Tag Archives: Gilbert

Meet Our Candidates: Jennifer Pawlik for State Representative, LD 17

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The time to fight back — and fight forward — for reproductive justice is fast approaching. The stakes are high in this year’s state election, with candidates for governor, secretary of state, attorney general, and other races on the ballot. The Arizona general election will be held November 6, 2018, with early voting beginning on October 10. Voters need to be registered by October 9 to cast their ballots. Reproductive health has been under attack, both nationally and statewide, but Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona has endorsed candidates who put our health and our rights first. Get to know them now in our series of “Meet Our Candidates” interviews, and make your voice heard in 2018!

[T]wo years ago, when Jennifer Pawlik first ran for a seat in the Arizona House, the voters she met often doubted her chances of winning in such a red district. Pawlik lives in Legislative District 17, which spans the communities of Chandler, Sun Lakes, and part of Gilbert. Republicans have controlled LD 17’s House seats since the mid-1960s — and they’ve had a longstanding hold on its Senate seat as well.

Pawlik lost in a close race, though, and in this year’s election — her second bid to represent her district — she has seen growing optimism among her supporters. What has motivated Pawlik in both elections has been a desire to stand up for education in the state’s Legislature. A veteran educator herself, her concerns over education cuts prompted her to run in 2016. After this year’s #RedForEd movement, her platform resonates even more strongly today.

“I am fighting for access to affordable health care and affordable college education.”

For Pawlik, education is the foundation for everything that matters in this state. As she told the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce, “a well-educated workforce and excellent schools” will help attract businesses to Arizona — and prepare Arizonans to develop “innovative solutions … to address issues of drought, solar power, air pollution, and mass transit.”

Pawlik also sees public health as a key foundation for a better Arizona. Addressing poverty and improving access to health care are additional priorities she would take to the Legislature. Her commitment to Arizona’s health is why Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona is included in the long list of endorsements she’s received. Pawlik generously took the time to tell us more about her background and her candidacy on September 13.

Please tell us a little about your background.

I am an Arizona native, and a product of Arizona’s public schools. I’m an educator who has taught in Arizona’s public elementary schools for 17 years, and I am now teaching individuals enrolled in Northern Arizona University’s College of Education. In my final years in the classroom, some of my colleagues broke their contracts and left the field of education because they couldn’t afford to continue teaching. Many of us who continued to teach picked up other jobs outside of our contract time so that we could pay our bills. I decided that I needed to do something rather than just complain. In 2016, I decided to run for the Arizona House so I can make a positive impact on the way we fund our public schools. Despite losing that race by only 2.5 percent, I consider our work to be a small victory for my district because we were finally close to a win after years and years of work. My team and I took off just six weeks after the election and got back to work in January 2017. We have been actively contacting as many voters as possible since that time. Continue reading →

Meet Our Candidates: Joe Bisaccia for State Representative, LD 12

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The time to fight back — and fight forward — for reproductive justice is fast approaching. The stakes are high in this year’s state election, with candidates for governor, secretary of state, attorney general, and other races on the ballot. The Arizona primary election will be held August 28, 2018, and early voting began on August 2. Voters need to have been registered by July 30 to cast their ballots. Reproductive health has been under attack, both nationally and statewide, but Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona has endorsed candidates who put our health and our rights first. Get to know them now in our series of “Meet Our Candidates” interviews, and make your voice heard in 2018!

[P]lanned Parenthood supporters are in every legislative district in Arizona, including one of the reddest: Legislative District 12, which ranks behind only two other districts — 13 and 22 — as the most conservative in the state, and encompasses the San Tan Valley, cities like Gilbert, and eastern spans of Maricopa County. That didn’t stop Joe Bisaccia from getting into the race for the House of Representatives from LD 12. His is the voice we’re looking for!

“I will work for laws that ensure women retain the right to make their own health care decisions.”

Mr. Bisaccia, a middle-school robotics and technology teacher, has been on the front lines of what the Republican-run Legislature has done to shred public school funding. The impact of stripping billions — that’s “billions” with a “b” — from K-12 funding for public schools, the zeroing out of community college funding, and diverting taxpayer money to multiple “voucher” programs is felt deeply by public school teachers and their students. And, when high tech jobs opt to build and invest in other states because Arizona’s education system doesn’t elicit a lot of confidence, Arizonans are deprived of the good jobs they deserve.

