The debate descended into the “Your Conservative LD11 Team” of Vince Leach, Mark Finchem, and Steve Smith playing softball with each other while battling Jo Grant and Scott Bartle. Both Grant and Bartle, supporters of Common Core and Medicaid Expansion, attempted to play hardball in order to contrast themselves from the more “Conservative Team.”
On Common Core, an issue Republicans are divided on, Steve Smith said, “How much is it going to cost Arizona? The answer was unknown. That is what it came back as. Yet so many people were so fast to pass the new great thing. Every few years in education here is what we hear. Race to the Top, No Child Left Behind, it’s this cure then this. They all seem to be on the same road to mediocrity. The same thing just shuttled names and then we are going to do this and this and this. Common Core is another one of those things…”
On border security Scott Bartle said, “First and foremost we need to secure the border… We need to apply all the pressure we can on the federal government to do their job. Of course they have proven over and over again that they are not going to do their job. In which case we need to take matters into our own hands; this issue obviously has a direct impact on us as Arizonan’s especially here in our district…”
It was a tense night for Bartle and Smith. Throughout the night Bartle continually attacked Smith’s conservative bona fides, but the format didn’t allow Smith opportunities to respond. Smith was clearly outraged as Bartle attacked relentlessly.
In the House side of the debate Jo Grant, a former staff person for the Arizona State Legislature, emphasized education and jobs. In her closing statement Grant said, “Well folks you can definitely see you have a choice in District 11… It’s easy to say you are against something, but we need leaders who have a vision to work to solve the problems for the State of Arizona. If there is a problem with the Arizona College and Career readiness program then let’s fix it. But repealing it hurts the school district, it hurts the students, it hurts the parents, it hurts the tax payers because we already spent a lot of money on that program, but let’s fix it…”
Leach with experience in both the public and private sector closed with, “You have heard a lot of talk about Medicaid and you have heard two terms. One being Medicaid Expansion and Medicaid Restoration from Mrs. Grant and Mr. Bartle you have heard Restoration. That is not what we passed. That is what the voters passed and we had that opportunity to pass that… What the Legislature did in the middle of the night; throwing out the current leaders of both the House and the Senate, is they passed Medicaid Expansion for 138% of the poverty level and passed that literally when they threw it on Steve’s desk at 11:30 at night and the people passing it did not take one question from the floor on how they justified it, how they were going to pay for it, what they were going to do for it, and they finally had the votes. It was very liberal Republicans and Democrats who pushed it on through.”
Mark Finchem with experience in law enforcement, Intuit, and in real estate echo’s much of his team in his conservative principles. Grant questioned Finchem for taking Clean Elections funds, but Finchem responded, “Clean Elections is funded by tax payers by choice. When you file your income tax there is a box on your income tax that says I want to give $5 to keep the electoral process out of the hands of special interest. I don’t accept PAC money. I received an endorsement today from the Arizona Association of Realtors. They sent me a $500 check. I was very happy to send it back to them and say you’ve already paid for this by opting into the Clean Elections program. So to characterize it as government funding is intellectually dishonest…”
Republicans have a clear choice to make in LD11.
To find out more on Smith, Finchem, and Leach visit, http://www.ld11team.com/
Bartle at http://www.votescottbartle.com/gateway.php?l=h
Grant at https://www.facebook.com/grantforaz/timeline