Rep.-elect Eric Meyer made state history in the 2008 election by becoming the first write-in candidate to receive public funding and advance to the state Legislature.
Meyer, who was recruited by the Democratic Party after former Rep. Mark DeSimone resigned earlier this year following an arrest for a domestic disturbance, came out at the top of the ticket in House District 11, leading Republican opponent Rep. Adam Driggs by 150 votes on Election Night.
Turning his attentions to January, Meyer hopes to help the state trim back the budget deficit projected for fiscal 2010, while maintaining the programs he considers essential. Meyer, a former emergency room physician who now is a stay-at-home dad, plans to improve public education, reduce the number of uninsured and help small businesses afford rising health care costs.
Meyer earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Southern California and a medical degree from the University of Arizona. He returned to Arizona with his family 11 years ago after serving as the emergency department director of Portland, Oregon’s Providence Hospital. Meyer became active in his children’s school district after quitting his practice to help his wife pursue her career with the Mayo Clinic. He serves on the Scottsdale School District Governing Board.
While campaigning, did you experience any questions of viability because of your write-in status?
There was a different strategy going into the primary than into the general. In the primary, the only people who could vote for me were the Democrats and the independents who pulled a Democratic ballot.
Having two things, already being on the school board and having name recognition, helped. I have not only run my school-board campaigns, but I have also been involved in bond and override campaigns for my district. I kind of had a network of people already in place, which is fortunate. I had to approach it as a regular campaign.
There was another person who was a write-in, and they got like 36 votes or something. It took a concerted campaign effort. I did a mailing. I knocked on a lot of doors. I started walking immediately and gave a lot of people sample ballots showing them how to vote for me. There were definite challenges, but I did have the party’s help, and they have a network, too, and those individuals have a network. It couldn’t have been done without the Internet. It totally changes the way you campaign. If this had been 20 years ago, it would have been really difficult to do all of it. I was the first one in state history ever to qualify for Clean Elections funding. So, Arizona history!
What difference did it make to get that Clean Elections funding?
I didn’t have it going into the primary, but, for the general, it made a big difference. If I had had to fundraise at the same time — I mean, I was already fundraising for my school district campaign. If I had had to fundraise for both of them, it would have just been all the more challenging.
Since I ran as a write-in, it took me a while to get my dollars because they had to count all the ballots by hand. But still, all of a sudden, I get the check for $19,000, which sounds like a lot of money, but it really is not. I got four mailings. I got other support as well because I got matching funds. I got $18,000 in the last weekend because my opponents spent more than their $19,000.
You are one of the few Democrats this election to succeed in a Republican district. Why do you think that is?
Couple things: One, so much of getting elected is about name recognition. I had a base. The part of District 11 that exists in the school district has a lot of Republicans who knew me. They had seen how I set policy on the school board and how that policy seemed sensible. We have had and will continue to have a lot of tough choices to make as a school district, and I spent a lot of time talking to parents about that. People know me and see me as a reasonable guy. That helps.
Then I spent a lot of time campaigning in the other parts of the district, meeting with businesses and the health care community. I got the endorsement of the Phoenix Chamber, which was a big endorsement. I had support of the teachers in the school district as well as the statewide teachers union. All of those things obviously helped. In these campaigns there are 100,000 voters, and you can’t talk to them all. So, if you can get some help that is the only way you can win.
What is your strategy going into your freshman year? Do you plan on laying back and observing or do you plan on introducing bills right away?
I may introduce some bills. At this point, I have a lot of learning to do. I am doing that now. I am meeting with people. I’m reading and getting up to speed on health care, education and transportation issues. The big issue is going to be the budget. We have $1.2 billion to cut in this year and then have another probably $2 billion next year.
Just like with the school budget, we are faced with choices. We had to cut $4.8 million from the school budget last year. In my mind, what my job will be is to help make at least the argument for choices that don’t do long-term damage to the state’s future. We need to protect education. We need to protect health care for kids. We have, depending on who you talk to, 240,000 to 270,000 uninsured children in our state. That isn’t righting itself. And also, when those kids get sick they don’t go to school and end up falling further behind. And public safety is obviously something you would want to protect. But after that, everything needs to be on the table.