As a middle school teacher, Mr. Bisaccia is also in a unique position to understand the value of medically accurate comprehensive sex education, including concepts like dating violence, consent, and anti-bullying techniques. He understands the value of having students respect personal boundaries, engage in understanding consent, and be able to make informed decisions about one’s future. He wants his kids to be successful, and medically accurate comprehensive sex education can offer ways to remain healthy and safe.

Mr. Bisaccia was gracious to enough to take a break from campaigning on July 30, 2018, to share his responses to our questions. Continue reading →

Meet Our Candidates: Steve Weichert for State Senator, LD 17

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The Arizona general election will be held on November 8, 2016. Reproductive health care access has been under attack, both nationally and statewide, but Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona has endorsed candidates who have shown strong commitment to reproductive justice. To acquaint you with our endorsed candidates, we are running a series called “Meet Our Candidates.” In order to vote in the election, you must register to vote by October 10 — and can even register online. Make your voice heard in 2016!

steve-weichert[T]he 17th legislative district hangs just southeast of Phoenix, covering the greater part of Chandler, western Gilbert, and Sun Lakes. It is currently represented in the Arizona Senate by Steven Yarbrough, who has a history of opposing reproductive rights and LGBTQ equality. LD 17 needs better representation, and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona endorses Steve Weichert, who will fight for improved education and health-care access — including comprehensive sex education and access to family planning services.

“Women can count on me to protect their health care and reproductive rights.”

In 2003, Mr. Weichert moved to Chandler, where his family has put down permanent roots. He and his wife are raising two school-age daughters, so he knows first-hand just how crucial quality education is. He points to the importance of attracting and retaining talented teachers and attaining smaller classroom sizes. As such, a key component of his platform is improving education funding in Arizona, and, as he tells us in today’s interview, he believes comprehensive sex education is an integral aspect of a student’s overall education.

Just as Arizona needs to be able to hold onto good K-12 teachers, Mr. Weichert knows how vital it is to retain a vibrant population of physicians and other health-care providers. As a health-care administrator, he has a front-row seat to Arizona’s shortage of health-care providers. While the University of Arizona College of Medicine provides affordable education, Mr. Weichert says Arizona loses its investment when its graduates are lured out of state by better salaries and benefits. And, as an employee of Gila River Health Care, serving the Gila River Indian Community, Mr. Weichert sees the importance of expanding health care access to historically under-served populations.

According to the Center for Arizona Policy’s 2016 candidate questionnaire, LD 17’s current senator, Steven Yarbrough, is in favor of strict prohibitions on Arizonans’ access to abortion; he is also opposed to recognizing individuals’ gender identity and including the LGBTQ community in nondiscrimination laws. In 2014, Sen. Yarbrough helped propel Arizona to national headlines when he sponsored SB 1062, which would have given businesses the right to refuse service to LGBTQ customers. He sponsored a similar bill the year before — but both that bill and SB 1062 were vetoed by then-governor Jan Brewer.

We need lawmakers who prioritize issues that have a direct impact on Arizonans’ quality of life — and Steve Weichert will focus on quality education and health-care access, without wasting time introducing fear-based bills like SB 1062 that solve no problems. Mr. Weichert generously took the time to answer our questions on September 18, 2016. Continue reading →

