Republican – Legislative District 16 House

Phone: (602) 885-6691

Address: 1930 E Tonto, Apache Junction, AZ 85119

Age: 63. (10/08/50, Pocatello, ID).

Arizona since: 1978

Occupation: President, WeatherShack Inc, since 1983; real estate broker/Owner, Jfillmore, LLC, since 2004; owner, Fillmore Sales, since 1975.

Marital: Married

Children: 1

Education: High school, 1969.

Political experience: President, Superstition Republican Club; precinct committeeman; state committeeman.

Legis exp: House 2011-12.

Interests: Entreprenurialship, metal art.

Two biggest issues: Education funding and structure. We have over 227 school districts and only 15 counties, [and] I will proceed to work to reduce redundancy, waste and duplication by trying to consolidate and reduce while leaving money in the classroom for the teachers. I would like to empower teachers with the ability to suspend students, forcing administration to do its job and giving teachers control of their unruly students. I would like to see the universities stop requiring unwanted and wasteful social classes that are not needed for some career fields but that force kids to take out more loans and increase their studies in things that are unnecessary for their career fields. I want to work to increase college graduation rates in the state without increasing educational budgets.

Budget priorities: Zero-based budgets would be nice, as well as two-year budgets and longer future forecasts by the state. We must be the first state in the country to work to move people off of welfare rather than just increase it by working to create jobs and diversification in our state’s economy. I would like to see some leadership in getting the state Land Department off its ass and move ahead the Red Rock switching yards, which will have an immediate impact on jobs and opportunities in the heart of our state, benefiting Pima, Pinal and Maricopa counties immediately and well into the next century.

Fiscal philosophy: Frugal, economical, prudent, thrifty, resourceful, sparingly, careful, stingy, wary, tight, miserly, thoughtful, penny pinching, niggardly, close- fisted, and downright not wasteful.

Common Core: [Common Core] has alienated and become divisive in the community. Rather, I would like to see simpler methods of evaluation of teaching methods, allowing teachers to teach and testing along the lines of national comparisons (i.e., SAT or equivalent ACT scores). I believe teachers love to teach and if we continue to bind their methods and not allow them to be creative in their achievement of teaching kids, we risk the potential to do great harm to the kids, society and our workforce. We need to pay teachers more, allow them to teach and gauge them on their ability to educate and move kids forward rather than become more intrusive in social fairness, non-educating arenas. Common Core was supposed to be a method of evaluation but has become a lightening-rod of federal overreach and intrusion.

Gifts to elected officials: Make up a list of everything we get from the free lunches to the paid junkets. Heck, it would not be a huge headache to list it all. That is what we have aides to help us with. Simple lists can be made for transparency, and I would have no problem with justifying to my constituents what trip reimbursements I receive for any schooling, studies, or educational trips I take. They have a right to see what I am up to when I work for them and how I vote in response to certain trips, and this would not be a “burden” or overbearing in my opinion.

Transparency in government: Transparency is a good things, but there are occasions when privacy is needed in some negotiations and discussions before votes.

Pro-life / pro-choice: I believe in LIFE, all life.

Public policy advice: My Pastor, my wife, my friends, my family.

Fillmore, John

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