Do you have any specific bill proposals in mind?
I would love to do something on state trust land reform. As you are well aware, there have been a number of initiatives, some have made it to the ballot and some didn’t because they didn’t have enough qualifying signatures. From an education standpoint, that is a revenue stream that isn’t being maximized or optimized right now. If we can get a bipartisan solution to that in the Legislature, it would be good for the kids in this state.
We will see what happens with education funding this year. Last year, we got our 2 percent, but we didn’t get our facilities funding and some other things that led to the need for us to make cuts last year. This year I am sure will be the same, and, without the governor (Janet Napolitano) being there, education won’t be as protected. We will see.
How do you foresee budget discussions between your caucus and a Republican majority and Republican governor?
You know, they don’t need our votes as much. It is a possibility we will be shut out. You have to look to the future. I think Jan Brewer has had aspirations to be the governor of the state, and if she wants to run in two years she has to make sensible choices. She has to get the votes from the whole state.
When I was out knocking on doors, people were concerned about having jobs that are well-paying jobs so that they can feed their kids and hold onto their homes. Education was a second big issue. If she lets education and everything we have accomplished in the last six years be slashed, it may be harder for her to re-elected.
I haven’t sat down and had a conversation with the new speaker (of the House). But from what I have heard, he has been working well with the Democrats. We will see how that progresses through the session.
What do you think about the choice of Rep. Kirk Adams as the speaker?
You know, you always have to wait and see. I do
n’t know him personally, but I have heard he is a man of his word. So far, he has been when he is dealing with our caucus.
What about some of your other colleagues? How are your relationships with them?
Although Adam (Driggs) and I were opponents, having gone down there and advocating for years I have pretty good relationships with Representative Michele Reagan, Senator Carolyn Allen and Adam. They are all in the other party, though, so they weren’t super helpful during my race.
Adam has already has given me a tour of the Capitol and shown me the ropes. That has been helpful. I feel like I can go to them when I have questions. And I am willing to work with them on issues. I have already talked with Carolyn about working with her on health care. I think those will be helpful relationships.
What effect will a split-party representation have on the quality of representation your district receives this session?
I hope we will see a lot of bipartisan efforts. I can just talk about my experience on the school board. When I was first elected to the school board we had a lot of 4-1, 3-2 votes. Now we are all working together. I think if we do the same thing at the Legislature as we do at that board — that is keep the goal of how to move the state forward in perspective — we will be able to work together.
With a background in economics, education and health care, what is your perspective on the status of the state?
Well, it is the whole country and the whole world. We have an economic crisis on our hands. Who knows how deep the recession will go, but the question is: Are we making the right decisions in this time period we are in?
The things that have held up in our economy are the things we have invested in, like education. If we are going to be competitive globally, we have to be well-educated. And we have to have jobs that are knowledge-based jobs. We have to be looking at water conservation and solar, all the things that are the jobs of the future. We need to make sure that we are not short-sighted in cutting the state budget in a way that affects those jobs. I think we can do that, the question is: Will we do that?
You are the only physician at the Legislature, correct?
No, Matt Heinz, another Democrat from Tucson is an internist. When they come into the ER, I would see them, and, if they need to be admitted, I would send them up to him. So, now we have two of us in the Legislature. We went from none to two. I think when we look at health care policy it will be good to have us there. Particularly, so much of the discussion is about what happens in emergency rooms, because when people don’t have insurance that is where they show up.
So how do you want to spend your money? Spending it in the ER is incredibly inefficient for most things that come to the ER because they aren’t truly emergencies. If we had clinics and stuff, those issues could be addressed there.
I was talking to a guy at an early meeting who has an online system where you can subscribe and see the doctor for $35 online. For simple stuff, you wait and they have an intake nurse who gets all the data and then a doctor will come online. They can prescribe medication, too. So if you have an ear infection, you don’t have to wait in the ER for four hours. You just sit at home, they do the thing online, they do your prescription online and then you go and get it filled. It is great. And it is not that expensive either.