Pro-Choice Friday News Rundown

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  • teacher and studentsApparently there’s a weird subset of people who think teaching kids medically accurate, age-appropriate information about sexuality, reproduction, and sexual health will unleash some sort of rabid sex demon upon these poor kids and they’ll lose every ounce of their innocence! So to prevent that from happening, the folks out in Gilbert are censoring factual information from text books. (AZ Central)
  • The co-creator of the birth control pill thinks all sex will be for fun by 2050. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? (Jezebel)
  • As many as 8 million women haven’t been screened for cervical cancer (via Pap testing) in the past five years! (ABC News)
  • The best thing about this piece on why unplanned births are a bigger calamity than unmarried parents? This quotation: “Empowering people to have children only when they themselves say they want them, and feel prepared to be parents, would do more than any current social program to reduce poverty and improve the life prospects of children.” (The Atlantic)
  • My home state, Ohio, is leading the charge to enact the most extreme abortion bill in the nation. HB 248 would ban abortion as soon as the fetal heartbeat can be detected (around six weeks gestation) and has a fair chance of passing since Ohio’s House and Senate are controlled by Republicans. (Cleveland.com)
  • Americans have short memories when it comes to remembering what life was like pre-Roe v. Wade. From hospitals having to have “septic abortion wards” dedicated to treating women for complications from unsafe, illegal procedures and botched self-abortion attempts, to thousands of women dying from their injuries, it really was a harrowing, scary time in our history. We hold out hope that those days are behind us forever. (Think Progress)
  • India’s government sponsored a “population control” effort, which pays women to undergo sterilization, botched an obscene amount of the surgical procedures, killing 12 women and injuring dozens more. Positively sickening. (NY Times)
  • Anti-gay, anti-birth control, anti-abortion, anti-common sense, intolerant religious fanatic Cathi Herrod continues to wreak absolute havoc upon the political landscape in Arizona. (Media Matters)
  • The longstanding ban on gay men giving blood donations may soon be lifted. The caveat? The men will have to be celibate from homosexual sex for at least a year. (Slate)
  • Despite my own history as a clinic escort, my blood still boils at the sight of “sidewalk counselors” who hatefully troll women seeking reproductive health care. (Cosmopolitan)

Post-Election News Rundown

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Victories:

  • BIG4DEMNot many good things happened for the progressives, liberals, and Democrats here in AZ, but a few of our strongest reproductive-justice superstars are still standing. Congrats to U.S. representatives Ann Kirkpatrick, Ruben Gallego, Kyrsten Sinema, and Raul Grijalva! (Phoenix New Times)
  • Kyrsten Sinema’s victory in particular is quite a sweet one. Not only for the pro-choice crowd but also for the LGBTQ community. (LGBTQ Nation)
  • The Gilbert Public Schools governing board voted on October 28 to remove pages from an honors biology textbook because it does not give preference to childbirth or adoption over abortion. This is a prime reason why voting in school board elections is so important. (AZ Central)
  • Gilbert did just that on Tuesday when voters elected two school board members who will shift its balance in January — for the better! (AZ Central)

Counting Ballots:

  • The Ron Barber/Martha McSally race has taken an odd turn. Now that her lead over Barber has shrunk to 341 votes, Republican Martha McSally is attempting to get ballots in Pima County tossed out. Obviously we’re #TeamBarber. (Tucson Weekly)
  • Another Pima County nail-biter: It looks like Rep. Victoria Steele (D-Tucson) will continue to represent her constituents, but will she be joined by Dr. Randall Friese (also D-Tucson) or Republican incumbent Ethan Orr, who, as of this weekend, trails Friese by 199 votes? (Tucson Weekly)
  • Pima County spent the weekend counting ballots. (Tucson.com)
  • Yuma County, on the other hand, took a break over the weekend and will resume counting ballots today. At last count, Charlene Fernandez (D-Yuma) was a mere 65 votes ahead of her Republican challenger. (Tucson Sentinel)
  • Democrat Demion Clinco (the House’s only openly gay representative) appears to have been ousted by his Republican opponent, Chris Ackerley, in the Legislative District 2 House race — a surprise upset in this heavily Democratic district. As of Friday evening, Ackerley was 2,304 votes ahead of incumbent Clinco. The district’s newly reelected senator, women’s health champion Andrea Dalessandro, doesn’t predict the GOP newcomer will last long. (Green Valley News and Sun)

Beyond Arizona:

  • Personhood has failed to pass the sniff test with Colorado voters for the third time. The law, which would grant legal “personhood” rights to zygotes, has failed to pass in every state that has been ridiculous enough to put it on the ballot. Next stop? Georgia. (Slate Double XX)
  • Tennessee women are about to suffer grave consequences due to an extreme anti-abortion measure voted into law Tuesday. (Salon)
  • Old white guys are the main reason the election went GOP. (Slate)
  • White women basically cost Wendy Davis in Texas. (RH Reality Check)
  • Women of color are among the major losers now that the Senate is under GOP control. (RH Reality Check)

Meet Our Candidates: Karyn Lathan for State Representative, LD 17

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The Arizona general election will be held on November 6, 2012, with early voting starting on October 11. After the many recent legislative challenges to reproductive health care access, both nationally and statewide, the importance of voting in November can’t be overstated. To help voters, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona has endorsed candidates who have shown strong commitment to reproductive health and freedom. Along with those endorsements, we are spotlighting our endorsed candidates in a series called “Meet Our Candidates.” To vote in the general election, you must register to vote by midnight tonight (October 9) — and can even register online. Make your voice heard in 2012!

