eliminate the need for reliable long-term supply.
The same principle of long-term consequences applies to Proposition 425, which would alter Pima County’s expenditure limitation.
Winn described the proposition as a “blank check” for the Board of Supervisors and said voters need to understand how changes in spending authority eventually reach household budgets.
“Those numbers ultimately affect the cost of living in your house,” she said.
She plans to devote additional time to the proposition before Election Day because the financial language is complicated enough that many voters simply stop reading.
That, she argued, is exactly what should not happen.
Betsy Smith: An ICE Shooting in Austin and the Politics of Immigration Enforcement
The second hour became an impromptu edition of “Smith and Winn” when Betsy Brantner Smith joined Kathleen to discuss several developing stories.
They began in Austin, Texas, where federal immigration officers had been involved in a confrontation with a Venezuelan national who, according to Smith, was subject to a removal order and faced allegations involving child abuse or sexual assault.
Smith said the man was working as a delivery driver when ICE agents attempted to take him into custody. During the encounter, she said, he allegedly tried to strike or run over an agent with a vehicle and was shot.
Smith’s larger criticism was directed at the political response.
Austin became one of the highest-profile cities to reduce police funding during the 2020 defund-the-police movement, and Smith argued that crime and anti-police politics have remained deeply connected there. She criticized local officials and members of Congress for condemning federal officers before the facts of the shooting were fully established.
“Note to everyone who doesn’t want to get shot: stop trying to run over police officers,” Smith said.
Smith also criticized Austin officials for holding a public event about the incident despite the operation being federal rather than city-led.
For Smith and Winn, the episode reflected a recurring political pattern: intense attention to an illegal immigrant involved in an enforcement action, while victims of ordinary violent crime receive much less political energy.
Defund-the-Police Cities Still Struggle With Crime
Smith broadened the discussion to Seattle and other progressive cities that have spent years experimenting with softer approaches to crime.
She argued that officials continue producing elaborate anti-violence plans while avoiding the most obvious component of public safety: identifying repeat criminals, prosecuting them and keeping dangerous offenders off the street.
The rhetoric frequently focuses on “gun violence,” Smith said, while the individuals repeatedly committing violence receive less attention.
That philosophical divide is central to Smith’s law-enforcement message.
Police cannot deter crime if offenders believe arrest has little consequence. Prosecutors cannot protect communities if ideological concerns outweigh the interests of victims. And a city cannot improve public safety by refusing to acknowledge who is committing the offenses.
Portland’s “Sports Bra” Controversy and Women’s Sports
The conversation shifted to Portland, where a group of women reportedly entered a women-focused sports bar called The Sports Bra while wearing shirts supporting sex-based protections in women’s athletics.
According to Smith, the women were eventually asked to leave after other customers complained about the messages on their shirts.
The irony was hard for both women to miss.
A business explicitly created as a space for women removed female customers for expressing the view that women’s sports should remain based on biological sex.
Smith said the patrons were not stereotypical right-wing activists. Some identified as feminists and had competed in college athletics.
That made the conflict more revealing, she argued. The disagreement over transgender participation in women’s sports increasingly cuts across traditional party lines because female athletes are directly experiencing the consequences.
Winn noted the strange logic of a server reportedly saying she did not initially understand the meaning of the shirts and therefore did not realize she was supposed to find them offensive.
The exchange became a symbol of something both women believe has become culturally exhausting: people searching for reasons to be offended rather than engaging the actual argument.
The Converse Ad That Became a Racism Controversy
Smith then turned to an online controversy involving K-pop star Karina and an advertisement for Converse.
In the ad, Karina appeared in a white outfit holding Converse shoes, with the brand’s star incorporated into the lighting and composition. Some social-media users cropped or reframed portions of the image and claimed they could see imagery resembling a Ku Klux Klan hood and a lynching.
Smith and Winn regarded the interpretation as absurd.
Smith argued that the controversy demonstrated how incentives on social media reward people for discovering racism in ordinary images, even when doing so requires significant imagination.
The more surprising part to them was Converse’s response.
Converse, owned by Nike, reportedly removed the advertisement and apologized after the criticism.
Winn and Smith thought that decision rewarded the controversy rather than ending it.
The pair contrasted the incident with previous advertising uproars and joked that corporations seem incapable of resisting whatever outrage erupts online that week.
Their central complaint was not about the shoes. It was about corporate leaders surrendering common sense to the loudest social-media reaction.
Arizona Bowl Tickets Are on Sale
The tone lightened when Winn announced that tickets had gone on sale for the Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl, scheduled for January 2, 2027 at Arizona Stadium.
Smith has attended the game with family and described it as much more than football.
“It is so fun,” she said.
The bowl includes tailgating, activities, entertainment and the unpredictable presence of Snoop Dogg, who has helped turn the event into one of Southern Arizona’s more distinctive holiday traditions.
Winn suggested tickets as a Christmas gift for family members visiting Tucson over the holidays—assuming, she joked, they are relatives you actually want to keep around through January 2.