Representative Phil Lopes has tried for several years to get a universal health care bill through the Legislature. Is that something you would be in favor of?
I haven’t read his bill, so I can’t comment specifically on that. But all reform needs to go through steps. To go from the system we’re in today to a completely new system isn’t going to happen. There are too many intersects, too many jobs at stake and uncertainty.
I think what I would work on as a legislator is figuring out how to take care of those who don’t have insurance and how to make health care affordable for small businesses. What is happening now is that, as the cost of health care insurance raises, small businesses can’t afford it. In an economy like this, we are going to have more people uninsured and showing up in the ER.
Should a universal health care system even be a goal?
It could be a goal. I think everybody should be insured, whether that is through a universal system or some other system. If you go completely to a Canadian-type universal heath care system, what you have is a two-tiered system, and you control your costs by rationing, basically. I don’t know if that is the best system because it takes the capitalism out of it.
There could be another type of system that would still involve insurance companies and physicians’ choice that are important to people in this country. I am not tied to one type of system; not any system is perfect.
How do you recommend the state lower the uninsured rate and make health care more affordable for small businesses?
For the uninsured population, KidsCare was an example of how the Legislature can work to start insuring a specific group of uninsured kids and provide them benefits that we know if we spend dollars on them now will reduce costs later.
We need to continue to look at programs like that. We need to at least be preserving that program in this economic environment. The amazing thing is for those programs we get matching funds, so whenever we cut one dollar at the state level we loose two federal dollars. Those dollars create jobs for doctors, nurses and a whole bunch of people. If we use those dollars wisely, and don’t cut there, it makes our in-state economy better by receiving those federal dollars.
If you talk to the hospital association (Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association), when we cut $12 million from the budget last year, the state lost another $24 million. Those were dollars that when they make plans to build hospitals — and we don’t have enough hospitals in our state — or train new physicians, they count on.
If you’re a business thinking of moving to Arizona and you know we have cut education and there is not great health care, do businesses come here? It doesn’t matter how great the taxes are, they aren’t going to come here.
In terms of education, you have mentioned the importance of protecting K-12 education. Do you think university funding should be protected in the same manner K-12 funding is?
I don’t know that it should be off the table because you have to look at things globally, and there are a lot of tough choices. The Board of Regents is faced with the same decision I am always faced with at the school board, except I can’t raise tuition. Do you lay off faculty? Do you increase class size? And I am sure they are calculating, what will happen if they raise tuition dollars too high. Will they loose students? And if they loose those kids, what does that mean to the future of our state?
Our economy brings the need to have a degree of higher education; 90 percent of jobs are going to require that. If we want our economy to grow, then we need to keep that in mind. I don’t know the answer to your question of should it be off the table. Probably not. But it would be one of the last things that I would cut.
What are some things you think could be cut?
Well, I can tell you what we do in the school district, and I would do the same thing for the state. You look for inefficiencies at every level. We have done that at the school level. We have cut our utility usage, we have shifted to different types of workweeks during the summer, and we have shut down facilities. I would look at consolidating facilities and look at the utility spending. Schools are the biggest user of utilities, and the state is probably
the second biggest user.
You have to look at what you can postpone into the future without affecting the future of the state. Are their projects that can be postponed? In the school district, we do the same type of thing. At the state level, I would be looking at the things that don’t affect the future. Then there are assets that the state holds that could be used as well. The state holds on to the coliseum for the fair every year. It is not the best market for selling real estate, but there are assets that could be liquidated.
Are there any programs you think need to be cut all together?
If that was what was necessary, I would cut programs. But when I hear that type of thing I think about a limb that is not getting good circulation and we have the option of either going in and surgically fixing that or we could amputate. Cutting programs seems like the amputation approach, where you are just randomly making decisions without fully looking to the effects of what that would mean for the state. It might be better to cut back spending for that agency for a few years until the economy improves.