Sandra Day O'Connor
Good morning, Senator Kyl.
Jon Kyl
Thanks, Justice O'Connor.
Sandra Day O'Connor
I'm so glad you're once again back in Arizona and have time to talk to us today.
Jon Kyl
It is great to be home. What a beautiful day.
Sandra Day O'Connor
It's a great day. And I'm glad you're here.
Jon Kyl
Thanks very much.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Now, as I understand it, you've made a decision not to run for the Senate again. You're getting out of electoral politics, is that right?
Jon Kyl
That's right. After 26 years, next January 3. I will no longer be in the Senate. I'll go back into the private sector. And I'm looking forward to that. Although there are a lot of things I have yet to do in 10 months and four days, or whatever it is.
Sandra Day O'Connor
That's a long period of service. We've had several people in Arizona who served a long time. Who has served longer than you?
Jon Kyl
Looking at our history, our birthday this year, I did a little research. There have only been 10 senators in Arizona's history.
Sandra Day O'Connor
In the hundred years.
Jon Kyl
In the hundred years.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Who served the longest, do you remember? Carl Hayden?
Jon Kyl
I think that Carl Hayden clearly served the longest. And then Ernest McFarland, Barry Goldwater. But you also had our first two senators, I love the name Marcus Aurelius Smith and Henry Fountain Ashurst, both of whom were great orators. In fact, Ashurst is the one who was bragging on the Senate floor, "You know, all Arizona needs is a few good men and little more water." And somebody said, "Well, they could say the same about hell!" So they were there a long time.
Sandra Day O'Connor
They were.
Jon Kyl
Senator DeConcini served three [terms], as did I. McCain has, he was there before I got there, and he'll be there after I leave. So he's number nine. And I'm number ten.
Sandra Day O'Connor
But you've had a long period of service, and it's going to feel strange to you to be away from that.
Jon Kyl
First of all, how long were you on the Supreme Court?
Sandra Day O'Connor
25 years.
Jon Kyl
Okay! It goes by really fast.
Sandra Day O'Connor
It went fast. It really did. You've had a period of wonderful service.
Jon Kyl
It has been wonderful and it's gone by so fast. And there are great memories. There is a point where you say, "That's enough now." And you had the same experience?
Sandra Day O'Connor
Well, I said the same thing at some point on the Supreme Court. I've been there done that. Now it's time to move ahead.
Jon Kyl
Exactly.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Have you helped celebrate the centennial in some way?
Jon Kyl
We were back in Washington. And so we put together a
pretty interesting resolution that we got passed. People were surprised that, "You mean Arizona's only 100 years old?" And they started doing the calculation and we said, "Yeah, we were number 48." And then both John McCain and I did some reminiscences. I'll tell you, John McCain may be a crusty fighter, but he teared up in talking about his adopted state. And it was just great to see. So we had some fun on the floor of the Senate, but it was…
Sandra Day O'Connor
Well, Arizona, you weren't born here. You were born in Nebraska?
Jon Kyl
Right. I moved here to attend the University of Arizona.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Right. I knew you went there. And you went to the law school at University of Arizona.
Jon Kyl
I'll tell you, I got here in August, it was so hot. And I remember about the fourth day, I was in Tucson walking back to the dorm where I was going to be staying. And it was so hot, it, you know how it makes you (inaudible)?
Sandra Day O'Connor
Oh I know, and you almost wanted to go back to Nebraska man, I'll bet.
Jon Kyl
No, I loved it! I said, "This is is it, this is the place I'm gonna live the rest of my life!" Then I met Caryll and that was, it was done, so.
Sandra Day O'Connor
That's amazing! Did you meet your wife at the university?
Jon Kyl
I met her actually in the Sunday school for college kids.
I confess my mind wasn't totally on things religious when I first saw Caryll Collers. But yeah, we we went to church together and then eventually were married in between my undergraduate and law school. So we finished law school in Tucson then moved up to Phoenix.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Well, we're awfully glad you came to Phoenix.
Jon Kyl
Yeah well, likewise.
Sandra Day O'Connor
And John O'Connor and I came back to Phoenix in 1957 when he got out of the service, he had been drafted during the Korean War. And we came back to live in the Phoenix area then.
Jon Kyl
And I have so many recollections of early time in my practice of law. And of course, John Connor was the person who would always be called upon to be the master of ceremonies.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Because he was funny!
Jon Kyl
He had more stories, and they were great.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Exactly.
Jon Kyl
And I remember seeing you and Bill Jacquin and folks like that out in the State Senate, and those were really good times in Arizona.