[K]aryn Lathan, an Arizona native from Chandler, is running in Legislative District 17 for a seat in the Arizona House of Representatives, an area that includes Chandler, Sun Lakes, and part of Gilbert. She has had a career in law enforcement and corrections, and ended her 25-year career as the restorative justice coordinator for the Arizona Department of Corrections. Lathan is currently finishing her degree in business administration at the University of Phoenix.

“We have rolled women’s rights back to the 1950s.”

Lathan is the sole pro-women’s health candidate running for the House in Legislative District 17, facing off against Republican opponents Tom Forese and J.D. Mesnard. Because of the views of the other candidates in the LD 17 House election, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona is recommending a “single-shot vote” for Karyn Lathan. Lathan generously took the time for an interview with us on October 5, 2012.

Tell us about your background and how it will serve your constituents.

I spent my career in law enforcement, first in the U.S. Air Force, then in corrections. I was a correctional officer, correctional programs officer, and probation and parole officer. I ended my career in corrections when I returned to Arizona and started the first restorative justice program for the Arizona Department of Corrections. Currently I am a commissioner with the Chandler Domestic Violence Commission and work with several victim services agencies. I am a consultant for Coalition to End Arizona’s Sexual Exploitation (CEASE). My passion lies with women’s issues and anti-violence issues.

My whole career has been about community and how to have a safe, productive community. I will continue to fight for the quality of life that we all deserve and that emphasizes respect and progress. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link — so is a community. Continue reading →

Meet Our Candidates: Bill Gates for State Senator, LD 17

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The Arizona general election will be held on November 6, 2012, with early voting starting on October 11. After the many recent legislative challenges to reproductive health care access, both nationally and statewide, the importance of voting in November can’t be overstated. To help voters, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona has endorsed candidates who have shown strong commitment to reproductive health and freedom. Along with those endorsements, we are spotlighting our endorsed candidates in a series called “Meet Our Candidates.” To vote in the general election, you must register to vote by October 9 — and can even register online. Make your voice heard in 2012!

[A]long with education and foreclosures, the recent legislation aimed at Planned Parenthood is one of the top issues Bill Gates includes on his website. Gates points to HB2800, the bill that defunded Planned Parenthood, as an example of “vindictive” legislation that harms Arizonans rather than helping them. As Gates writes in his scathing criticism, HB2800 was “intended to hurt Planned Parenthood” and punishes the “women, men and children who turn to Planned Parenthood clinics for their health needs.” That Gates takes such a strong stand for the preventive and reproductive health services that are under attack is testament to his commitment to the best interests of the constituents he seeks to serve.

“My wife and I fought these battles 40 years ago and we’re angry that they now have to be fought again in Arizona.”

Gates and his running mate, House candidate Karyn Lathan, are both endorsed by Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona, and are running to represent Legislative District 17, which covers eastern Chandler, northwestern Gilbert, and all of Sun Lakes. Gates generously took the time for an interview with us on September 28, 2012.

In the previous legislative session, there were a lot of bad bills that negatively affected access to birth control (HB 2625), funding for family planning (HB 2800), abortion (HB2036), and unbiased information about unintended pregnancies in public schools (SB1009) — and your opponent, Steve Yarbrough, voted in favor of all of them.  Do you feel that his views are consistent with the majority of Arizonans?

His views are at odds with the majority of Arizonans but because he keeps a low profile, and because he has never previously faced serious direct opposition, most voters in the district don’t know about his terrible record on reproductive issues. But he is one of the most reliable supporters in the Legislature of the extreme positions advocated by Cathi Herrod and the Center for Arizona Policy.

During the campaign I have stressed Sen. Yarbrough’s conflict of interest in running a school tuition organization that receives Arizona income tax dollars. He is able to vote on and, indeed, propose legislation directly benefiting STOs. But the next biggest difference between the two of us involves reproductive rights — a point I made September 24 when the two of us appeared jointly before an Arizona Republic East Valley editorial board considering endorsements. Continue reading →