Tag Archives: House of Representatives

The Racist Roots of the War on Sex Ed

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JBS-supported billboard accusing Martin Luther King Jr. of communist ties. Image: Bob Fitch photography archive, Stanford University Libraries

The 1960s were a decade of dramatic social and political changes, many of them catalyzed by the shock of assassinations or the dawn of culture-changing technology like the birth control pill.

It would seem, then, that by the end of the decade it would have taken an especially grave development to prompt warnings of a “subversive monstrosity,” a “mushrooming program” that was forced upon an unwitting public through an insidious campaign of “falsehoods, deceptions, pressures, and pretenses.”

The John Birch Society published those words 50 years ago this month in their January 1969 newsletter. What atrocity spurred JBS founder Robert Welch Jr. to write this clarion call? No trigger warning is needed for this one. He was alerting his readers to the “filthy Communist plot” known as sex education.

It wasn’t just premarital and extramarital sex that stirred anxieties. So, too, did interracial sex.

Welch’s alarmist language was common currency in an organization that was known for its anti-Semitism and its espousal of conspiracy theories. They were traits that kept the Birchers’ numbers modest throughout the 1960s and ’70s — an estimated 20,000 to 100,000 members — and led to the group’s decline in later decades. The JBS, a far-right group that advocated for limited government, got its name from a Baptist missionary and military pilot who was killed by Chinese communists — an early martyr of the Cold War.

However fringe they may have been, Welch’s words signaled the beginning of intensive backlash against sex ed among a broader base of conservatives. Within months, that backlash put organizations like the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Medical Association on the defensive. As the debate raged, the NEA sought allies nationwide in churches, civic groups, and the media to save sex ed. By the following year, the NEA was reporting that sex ed programs had been “canceled, postponed, or curtailed” in 13 states and were under scrutiny in 20 state legislatures. Continue reading →

Due Protections: The Pregnancy Discrimination Act at 40

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1977. Photo: Lynn Gilbert

Today, Susan Struck’s political positions are nothing that would stick out in a red state like Arizona. A few years ago, she joined the chorus of support for the once-threatened A-10 fighter jet program at Tucson’s Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. In a 2010 article on immigration, a writer noted her concerns about automatic citizenship for U.S.-born children.

Despite the rightward tilt that would be assigned to her views today, Struck was once at the center of a fight for reproductive justice, a cause taken up by a young Ruth Bader Ginsburg, back when “The Notorious RBG” was still a lawyer for the ACLU. It was that fight that led to Ginsburg’s involvement in the writing of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, a landmark piece of legislation that turns 40 this month.

Despite 40 years of protections, pregnancy discrimination hasn’t gone away.

Now retired in an Arizona ranch community, Struck first arrived in the Copper State at the end of the 1960s, when she enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and was stationed at Davis-Monthan. She told Elle in a 2014 interview that she reveled in her newfound independence from the family and church she left in Kentucky. “She went on the Pill and stopped attending confession,” the article recounts, and she spent her free time enjoying her sexual freedom and the chance to experience Tucson’s foothills in a newly acquired Camaro.

Still, Struck wanted more excitement, so she asked to be sent to Vietnam. She was assigned to Phù Cát Air Force Base, where she quickly hit it off with an F-4 pilot — and ended up pregnant. Struck understood that the Air Force gave officers in her situation two choices: get an abortion or be honorably discharged. It was 1970 then, still a few years before Roe v. Wade, but the armed forces had made abortion legal ahead of civilian society. Continue reading →

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: Hazel Chandler for State Representative, LD 20

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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!

[A] wealth of experience has brought Hazel Chandler to her current bid for the Arizona Legislature. A 40-year resident of Arizona, she is a longtime advocate for public education and social justice whose career spans decades in the government, nonprofit, and private sectors.

For Ms. Chandler, though, the focus is not on what’s behind her but on what’s ahead. Ms. Chandler holds degrees in early childhood development and management, and with those in her toolbox, she has spent much of her career working for the next generations of Arizonans. For eight years she served as the regional director of First Things First, an agency in Phoenix that promotes early childhood education and other measures to ensure the success and wellbeing of Arizona’s children. Along with school funding, Ms. Chandler has been an outspoken supporter of funding KidsCare and other programs to ensure that children’s health care needs are being met, regardless of household income. As she told the Arizona-based Children’s Action Alliance, “Providing children with health care needs to be a priority for our state.”

“It is our moral responsibility to make sure that everyone has access to affordable, quality health care, including reproductive care for women.”

Ms. Chandler’s focus on the future also means a commitment to a clean environment. As she states on her campaign website, environmental protection “isn’t just an issue, it is the entire context in which we have to make all our public policy decisions.” For her, creating a sustainable future is about conserving resources to meet long-term economic needs — as well as protecting people from the health effects of pollution and climate change.