Sandra Day O'Connor
They were good times. And I thought the public servants in those days had pretty good motives. And were, they performed well in their jobs.
Jon Kyl
They did. And you know, you think of people like Burton Barr and Alfredo Gutierrez and, notwithstanding different parties. And they fought like cats and dogs, but they got things done.
Sandra Day O'Connor
I know, but they were good, they did. And I remember so well, in some hearings in the State Senate, when you would come as a young lawyer. And you'd be testifying on some issue of interest to some client in your firm, I assume. And you were very effective. You were a good advocate. So we used to listen to you there and say, "Hmm, he's pretty good!"
Jon Kyl
Well, I was actively involved in the Republican Party. And some people in the firm finally figured out, "Wait a minute, he knows all of those state senators and a bunch of the representatives, we ought to send him out there for our clients every now and then."
Sandra Day O'Connor
And they did, and you did, and that was when I first saw you in action. So that was good.
Jon Kyl
Well, we had an effective Republican political party at the time. And I think politics was a little more fun back in those days, too, although it could be just that gauzy memory from looking back.
Sandra Day O'Connor
No, it was pretty good. And it was fun. We had some interesting people. Now, of your years in the legislative branch of our government, looking back, what is the most satisfying thing to you?
Jon Kyl
I think the things that I've accomplished for Arizona, because they're concrete. And then one other national bill. Dianne Feinstein, Senator from California, and I worked together for a long time on legislation for victims' rights. We finally got that accomplished.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Oh, yes you did.
Jon Kyl
And it's been a, it's helped states develop protections for victims. There's a national program that, in fact, there's even a clinic at Arizona State University Law School that helps to teach young lawyers how to assist victims of crime. And I'm proud of that. Our water settlements.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Now that's critical for Arizona is to protect its interests in water, because that's the thing that's in short supply in our state.
Jon Kyl
I couldn't emphasize enough the point you make. Most folks in Arizona take water for granted. And what you have to do is go back in time and look at the people who had the foresight to put things in place to provide the water for all the people who were going to move here. And there were really about four separate stages. The Salt River Project and the Salt River Valley Water User Association back in 1902, before we were a state, went back to Congress, they got the Reclamation Act passed, and then the Salt River Project was the first multi-purpose reclamation project in the country. Theodore Roosevelt Dam, all of those. And as a result of that, Arizona today uses–about a third of the water used here comes from surface storage, primarily from SRP. But then that was getting to a point where it wouldn't satisfy all of our growth. So we were taking a lot from the groundwater. Well, everybody began pumping the groundwater. And so we had to do the 1980 Groundwater Act. And that was people like Stan Turley and Governor Babbitt and folks like that.
Sandra Day O'Connor
What did that act do, in essence?
Jon Kyl
It in effect said that we can't just let everybody drill wells and pump all the water out of the ground if they want to. Because if we're neighbors, well, and you know this from your days back on the ranch, if a mining company digs a well right next to your ranch, guess who's going to get all the water? Down under the ground, the water all migrates over here.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Yeah, exactly. So how did the Act control that?
Jon Kyl
So we controlled, it basically puts limits on who can pump where. And if a city is going to expand, it has to show that it has 100-year water supply. So it helped to assure that for many, many more years, we would have an adequate supply of underground water. Well, even that wasn't enough. And the Central Arizona Project brought the last third of the water. So groundwater is about a third, surface water's a third, and then the CAP brings about a third of our water in.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Which brought water from the Colorado River, derived from several western states in effect.
Jon Kyl
You know the history. The upper basin states and the lower basin states fighting each other. The problem was, we had a paper right, but we didn't have the wet water. We didn't have a canal and so on. And so we had to get that funded. And I'll never forget, every year you'd have Barry Goldwater, John Rhodes, Paul Fannin, and later Dennis DeConcini. Morris Udall. And Eldon Rudd. Democrats and Republicans. I got in there. And Jay Rhodes. And we would all go to the Appropriations Committee together.
Sandra Day O'Connor
It was bipartisan. Because Arizona needed some water!
Jon Kyl
Totally bipartisan. We would say, please do the appropriation to finish the CAP. And every year I was in the House, it finally, it got done.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Which was a great occasion for Arizona. I don't think we'd be here today in the numbers we are, but for that.
