Whichever candidate voters in state Senate District 30 choose, they will be getting someone with years of experience in elected government. The only question is whether that experience was gained in Arizona.
Republican Jonathan Paton, an Arizona native and two-term member of the state House of Representatives, and Democrat Georgette Valle, a former Washington state resident and self-described snowbird who became a part-time Green Valley resident in 2001 and full-time Arizonan three years ago, are squaring off to determine who will replace outgoing Republican Sen. Tim Bee. Bee is running in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District.
Paton said he wants to take the issues on which he has focused during his four years in the House and bring them to the Senate. He touts a record of reforming Child Protective Services and improving public access to government information.
“I think I’ve done a good job in the House, and I think I can do even more in the Senate. You’re one out of 30 instead of one out of 60. I have the experience, having served for four years in the House, and I best know the district because I was born and raised here in the district,” he said.
While Paton, 37, has four years of experience in elected government, Valle, 83, has nearly 30. The Democrat spent 24 years in the Washington Legislature, and another four years on the City Council in the town of Burien. After living in Arizona part-time for about four years, in large part due to the weather, Valle made her move permanent in 2005.
Arizona is not Washington, Valle concedes, but she may sound right at home pushing her biggest issue — water. Valle said she is running because of Arizona’s water shortage. She wants to enact legislation that would make it more difficult for mining companies to tap into Arizona’s water supply. As a state lawmaker in Washington, Valle voted in 1994 for a settlement between the state, a mining company and others that required the company to protect a water source near its operations.
If elected, Valle said she would propose legislation that would give state and local government more regulatory oversight before mining companies are given approval to drill water wells. It would also require public meetings before approval was given, giving citizens more oversight as well.
“It’s because I don’t really see that anyone – this includes Democrats and Republicans – has done anything about the water shortage, the water crisis here in Arizona,” Valle said.
Public education and fair taxes also are important issues for Valle, she said. She wants to scrutinize Arizona’s tax code for inequities, and increase funding for public schools.
Paton has ideas for what he wants to accomplish in the Senate as well. A top priority, he said, would be new laws on domestic violence. Under the existing statute, Paton said, spousal abuse is a misdemeanor for the first two offenses, and a felony for any subsequent domestic-violence charges. But for victims who are dating their abusers instead of married to them, there are no felony charges, Paton said. Such victims also do not have the right to take out a protective order against their abusers, a right that married victims have.
Another issue that is important to Paton is freedom of information. Paton helped push through a series of bills that reformed Child Protective Services, an endeavor that opened CPS files on fatalities and near-fatalities of children. In the Senate, Paton hopes to put more government records online, and wants to work with the Internet search-engine Google to make them more accessible to citizens.
“I think we could empower citizens to help reform government by understanding their government a lot better,” said Paton, who received a Freedom of Information Award from the Arizona Newspapers Association in 2007.
In 2005, Paton also helped author the now-famous bill to crack down on human smugglers in Arizona. The law has become extremely controversial due to an interpretation by Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas and Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who are using it to prosecute illegal immigrants as co-conspirators with their smugglers.
Paton said that was not his intention when he and Senate President Tim Bee introduced the legislation.
“Just on the letter of the law, that’s not how I presented it and I’m not going to change my story now,” he said. “We wrote it pretty clearly, I thought. I’m a pretty strict constructionist when it comes to the law. But I will say that anything that reduces the number of people here illegally is a good thing.”
Valle said she will rely on some of her experience as a long-time legislator in Washington, but knows that Arizona is a different state. Since moving here, she said she has spent a great deal of time knocking on doors, talking to people and finding out what they want from government.
And for Valle, sometimes different is good, as in the case of Arizona’s Clean Elections funding.
“I am a Clean Elections candidate. It’s pretty fantastic for me because I’ve raised money all my life for my campaigns,” she said.