The bowl’s later postseason date also represents a step forward for the event, placing it in a stronger position on the college football calendar.
A kickoff luncheon is also approaching, with University of Arizona basketball coach Tommy Lloyd and quarterback Noah Fifita among the honorees.
For Winn, the Arizona Bowl remains an example of something Tucson does exceptionally well: blending sports, entertainment, tourism and charity into a community event.
Massachusetts Wants to Send Health Workers Into the Homes of New Mothers
The conversation took a much darker turn with a Massachusetts proposal expanding a program that sends health professionals to visit families after the birth of a child.
Supporters portray such programs as a way to identify postpartum depression, offer medical help and support families during an exhausting transition.
Winn and Smith saw a much more troubling possibility.
Their concern is the state entering a private home and evaluating not merely medical needs, but parenting itself.
Winn remembered bringing home her own first child and the insecurity familiar to new parents. She questioned whether a government employee should be in a position to judge that family environment.
Smith was even more skeptical, particularly given political battles over parental rights, gender-transition decisions and child-welfare agencies.
The question, they argued, is where medical support ends and government supervision begins.
Smith warned that a home containing religious materials, political literature or other expressions disliked by a state employee should never become grounds for questioning parental fitness.
“I wouldn’t let anyone who works for her into my home,” Smith said of Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey’s administration.
For Winn, the issue was especially concerning because voluntary assistance can easily evolve into something more intrusive once government creates the infrastructure.
The Lindsay Clancy Case and the Limits of Mental-Health Mitigation
The Massachusetts debate led directly back to the Lindsay Clancy case, involving a mother accused of killing her three children.
Winn and Smith have discussed the case repeatedly because they believe it raises difficult questions about postpartum mental illness, criminal responsibility and the rights of victims.
Both acknowledge that severe postpartum psychiatric conditions are real.
What they reject is the idea that mental illness automatically eliminates responsibility for killing another person.
Smith was especially critical of public demonstrations supporting Clancy and what she described as activist attitudes among members of the jury.
A holdout juror reportedly prevented the case from reaching the outcome other jurors wanted, and Smith said the defense then attacked that juror publicly.
For Smith, that crossed a dangerous line.
The American jury system depends on citizens being able to hear evidence, deliberate independently and reach a decision without fearing political retaliation.
“You will sit before a jury of your peers,” Smith said, emphasizing that the government itself does not get to unilaterally determine guilt or innocence. “There’s nothing like that in the rest of the world.”
She argued that cases such as Clancy’s show what happens when jurors begin thinking of themselves as activists rather than fact-finders.
When Sympathy for the Accused Erases the Children
Winn’s frustration with the Clancy case remained focused on the victims.
Whatever Clancy’s mental state, medications or postpartum condition, three children were killed.
Winn believes the public conversation too often treats those children as secondary to the adult defendant’s suffering.
Smith compared the case with a 1999 Illinois case involving another mother who killed three children, including an older child who returned home from school after the younger siblings were already dead. That woman was imprisoned.
For Smith, society loses something essential when the emotional focus moves so completely toward an offender that the victims become almost inconvenient.
Mental illness can explain behavior. It can affect sentencing. It can be relevant to legal culpability.
But neither woman believes it should transform murdered children into an afterthought.
The Jury System Is Worth Defending
The Clancy trial led Smith to a broader defense of jury trials themselves.
She compared the political pressures surrounding the case with other heavily publicized trials in which jurors were exposed to enormous outside pressure.
The danger, she said, is not merely one wrong verdict.
If citizens believe juries are political bodies rather than neutral finders of fact, confidence in the entire justice system begins to collapse.
That is why Smith objected so strongly to attacking a juror simply because that person would not join the majority.
The purpose of deliberation is not unanimity at any cost. It is independent judgment.
Winn agreed that hung juries can be frustrating, but they are also part of the system. Prosecutors can retry a case or negotiate another resolution.
The alternative—punishing jurors who refuse to conform—is far worse.
Winn and Smith: Politics Cannot Replace Common Sense
Across election administration, women’s sports, criminal justice, immigration enforcement and parental rights, Winn and Smith kept returning to the same complaint: ideology is increasingly replacing common sense.
A criminal act becomes a political symbol before facts are known. An advertisement becomes racist because somebody can manipulate an image until it resembles something offensive. Women advocating women’s sports are removed from a women’s sports bar. A state program intended to help new mothers raises questions about how deeply government should enter family life.
For Winn, the remedy begins with informed citizens.
That means reading the ballot before voting, knowing what propositions actually do, questioning campaign mailers and refusing to let political exhaustion become an excuse for surrender.
For Smith, it also means protecting the institutions that make self-government possible: law enforcement, due process, independent juries and the freedom to say something unpopular without being driven from public life.
The November election will determine who governs Arizona.
But the deeper question raised throughout the day was whether voters are still willing to do the work required to govern themselves.