Jon Kyl
No question. The numbers, we are very dependent on water. And then the last thing that had to be done was, everybody was still in disagreement about exactly how much water they were entitled to. And there were claims against each other. And in particular, we had to satisfy the Indian tribes who have reserved water rights because they have a reservation. So I argued a case in the Supreme Court, established the precedent that these claims all were best resolved in state proceedings, where all the parties were in the same room at the same time, and you divided up the water that way.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Which is true. It's kind of worked.
Jon Kyl
That's right, it has.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Your plan is to return to Arizona in some way when you don't run again?
Jon Kyl
Well, I'm hoping to be able to get get back to Arizona frequently while I'm still working in the private sector. And then eventually retire. We have a little place up in Greer, and you know how beautiful the White Mountains are.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Greer is great.
Jon Kyl
And I can't wait to get up to Greer. We always open up the cabin over Memorial Day. It's too cold to do it before them. So I'm looking forward to it.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Now, are there issues that you will not have been able to complete by virtue of not running again? Are there any issues you think are terribly important for Arizona, that are ahead of us?
Jon Kyl
We still have to get done this Indian water settlement for the Hopi and Navajo tribes. Senator McCain and I introduced that legislation on our birthday, February 14. But these things usually take two or three years at a minimum to accomplish, so we've got about six months to get it done. That, I hope I can get done before I leave.
Sandra Day O'Connor
I hope you can, too.
Jon Kyl
It's not going to be easy. But that's goal number one. Secondly, we've not taken care of our national forests here like we should. We haven't managed them properly. And I'd like to get in place a more secure source of funding for the work that has to be done to manage the forests.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Now, what do you see that our state ought to be doing that you wish Arizona could move ahead with?
Jon Kyl
Well, I'm not–you know, you don't, at the federal level you don't tell the state legislators what to do.
Sandra Day O'Connor
No, you don't. But you must see a lot of the issues, and you must see what's needed. And I'm just asking, not what Congress should do or anything, but what you see Arizona should be doing.
Jon Kyl
Well, there are a couple of things. First of all, I have now been around long enough to see that the states that create a good climate for doing business do well. They grow, they produce wealth, their citizens are better off, there are not as many people unemployed. Keeping taxes as low as possible, keeping regulations as simple as possible. And having a good education system that creates a good, well-educated workforce for businesses to come here. If we do those three things, our climate will do the rest, and people will come here and will be very prosperous. So we've done well over the years. In fact, if I could tell just one quick story?
Sandra Day O'Connor
Please do.
Jon Kyl
We're in your old home. I remember being in your living room in the late 1970s.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Where we are today.
Jon Kyl
Exactly. And you said earlier, almost in these very same chairs. State Senator Ray Rotus, who later was the Treasurer of the state. Clarence Duncan. Both of them are gone now, but Clarence Duncan was one of my law partners, a great lawyer. And you and I, and there were maybe a couple other people I've forgotten, put together Arizona's constitutional spending limit, trying to make sure that the state government never spent too much money. And we had a lot of meetings in your living room, we put that together. The people overwhelmingly supported it. I think we probably set the limit just slightly above where we should have, because we've very seldom bumped into it. We seem to spend the money and not quite bump into it.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Get right up to the limit.
Jon Kyl
But it was the right idea.
Sandra Day O'Connor
It was a good idea for Arizona.
Jon Kyl
So if they can keep the spending under control, and of course right now they've got to recover from the economic downturn. But growth will bring us back. It always does in Arizona.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Yes. Education has been a key to attracting businesses and residents in Arizona. I hope we can keep that in good shape.
Jon Kyl
Yeah, our university folks always tell me that part of their problem is that they have to bring the kids who start college up to speed because their secondary education–
Sandra Day O'Connor
Was not adequate.
Jon Kyl
Was not adequate. They start out, the kids are just as willing to learn and eager and bright in the first two or three grades. And then it starts to slack off. And during that middle and high school time, we're not doing a good enough job. So our colleges could be much more productive if they didn't have to worry about, in effect, bringing the kids up to standard.
Sandra Day O'Connor
I agree. I think that's one reason why I was participating in developing a website called iCivics that is aimed primarily at middle school students, to teach them how government works.
Jon Kyl
I am so proud of that program. We've talked about it. And there's a tendency to move away from history and civics, or government.
Sandra Day O'Connor
I know. And we can't.
Jon Kyl
People don't realize what a wonderful thing we have in this country because our country is founded on an idea. The people who were, we call them the Founding Fathers, they were really, they had a lot of wisdom in setting up the government the way they did. We're really quite unique, because we're founded on an idea. And the idea is that the people are sovereign. In a lot of other countries, it's not that way. And if young people can learn that, they will be more confident of their ability to influence government decisions when they get older, and they will therefore want to participate in doing it. I think so many of our young people today don't understand how the government works. They don't realize they can have a voice in it, it's sort of do-it-yourself government in this country. And they can have an influence, and they have an obligation to get in there and try.
