Brewer adjusting to life after stint as Arizona governor

• Jan Brewer served as governor from January 2009 through January 2015.
• Brewer believes she can be a positive influence on Arizona in a new role.
• Brewer has begun consulting with the national law firm Ballard Spahr.

Five months after a state security team dropped her off in front of her Glendale home, Jan Brewer is still adjusting to life out of the public eye.

That day, Jan. 5, a new governor had been sworn into office and for the first time in more than three decades, Brewer became a private citizen.

Now, after learning how to drive again, tending her garden and shopping alone, Brewer is entering the political arena again, this time as a contract consultant to the national law firm Ballard Spahr. She will work with the firm's government affairs team to help expand the team and help clients navigate public policy issues at the city, state and federal levels.

"As you move on, you realize you don't have to get dressed every morning — you can run around in your garden clothes, you can jump in the car and run into Walgreens, you don't have to organize three people," she said laughing during an interview Tuesday with The Arizona Republic.

But over the past several months, Brewer, 70, who became a conservative icon during her six-year tenure as governor, believes she can be a positive influence on Arizona.

"I have an extensive knowledge of the process, of policy," she said. "I know where the — for lack of better words, I know where the bodies are buried — I know because we've heard so many of these issues dealing with public policy year after year that you kind of know what the downfalls are before anybody else sometimes realizes it. And I understand the politics of it."

Under state law, public officials cannot lobby for compensation the entity they served in for one year on matters in which they were directly involved. Public officials are also prohibited from using confidential information acquired during their time in office for profit. Brewer is free to lobby the Arizona Legislature and consult with the firm's team, said Joseph Kanefield, an attorney and longtime Brewer adviser. The contract does not prohibit Brewer from consulting with clients outside of the firm.

Kanefield said that Brewer will help Ballard Spahr expand its government relations team and that she "adds depth and experience that will benefit the firm and its clients." Brewer's former chief of staff, Scott Smith, is managing director of government relations for the firm's Arizona office.

Like many members of Congress — including former U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl — many governors find post-government work in government relations and lobbying. Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell works for Ballard Spahr's government-relations team, for example, and former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour returned to his lobbying firm after serving two terms.

JAN BREWER OVER THE YEARS

"They're seen as extremely valuable additions to these companies because they have the access that normal people don't," said Joe Newman, spokesman for Washington, D.C.-based Project on Government Oversight. "They don't have to stop at a receptionist and introduce themselves; they know the back ways in. They have people on speed dial. They can call their old friends. She also spent a lot of time in the statehouse building relationships. That's extremely valuable when you're trying to get legislation passed."

Brewer, a Republican governor, presided over the state from 2009 through early January. She inherited the office when former Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, left office to join President Barack Obama's Cabinet as his first Homeland Security secretary. Brewer took over amid a historic budget deficit, managing the state through dire economic conditions, often clashing with members of her own party.

Her administration was marked with divisiveness, partisanship and high-profile activism against illegal immigration and Obama.

Her hard-line stances earned her accolades from supporters, but also the ire of critics, triggering, at times, around-the-clock security.

The lack of privacy was one of the hardest aspects about being governor, she recalled. Brewer, who enjoys walking around her neighborhood and shopping for clothes, was rarely alone and at times, found herself living a life too confined.

She recalled shooing her security detail a block away from her house just so she could pick a flower in her front yard without constant surveillance.

Once, following her signing of Senate Bill 1070, the state's controversial 2010 immigration law, she donned a disguise. She put on a dark spiky wig and sunglasses and ventured out unbeknownst to her security detail, pulling away from her driveway in a car unfamiliar to them. She drove herself to Arrowhead Towne Center, a Glendale mall, where she tried to shop unnoticed.

It was her unmistakeable "deep deep" voice that gave her away, she recalled. She spoke in a low voice, hoping the cashier wouldn't recognize her.

"It was a disaster," she said. "I went out and I was speaking and I had to speak to the cashier and I forgot and I just talked normally. She said, 'You sound so familiar to me — you sound just like Jan Brewer.' She kept staring at me and she said you are Jan Brewer!"

She was back home in 40 minutes, she recalled. Her security team told her she was "not to do that" again.

She didn't.

"You get that urge — you just want to do something, golly," Brewer said. "You want to go to Walgreens, but you can't because you've got to get three cars going," she said, referring to the advance team, the driver and the tail.

Back when Brewer ascended to the Ninth Floor, she drove a BMW convertible. Midway through her tenure, her husband sold it while she was on a work trip. It had been in the garage, undriven, for a few years.

Days after leaving office, one of the first things Brewer did was rent a car. After two weeks of driving a Kia around town, she bought a sporty Cadillac sedan with double moon roofs, a spoiler and "fancy wheels." The license plate is A1000Z, which she got as a commemorative centennial plate. She saved it for her new car.

"I got on the freeway, and I was the proverbial little old lady hanging onto the steering wheel ... cars flying by me at 80 miles an hour," she said. "I'm thinking 'Oh, dear lord, I'm going 45 in the right-hand lane. And I used to have a heavy foot, and I'm thinking, 'Why in the world didn't I renegotiate that contract with (traffic-camera company) RedFlex?' These people are crazy out there."

No longer confined to the backseat of a state vehicle, which regularly doubled as her office, Brewer is rediscovering the Valley.

"Things have been built, things have come and gone — and I had no clue because you're in the back and you're reading or you're on the phone," she said. "It's been a whole different world for me."

So, too, is life after the Executive Tower.

After a brief hiatus, Brewer began working on a contract basis with Washington, D.C.-based Collaborative for Student Success, where she advocates for education issues, including the successful implementation of academic standards.

Meanwhile, Brewer is being courted by other local and national government-relations firms, but declined to name names, saying she will only work on issues she believes in. She remains passionate about education issues, which prompted her to get into state politics back in the 1980s: "I still believe that every parent wants good, high standards for their kids and I will continue to pursue that."

JAN BREWER'S MOST MEMORABLE MOMENTS IN OFFICE