One of the key state Senate races in November spotlights candidates from two large and prominent rural families, rich in history of public service and politics.

All are descendants of pioneers who brought their common faith to Arizona.

But that is about as much common ground as there is between Republican House Speaker Jake Flake and his Democratic challenger Cameron Udall.

Unopposed in the September primary election, they will square off in the general for the District 5 Senate office that legislative veteran Jack Brown, a Democrat, leaves to run for the House. He, like Mr. Flake, is termed out and seeking a desk in the other chamber.

Jake’s tough to beat,” Mr. Brown said. “It all depends on how she runs her campaign.”

“I’m not running against Jake Flake,” said Ms. Udall, a 33-year-old single attorney, small business owner and rancher, in a July 9 telephone interview. “I’m running for the district. I’m a fresh new voice.”

She was preparing on that day to tend cattle on her father Steve Udall’s ranch.

A win for Mr. Flake, whose campaign reported nearly $110,000 in private contributions as of May 31, could widen the Republican’s 17-13 majority in the Senate and add votes against abortion, gay rights and Governor Napolitano’s major spending proposals.

A victory for Ms. Udall, who is making her first run at public office and only recently collected enough $5 contributions to apply for public funding of her campaign as a Clean Elections candidate, would retain the seat for Democrats and defy the odds against her as voiced by several political observers.

Ms. Udall said the fiscal 2005 state budget was good for rural Arizona, and the speaker voted against it.

“Rolling Jake was the only thing they could do,” she said, referring to a contingent of House Republicans who rolled over the speaker by forcing him to bring a budget larger than he liked to the floor, where it passed.

On a trip through the district the same day, Mr. Flake, 69 and father of 13 children, said he has been the strongest advocate for rural Arizona in the Legislature, and “I won’t let up.” The current budget, he said in a telephone interview, spends $400 million more than available revenue.

As for Ms. Udall, he said: “I’ve never seen her. I don’t even know her. She’s been away since high school and now she’s coming back and telling us how to run things.”

There are Flakes and Udalls aplenty in Arizona politics and have been for years, but now the stage has been set for what members of both families say is their first face-off for state office.

Names In The News

Five men with the Flake surname —three Republicans and two Democrats —have served in the Arizona Legislature, dating back to 1917. Jeff Flake, Jake Flake’s Republican nephew, is seeking re-election to the U.S House of Representatives from the 6th Congressional District. Three Udall brothers —two Republicans and one Democrat —served in the Arizona Legislature beginning in 1931. Two Udalls, Levi (the father of Morris and Stewart Udall) and, later, Jesse, served as Arizona chief justices. Cameron Udall is the second cousin of the late Morris Udall and his brother Stewart Udall, both born in St. Johns.

Morris Udall served 30 years in Congress and had a time in the national spotlight when he ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for president in 1976.

Stewart Udall had served in Congress for seven years when he was confirmed as President Kennedy’s secretary of the Interior.

“She’s doing a very courageous thing,” Stewart Udall, 84, said of Ms. Udall’s challenge of Mr. Flake, whom he called a “radical character.”

Many other Udall and Flake family members have held local elective offices in Arizona.

Cameron Udall, who served as a congressional page as a teen-ager, ran her father’s unsuccessful primary campaign for Congress in 2002.

About District 5

Legislative District 5 covers the southern sections of Apache and Navajo counties and all of Gila, Greenlee and Graham counties and the eastern Arizona communities of Clifton, Globe, Holbrook, Payson, Safford, Show Low, St. Johns and Snowflake (which was founded by Mormon pioneers Eratus Snow and William Flake).

Voter registration figures show Democrats with a 46 per cent to 37 per cent voter registration margin over Republicans. (Seventeen per cent of the district’s registrants are unaffiliated or are registered as independents or members of minor parties.).

Despite the Democrat edge, Mr. Flake has been elected to the House four times by margins ranging from approximately 2,000 to 7,000 votes.

“I find it hard to see how he could lose,” said Raymond Jordan, chairman of the Apache County Republican Party. “He’s certainly established here and is certainly going to win.”

Stewart Udall said people shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that Ms. Udall has no chance. “She’s smart, and I like her spirit,” he said. “She just might pull off an upset.”

Ms. Udall says she will better serve the needs of her rural district by supporting funding for tourism, education, and jobs creation and by running without private funding as a Clean Elections candidate.

Speaking about Mr. Flake, she said, “I’m not saying he is in the pocket of big business, but I won’t be beholden to any big business.”

Depending on how much money Mr. Flake spends in the primary election period and raises in the general election period, Ms. Udall may receive a maximum of $50,940 in public funding.

“I think it is an opportunity that will give me money I don’t have,” she said. “There’s no way I will ever get as much as him.”