Sandra Day O'Connor
That's right, because they can make a difference.
Jon Kyl
And it's critical. When they're young, they can have heroes. There's nothing wrong with having heroes like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson. These are heroes.
Sandra Day O'Connor
They are.
Jon Kyl
And why not celebrate them as people that were unique, and for us to try to live up to the expectations that they had when they created our government?
Sandra Day O'Connor
Well, Arizona has has had its share of remarkable leaders and some history. What do you look at today, from your perspective and say, "These are the marvelous things about Arizona we should preserve."
Jon Kyl
Well, it's a great question that I know you have pondered, and I have, too. When you think about the state being only 100 years old, I mean, I've been here half of its life, you've been here a little more than half of its life. And look at the all of the things that have occurred. So how do you pick things out? Well, you could, by the way, I would start with you, I mean.
Sandra Day O'Connor
No.
Jon Kyl
You and Justice Rehnquist put Arizona ahead of almost any other state. I mean, does Ohio maybe have more Supreme Court justices?
Sandra Day O'Connor
Isn't that amazing that Bill Rehnquist and I were classmates at Stanford Law School? Isn't that remarkable?
Jon Kyl
So, you're classmates at Stanford, you end up on the court together. So what was that like?
Sandra Day O'Connor
Well, it was great.
Jon Kyl
You were already good friends, right?
Sandra Day O'Connor
We were good friends. And he and his wife, Nan, who I also knew while I was at Stanford, had moved to Phoenix. And we used to get together with some other mutual friends here for a play-reading night. And the host of the evening would pick a play and get copies for all of us so we'd each be able to read our parts. And we'd enact a play, or part of one, that evening. And the other thing we'd get together for was some bridge games, because we all liked to play bridge. He was a good player.
Jon Kyl
I was going to say, Justice Rehnquist, he'd bet on the games, and bet pennies I guess. But–
Sandra Day O'Connor
He was, he was good. And he liked it. And even when he was a member of the Court, he enjoyed having some bridge games, which he or I or others could organize. And in his last months, when he had lost his wife, she had passed away from cancer. And he himself was not well. And I remember that last month of his life, I organized a bridge game or two for an hour at the Court, so that he could enjoy that.
Jon Kyl
He did enjoy that. We were just talking before we started about his presiding in the US Senate over the impeachment of President Clinton.
Sandra Day O'Connor
He did a wonderful job presiding.
Jon Kyl
He did. And I know from talking to my Democratic colleagues, nobody ever thought that he was partial in any way.
Sandra Day O'Connor
No. He earned respect on both sides of the aisle.
Jon Kyl
Absolutely. We were joking about, he had a robe, the big black robe and he actually put some gold stripes on it. Now what was that all about?
Sandra Day O'Connor
Well, this has a funny story. Because every time the justices went on the bench, we would meet first in a robing room and get our robes out of the closet, put them on, and then go in the room where we would confer about cases in meetings. And everyone shakes everybody else's hand, and then you get all lined up on the basis of seniority to go into the courtroom.
Well, we went in one day, and here was the Chief Justice with a robe that had stripes on his left arm. And we all said, "Chief, what are those? What is that? What have you done? You're not going to wear that in the courtroom?" -"I certainly am. And that's a stripe for every five years I've been on the court." And it, we just couldn't believe it. And we said, "Well, where did that idea come from?" And he told us that he had gone to some play, some musical that was one from many years ago. And the Chief Justice had stripes on his robe. And he saw it in the play so he thought that was a good idea, and he was just going to have it done. And he had the seamstress of the Court sew gold stripes on. Isn't that funny?
Jon Kyl
Well, and that's Justice Rehnquist.
Sandra Day O'Connor
I know. I loved it. Nobody's copied him yet.
Jon Kyl
No, nobody would have the guts to do it.
Sandra Day O'Connor
No.
Jon Kyl
But you know, you were asking about people, and just a word. Barry Goldwater is probably Arizona's other most famous person of the modern day era.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Absolutely.
Jon Kyl
And interestingly, I got to know Senator Goldwater best after he had retired.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Really!
Jon Kyl
When I would go up to his house, not unlike your house.
Sandra Day O'Connor
On a hill in Paradise Valley.
Jon Kyl
That's right. He loved it up there.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Yes he did.