In fact, much of Ms. Chandler’s platform — from her views on preventing crime to getting big money out of politics — circles back in some way to public health. Within that comprehensive view of health, she is also committed to reproductive justice. That conviction has helped garner the endorsements of Arizona List, the Arizona NOW Political Action Committee, and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona. Continue reading →

Meet Our Candidates: Jennifer Jermaine for State Representative, LD 18

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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!

[J]ennifer Jermaine has a long history of being politically engaged, advocating for women’s rights, public health, and other causes on behalf of nonprofit and social services organizations. But the last two years have brought two waves of activism that were transformative for the longtime Chandler resident, inspiring her to launch her own advocacy organization — and run for state Legislature.

“Health care decisions are very personal and private and should be kept that way.”

The first wave was the mounting protests in the wake of Donald Trump’s election in 2016. The victory of such a far-right candidate prompted Jermaine to post a call for action on Facebook. Her idea was a network that would register voters and organize communities, a group she dubbed Stronger Together AZ. Within days, she had 10,000 members. By the end of the month, an inaugural meeting drew 1,000 participants.

The second wave was Arizona’s #RedforEd movement, which sparked strikes and walkouts this spring for better teacher salaries and school funding. Strengthening public education is the first issue Ms. Jermaine mentions on her campaign website. She seeks to represent Legislative District 18, which includes Ahwatukee and parts of Chandler, Mesa, and Tempe, “because the children of Arizona deserve fully funded public schools.”

Along with that focus, Ms. Jermaine is committed to standing up for civil rights and equality on behalf of women, people with disabilities, communities of color, and LGBTQ people. That includes recognizing women’s bodily autonomy and their right “to make their own health care decisions without government intervention or impositions.” Continue reading →

Shaking the Foundation of Privilege: The Fight for a Fair Vote, from Seneca Falls to the 2018 Midterms

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In the 19th century, ample water and rich soil made Seneca Falls a town full of thriving farms and optimistic people. Idealism took hold in the many calls for progressive political reform and utopian community-building, as residents of the small New York town committed to causes like the abolition of slavery, harmony between indigenous people and settlers, and even the dismantling of church hierarchy.

The deadline to register to vote in the Arizona primary election is July 30.

Seneca Falls’ flowing streams also gave it the water power to build industry at a time when industry was transforming family structure. Children could be assets to farm families that needed more hands to share the labor of harvests and animal husbandry, but in industrial settings, they could be a liability, bringing costs to the home in the form of food, clothing, medical care, and education. Many women tried to avoid pregnancies by using the family planning methods of that era, which included spermicidal douches and abortion, as well as pills and tonics advertised for the “stoppage of nature” and other veiled references to contraception. As women became less involved in childbearing, their roles in the home — and society — began to change as well.

Water mill, New York State. Photo: Wikipedia.

Amid those influences, the women’s rights movement coalesced in Seneca Falls, spearheaded in large part by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. They were reformers who met through the anti-slavery movement but turned their attention to the emancipation of women. Stanton evoked the parallels between those causes in a speech she gave before the New York Legislature, in which she decried how color and sex had put many “in subjection to the white Saxon man.” Thus, from the beginning, reproductive freedom and women’s rights were closely linked, and they were connected with anti-racism and other social justice movements. Continue reading →

Meet Our Candidates: Richard Andrade for State Representative, LD 29

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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 voters need to be 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!

[R]ichard Andrade represents Legislative District 29, which includes Glendale and West Phoenix. His roots in the Southwest are deep: His great-grandparents settled in Winslow, a small town on Arizona’s Route 66, to work for the Sante Fe Railroad. After high school, Rep. Andrade joined the U.S. Air Force, and was stationed at Luke Air Force Base outside of Phoenix. Afterward, he continued his family tradition with a job at the railroad, during which time he became heavily involved in unions.

Today he represents his West Valley constituents by standing for working families and health care access, and against discrimination in all forms. He earns Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona’s endorsement thanks to his strong stance in favor of reproductive rights and LGBTQ equality — two things that are in jeopardy as the Supreme Court is poised for a rightward shift. As Rep. Andrade told us, “I strongly stand with PPAA, especially during this time of uncertainty.”

“We have an opportunity to flip one or even both chambers in the Legislature.”

We endorsed Rep. Andrade in 2014 and 2016, and are proud to endorse him again. He generously took the time to answer our questions on July 9, 2018.

What have you accomplished in your previous term?

I am the only House Democrat who for the last two years has had legislation signed by the governor. These two bills, HB 2341 from 2017 and HB 2421 from 2018, protect all National Guard members’ jobs upon completion of their deployments — including National Guard members who are members from National Guard units from other states but work and reside in Arizona. I also had two House Concurrent Memorials from 2018, HCMs 2007 and 2008, pass out of both chambers, House and Senate, to the secretary of state, urging Congress to support two important issues regarding our veterans. Continue reading →