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Independent
Candidate for Arizona Senate in Legislative District 1
Phone: (480) 528-4881
Email: tom.rawles711@gmail.com
7715 E Cave Creek Rd, Carefree, AZ 85377.
(mail: PO Box 783, Carefree, AZ 85377)
Age: 62. (12/21/49, Healdsburg, CA).
Arizona since: 1972.
Occupation: Owner, Rawles Law Office, since 2009; general manager and general counsel, Johnson Stewart Co. (Mesa, AZ), 2005-2009; lawyer, Kimerer & Derrick (Phoenix, AZ), 1999-2005.
Marital: Married (Linda, higher education lawyer).
Children: 1.
Religious preference: Baptist.
Education: J.D., magna cum laude, ASU, 1975; B.A., economics, Willamette University (Salem, OR), 1972; Anderson Valley High School (Boonville, CA), 1968.
Political experience: Elected member, Maricopa County Bd of Supervisors, 1993-1996 (chairman, 1995); elected member, Mesa City Council, 2004-2008; congressional chief of staff, Congressman John J. Rhodes, III, 1987-1989.
Memberships: Member, AZ State Bar; member, Sunrise Rotary Club (Mesa, AZ); bd of dir, Mesa YMCA; bd of dir, Mesa Education Foundation; bd of dir, East Valley Partnership; division chair, Mesa United Way; member, Governor’s Task Force on Alcohol and Highway Safety.
Interests: Reading, travel, birding, the pursuit of justice. Special interest in Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill.
Political influence: Abraham Lincoln, because he applied an incredible intellect and a razor-sharp mastery of the English language to the most complex and important public policy issue in the history of this country. His willingness to apply what he called cold, hard reason to the issue of slavery, rather than raw emotion and guttural reactions, is an essential lesson for us all. Still, when an appeal to arms was forced upon him, he employed an iron will to persevere despite early failures and public discontent.
Job creation measures: Reduce taxes and reduce government regulations. Government doesn’t create jobs. Its role is to provide an environment of order and freedom in which the private sector can create jobs. Otherwise, it should just get out of the way.
Top Issues: Education: We need to quit teaching to tests. We are only teaching our children how to memorize for a short period of time. Instead we need to teach them to think. And, as with all professionals you hire, we should stop micromanaging how teachers do their jobs. They should be held accountable, of course, but they should be allowed to be creative and innovative, not restrained, in their classroom approaches. Budget Process: Allowing only two days for consideration of an $8.7 billion budget, without public hearings, is reprehensible and wrong. This process needs to stop.
Prop 100 sales tax extension: Education: We need to quit teaching to tests. We are only teaching our children how to memorize for a short period of time. Instead we need to teach them to think. And, as with all professionals you hire, we should stop micromanaging how teachers do their jobs. They should be held accountable, of course, but they should be allowed to be creative and innovative, not restrained, in their classroom approaches. Budget Process: Allowing only two days for consideration of an $8.7 billion budget, without public hearings, is reprehensible and wrong. This process needs to stop.
Illegal immigration: The federal government needs to adopt a comprehensive, effective and humane immigration policy and then enforce it. The country needs one uniform immigration policy that is fair and enforceable. If the federal government doesn’t fulfill its duty, then we ought to vote every federal elected official from Arizona out of office until we elect people who will do the job.
Background & experience: I think. I listen. I discuss. I think again. I decide. I persuade.
Pro-life / pro-choice: I am pro-choice even though I am personally opposed to abortions. I prefer the use of moral and religious persuasion to convince a woman not to have an abortion rather than the coercive force of government. If abortions are outlawed, they will still occur, but with an increased health risk to the mother. We will also be turning more people into criminals, and there is enough of that already in this country.
One last thing: I am running for the state senate as an independent because the two-party system, or the two parties themselves, are failing us. The parties are more interested in acquiring or retaining power than they are in serving the people. They don’t talk to each other; they talk at, over and around each other. I want to apply Lincoln’s cold, hard reason to the difficult policy issues of the day without partisan lenses and without the need to serve a party master. I want to serve you, the people, not the parties.
Campaign finance: private.
