Southwestern Hospitality

PHOENIX, Ariz.—“Just good ol’ boys, never meanin’ no harm…Just good ol’ boys, wouldn’t change if they could,” croons a singer in an old western melody. The lyrics have been ringing in my ears for the past few weeks. If recent Arizona politics had a theme song, this tune might be it.

A few weeks ago, I sat in a hotel conference room here, slouched in the audience of the Arizona Game and Fish Commission’s quarterly meeting. I was there with my mother, who is active in statewide conservation efforts, to monitor the passage of an item that would provide continued funding for conservation education.

The five-member panel that makes up the Arizona Game and Fish Commission is the political arm of the state’s Game and Fish department. Game and Fish controls all of Arizona’s state parks; essentially, it is the state’s interior department, and it regulates everything from hunting to setting aside natural areas for protection. The Commission’s Chairman is Joe Melton, a man from Yuma with a deep drawl who (if his dialect at the meeting is representative of habit) seems to be under the impression that first-, second-, and third-person plural of the verb “to be” are “we is,” “you all is,” and “they is,” respectively. As my mother whispered, “Now that is a real old-time Arizona accent.” Still, Melton’s resume seems like a good balance for the Commission: he is involved in various conservation efforts, but he is also a member of several rifle organizations.

Melton started the meeting by introducing the Commission’s newest member, a woman named Jennifer Martin. I was immediately impressed by her. Although she is young, she has a degree in biology and a strong background in writing grants for Game and Fish. Martin is not opposed to hunting (she hails from a hunting family), but she is not a hunter herself, instead opting for hiking and music composition in her spare time. “Game and Fish is getting hip!” I thought.

But when I got home and looked up articles on Martin, I discovered a glitch—despite her impressive credentials, Martin’s stay on the Commission is likely to be short. Arizona Senate President Ken Bennett has blocked the vote on Martin’s appointment, thereby limiting her to a one-year default term instead of the regular three.

In an e-mail to a member of the board of directors of the National Rifle Association, Bennett said he had blocked the vote because of concerns over “her policies toward the Game and Fish Commission and its activities”—I can only guess he is referring to the fact that she is a biologist, not a hunter.

But there is something else: Martin is the only woman on the Commission and is the single mother of a two-year-old son. Wildlife Conservation Council officer Pete Cimellaro told senators early in Martin’s confirmation hearings that the work demanded by the Commission would take away from the time Martin should be devoting to her young son.

I suppose I’ve been under the misconception that we should leave it up to parents (not legislatures) to gauge how to balance their jobs and their parenting responsibilities. Voting Martin down for genuine reasons—if she were ardently against hunting, or if she held a vendetta against other members of the Commission—might be one thing, but to reject her without even holding a fair hearing reeks of fusty politics. And whether or not Bennett’s opposition to holding a fair vote stems from Martin’s status as a mother or status as a conservationist, his refusal should be worrisome, at the least.

As if to nail the coffin shut on this sorry episode, the Arizona media has paid slim attention to the incident. This is surprising, given the state’s typically moderate conservatism: Sen. John McCain is Arizona’s favorite son; Gov. Janet Napolitano is not only a Democrat, but also an unmarried woman, and the state capital Phoenix is the fifth-largest city in the country. But the shame of this affair reveals that my state is not as far along as I thought: this sure ain’t Boston.

According to his online biography, Bennett has a daughter, Dana, who is college aged. Does he act the same way in dealings with his daughter as he does in dealings with Jennifer Martin? I wonder what Dana Bennett thinks of her father’s good ol’ boy politics of late.



Lucy M. Caldwell ’09, a Crimson editorial editor, is a history and science concentrator in Adams House. She neither hunts nor listens to much country music.