Tyler Mott

Republican
Candidate for Arizona Senate in Legislative District 9
Phone: (520) 444-6280
Email: tylercmott@gmail.com
Website: www.tylermott.com
743 W Orange Tree Pl, Tucson, AZ 85704.

Age: 34. (b 02/28/78, Salt Lake City, UT).

Arizona since: 1984.

Occupation: Sergeant, U.S. Army Reserve, Unit Movements NCO, since November 2008; personal banker/loan officer, Wells Fargo, 2005-2012.

Marital: Married (Judy, 5th grade teacher)

Children: None.

Religious pref: LDS.

Education: B.A., political science with minor in Italian studies, UofA, 2008; Mountain View High School (Tucson), 1996.

Political experience: Chair, Pima County Young Republican Club, 2012 & 2008; former vice chair and treasurer, Pima County Young Republicans, 2004 to present; assistant campaign manager, Randy Graf for Congress, 2006; communications director, UA College Republicans, 2002. Memb have incl: U.S. Army Reserve.

Interests: I am a longtime UofA sports fan. My hobbies include politics, spending time with family and friends, and church activities. I enjoy participating in sports, practicing target shooting, hiking, camping, and just about anything outdoors. I also like traveling and meeting new people and cultures. I have been to 12 different countries. I lived in Argentina for 1 ½ years as a missionary where I learned Spanish. And I spent a semester in college studying abroad in Italy where I learned to mix up my Spanish with Italian.

Political influence: It’s difficult to say that a single person has had the most influence shaping my political development. But one of my first memories was Reagan’s 1984 reelection when I was only 6 years-old. I stayed up with my dad until 3 a.m. watching election results come in. Even as a 6 year-old, I was inspired by President Reagan and cheered him to victory. Ronald Reagan’s commitment to conservative principles is a guide for me. Outside of Reagan, my parents and grandparents have played a huge role in teaching me the values that I hold dear, which shape my political philosophy.

Job creation measures: I would support simplifying the tax code to make it easier for businesses to know ahead of time how much it would cost to conduct business in Arizona. Businesses and individuals would support a fair, flat tax structure here in our state. It is also difficult to do business with an overly burdensome regulatory climate for businesses in Arizona. This discourages growth and expansion of business here. It is time to make it easy to do business in Arizona. Get out of the way of Arizona businesses and let them do what they do best.

Top issues: Education is very important to me and my wife, who teaches 5th grade. It must be our number one priority at the state Legislature. We need to seek ways to improve the education that Arizona children are receiving. This might include expanding school choice and other initiatives. But we cannot forget about our public schools. I also feel the pain of Southern Arizonans who suffer through transportation nightmares. It is past time to improve our roads here in Tucson, and I intend to do everything in my power to get transportation funding back to Tucson that will do just that.

Prop 100 sales tax extension: I do not support extending the temporary sales tax increase. Sales tax increases tend to hurt the most vulnerable people the most. When the sales tax increase was first put on the ballot, I had a choice to make because my wife’s job was in jeopardy. She was only in her second year teaching in her district, and the promise was that increasing the sales tax would help save her job. I didn’t believe it, because there was no true oversight with how that money would be used. And even after the referendum passed, she was still let go.

Illegal immigration: SB1070 was a good start. It’s too bad that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Arizona on three of the four major provisions of SB1070. I feel that the Supreme Court was wrong in going against Arizona on these three aspects of the law. Illegal immigration hurts everybody. But it hurts the poor most by taking low-skilled labor jobs from those who are in Arizona legally and need those jobs to feed their families. Illegal immigration also creates a “race to the bottom” scenario that adversely affects the wages of people in many sectors of our economy.

Background & experience: I have followed politics since I was very young. I consider myself to be a bit of a policy wonk. I think that the details of laws are important, and I intend to give each bill before me a fair shot, but I also believe it is important to be highly critical of every bill. Legislators must do their best to pass laws that will not provoke any unintended consequences. I believe in a very limited government. I think that allowing people to self-govern is an important part of what our nation and state was founded on.

Pro-life / pro-choice: I am pro-life. I do not support the concept of elective abortion. Our founding document stresses that “life” is an “unalienable right”. The 14th Amendment protects all people, giving us “due process of law” before being denied “life, liberty, or property.” I do believe, however, that we should obviously allow for an exception when the mother’s life is in danger. Adoption options should be given to distressed mothers-to-be. We must understand their pain and feel empathy with them in their time of need. It is important to help these women. I believe that being pro-life means being pro-woman.

One last thing: Family is very important to me. On September 21, 2010, I had the privilege of donating a kidney to save my father’s life. The doctors who saved my dad were phenomenal. We need to expand life-saving organ donations. My father is also a physician, so I have always respected medical professionals. I want to focus on lowering the cost of medicine without allowing for a government take-over of medicine like what will happen with Obamacare. One area we can focus on in Arizona is medical malpractice reform. I plan to focus on this as a state senator.

Campaign finance: public.