Ms. Udall, who owns a photography business, raised $860 in seed money for her campaign, which is permitted under Clean Elections rules, and had spent $48 for envelopes and stamps.

Speaker Flake says he needs every dime he can raise because the state Democratic Party has targeted him for defeat and plans to spend $125,000 to accomplish that.

“They have said that publicly,” he said.

Sarah Rosen, who handles media relations for the Arizona Democratic Party, denied that the party ever has announced what it is going to do in this or any other race. “Why would we give away our game plan?” she asked.

A political party can spend an unlimited amount of money in campaigns as long as the spending is classified as “independent,” meaning it can only publicize issues and not name candidates. And candidates can have no advance knowledge, and therefore cannot coordinate, independent expenditures, said Autumn Southard of the Clean Elections Commission.

Any independent expenditure that is deemed by the Commission to cast a “negative” light on a Clean Elections candidate will trigger public matching funds for that candidate as long as the match does not exceed the $50,940 cap.

“The Democrat Party is strong behind her,” Mr. Flake said, adding that he has heard Ms. Udall is in constant contact with Governor Napolitano.

“The governor doesn’t want me in that position,” he said, referring to the Senate seat he is seeking.

Ms. Napolitano said July 14 she would campaign for Ms. Udall if asked. Mr. Flake, she said, did not support programs that are good for the state.

“…He didn’t want to reform Child Protective Services,” the governor said. Records show Mr. Flake voted for the CPS reform bill.

“He didn’t want to invest in education and all-day kindergarten. He was reluctantly in support of some other things, and so we just have a differen
t point of view about what Arizona needs to move forward.

“I think Cam Udall has views much more common to what I think needs to happen at the Legislative level to move things forward,” Ms. Napolitano said. “If he’s elected, I will respect that, and he will be a member of the Senate, and we’ll deal with that. In my view, the people in that district have a real choice.”

Campaign Funds

Mr. Flake had raised $109,607.99 as of May 31, a good portion of it from a large fund-raiser at the Hyatt in Phoenix last October, according to campaign records filed with the Secretary of State’s Office. His report shows $21,299.99 spent for the most recent reporting period, including $12,472.45 to the Hyatt.

He is a staunch opponent of the Clean Elections system. Congressman Jeff Flake is one of the main backers of an initiative that will appear on the general election ballot to repeal funding for the Clean Elections program, money for which comes from a 10 per cent surcharge on criminal and civil penalties, the $5 qualifying contributions and voluntary contributions that include another category of $5 contribution, an income tax check-off matched by the state general fund.

Speaker Flake said he started his own first legislative campaign on a shoestring. “I had no money when I started eight years ago,” he said, adding that public funding often is wasted on candidates “who do not have a chance of winning.”

Mr. Flake, owner of the F Bar Cattle Co., said he won his first election to the Legislature with $12,000 in contributions. Now, he said of his much larger war chest, “Right or wrong, the speaker attracts a lot of attention.”

Of Mr. Flake’s contributions through May, 36.2 per cent ($39,700) came from registered lobbyists, their spouses and employees of lobbying firms.

Forty-eight individuals contributed the maximum $280 each for $13,440, and contributors ranged from Jack Valenti, former special assistant to President Lyndon Johnson and president of the Motion Picture Association of America ($250) to nine individuals who gave $25 or less.

Political action committees donated $7,100 or 6.4 per cent of Mr. Flake’s funds, the largest of which was $500 from the Salt River Project Political Involvement Committee.

Mr. Flake’s campaign funds so far are the largest among Republican legislative candidates, who had raised a total of nearly $1.5 million.

“This just goes to show the continued broad-based support Republicans have across the state for members in both houses of the Legislature,” said Colin McCracken, spokesman for the Arizona Republican Party.

Ms. Udall and Mr. Flake are Mormon, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mr. Flake says the church encourages members to be involved in politics, but does not itself take positions, except on “moral issues” such as abortion, gambling and same-sex marriage, all of which it opposes.

Mr. Flake says he is “pro-life,” while Ms. Udall says she is “pro-choice.”

“I’m not radical pro-choice,” she said. “Abortion should be safe and very rare” and available only in cases of incest, rape and danger to the life of a pregnant woman.

Ms. Udall said her campaign will not be aimed at attacking her opponent, but she was critical of Mr. Flake’s representation of the district.

“He started out with the district in mind,” she said, but lately has failed to vote for its best interests.

“This is totally false,” Mr. Flake said. “I have always fought strongly for rural Arizona and have been the strongest advocate for the district, and I will never let up.”

He said he will continue to push for state trust land reform and listed forest health, private property rights and rural water legislation among his recent accomplishments.

“I’m not running to tear her down, which she seems to be doing to me,” Mr. Flake said. “I’ll run on my merits.” —