Case in point, while the public had an all too rare opportunity to hear from their candidates in LD11, life-long bureaucrat Jo Grant used up her one candidate-to-candidate question to ridicule CCEC campaign financing during the Citizens Clean Election Commission debate Monday evening. Frankly, I think it’s a good thing that CCEC exists or we would not have had the debate in the first place.
As I understand, the Citizens Clean Elections Commission was set up as a bi-partisan effort to level the playing field for citizen representation in the face of growing deep-pocket, special interest campaign funding. CCEC campaign funding is a legal means that I chose to use for my campaign. I was surprised that Ms. Grant did not recognize the fact that CCEC funding has been used effectively in all corners of the State to gain a Republican majority in both chambers.
I was disappointed that she tried to construct a straw man argument equating CCEC funding to “big government”. Clearly it’s not since only one out of the 5 candidates at the debate is running as a participating candidate. She could have asked how would you approaching solving for border security, or improved educational outcomes, job creator attraction or maybe even prevention of the structural deficit in the 2016 budget.
By her own admission, Ms. Grant has been a professional bureaucrat for over 30 years and a politician for several of those years as well. During her time as a legislative liaison I’m sure she became a well connected insider. But then, that is why the Citizens Clean Election Commission was implemented. Ms. Grant is endorsed by several groups that are in love with growing government even bigger than it already is and advocating for illegal alien amnesty.
I remain committed to shrinking the size and scope of government, restoring fiscal sanity to our State’s budget and putting us on a path to a debt free future.
Mark Finchem, Candidate
Arizona House of Representatives
Legislative District 11