Jon Kyl
And he would reminisce. And there were so many times that I thought, you know the story of Barry Goldwater, but you probably don't really know the man as well as you should. He loved the people of Arizona, he loved the–
Sandra Day O'Connor
Indian tribes, he liked to go visit.
Jon Kyl
Indian folks, and he had been to every place in this state, he had photographed it. He loved it. And it was a depth of knowledge and appreciation that very few people have, and I think a) it told you something about him, and b) it accounted for some of the ways that he comported himself and some of the things he did while in office. He had photographs of Hopi and Navajo people, for example. And I would say, "Well, that's interesting." -"Well, let me tell you the story of that person." He knew everything about the person, the name, and he cared about individual people. You don't get that sense when you see the way that people have written about him and sort of characterized him.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Well he was amazing. And he was a fantastic photographer. I think he will be remembered for succeeding generations, in some measure by the photographs that he took and has preserved. They're superb.
Jon Kyl
They are. I am grateful that Arizona was able to put on the Supreme Court someone like you who had roots in the land, on the ranch, understood people, understood nature–
Sandra Day O'Connor
And water needs!
Jon Kyl
And water, right. So we really have been blessed in this state to have people who soaked up the state. And even though I've spent all but 18 years of my life in the state, I've tried to go, just about every place I could, every time I go to someplace new or meet somebody new I'm struck by how much this place has to offer.
Sandra Day O'Connor
But looking back now at your political career, what do you point to that you think is the most significant thing that you worked on? Or things?
Jon Kyl
Well, for the state of Arizona, probably the various water settlements, we've had about six of them now. And water is so important to our future, it was really critical get these things behind us. I was just in the right place at the right time, because I did a lot of water law when I practiced law in Phoenix, I would say that's probably the thing that will have the most lasting impact. But ironically, at the federal level, and I regret to say that this is the case but probably, a lot of my better achievements were in preventing bad things from happening than forcing good things to happen.
Sandra Day O'Connor
I'm sure that's true.
Jon Kyl
And it's too bad you have to say that. But in politics, that's the way it is.
Sandra Day O'Connor
And in politics, it may be a little easier to prevent something from happening than to get an enactment of something new, isn't that right?
Jon Kyl
That's true. It's probably a benefit of our form of government. It's frustrating as heck when you can't get your bill passed. But the system is set up to make sure that if we are going to pass something into law and send it off to the President, we got it right.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Well, looking to the future a little bit, are there any things you think Arizona ought to be working on right now?
Jon Kyl
Yes, we're not out of the woods on water, you know.
Sandra Day O'Connor
No, and never will be.
Jon Kyl
I don't want to be alarmist here. But we need a new generation of Arizona's to really get a handle on this. Living in the desert requires a lot of accommodation. We can't change everything and control everything. You have to learn how to live in this place. And I'm not sure what all of the answers are. It probably will require a little less freewheeling and a little more regulation, which none of us like, but there may be some of that. I mean, eventually we may be talking about importing water and desalination. And the problem is the water will cost about 10 times as much as it does today under the best of circumstances. So that's an issue.
The second thing we're going to have to contend with is the fact that in Arizona today, only about 12-and-a-half percent of our land is privately owned. The rest of is either owned by the federal government, the Indian tribes, or the state government. The state government needs to put more of its land into private ownership so that we can continue to grow, or land prices will just shoot up to the fact that people can't afford it, we won't be able to continue to grow.
And the third thing is, we can lead the nation in dealing with the problem of immigration and illegal immigration. We've had experience for more than a century living with our neighbor, Mexico, to the south. And we've got to find better, innovative ways of dealing with a problem here. We haven't controlled–
Sandra Day O'Connor
Do you think work permits would be a good idea?
Jon Kyl
Eventually, yes. I mean, that's part of the solution, without any doubt, especially in areas like agriculture. People are so frustrated because they don't see the law being enforced. It should start with that. But then, how can we put our heads together and come up with the innovative solutions that recognize our heritage and yet also recognize the law, because we are people that like to live within the law.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Well, Senator, I want you to know how much Arizona appreciates all the things you've done in your career as our elected representative in Congress. We want to thank you for everything you've contributed to our state and wish you very good years ahead, and hope it never stops being years spent helping Arizona.
Jon Kyl
Having fun here.
Sandra Day O'Connor
We're going to need your wisdom whether you're in the Senate or not.
Jon Kyl
Well, for both of us it's been a labor of love.
Sandra Day O'Connor
Yes it has. Thank you.