Gazette/Connection Contributor
Dr. Elaine Bohlmeyer's run for the Arizona State Senate is perhaps more challenging than her opponents because she has chosen to abide by Arizona Citizens Clean Election guidelines. This means that Bohlmeyer will not be accepting special interest contributions.
Bohlmeyer, a Payson resident, is running unopposed in the Democratic primary for Arizona State senator and will face the winner of the Republican primary in November.
Since 2002, registration of Democratic Party voters in Legislative District 5(which includes Payson) has fallen nearly eight percentage points. During that same time, Republican registration showed gains.
This would not appear to bode well for Democratic candidates in November, but Bohlmeyer is not intimidated and she’s been working hard.
“I love to do research," she said. "And that’s what I’ve been spending a lot of my time doing - researching the various issues and finding out the facts. I won’t pass bills without doing my research and looking at what the possible impacts are going to be. I don’t want to pass laws that turn out to be disasters.”
Bohlmeyer was up-front about her strategy.
“We have to keep pointing out the fact that, in this state, Republicans have been in control of the legislature for 40 years or more. They have failed to produce the kinds of legislation that would help the state to grow and it’s indefensible,” she said.
When Bohlmeyer attended the opening of the Democratic headquarters in Payson she made the statement that she wasn’t interested in balancing the state budget on the backs of kids.
“That’s what we’re doing," she said. "We’re punishing our kids for the mistakes that the previous legislators made.
“All this trickledown economics still seems popular with people. They think that if you give tax breaks and cuts and incentives to the big businesses and the wealthy people, then they (in turn) will hire the less wealthy people and that will help the economy. The kids don’t have time to wait for that in the first place, even if it worked — and it doesn’t work.”
With Arizona's revenue down considerably, Bohlmeyer talked about what she would like to do to clean up the state's budget woes.
“I don’t like to talk about raising taxes and I would not like to raise taxes on middle and lower income people," she said. "But I would advocate cutting out the tax loopholes that corporations get. There are tax breaks that wealthy people get for things like joining country clubs and spa treatments - things that lower and middle income people wouldn’t think of doing.”
Bohlmeyer talked about the numbers:
“The richest people pay 4.5 percent (in state income tax). Anybody making $150,000 a year pays 4.5 percent, so, if you make $350,000 a year, if you make $1 million a year, you still pay 4.5 percent.
"Most states will go up to about six percent. When the Republicans talk about giving tax breaks across the board — look at the bill!
"One of the bills I looked at would have cut the wealthiest by one-half percent. The lowest income would have gotten a one-quarter percent break and a one-quarter percent break on $30,000 a year gives you enough money to take your family out to dinner.
"However, on $300,000, a half-percent gives you well over $1,000. So, when they talk about cutting taxes across the board, that’s what they are doing - they are protecting the corporations and their wealthy friends.”
Bohlmeyer also talked about SB 1070, the state's immigration bill, and what she thought about that piece of legislation.
"It was frustration that people felt with the immigration issue even though now they are finding that there are fewer illegal immigrants coming over than there were 10 or 15 years ago because our economy is bad and there aren’t as many jobs.
"And crime along the border is down, but people’s perception is that there are a lot of illegals coming across and that so many of them are gangsters and carrying drugs and that kind of thing because that’s partly what our governor says. So people tend to believe that.”
Regarding the federal ruling against parts of SB 1070, Bohlmeyer said it is expensive for the state to defend a lawsuit.
"Bill Konopnicki even said, in one of his forums, that if the federal government wins a lawsuit over Arizona, then Arizona’s going to turn around and sue the federal government for not enforcing its laws," she said.
Bohlmeyer said that would be vindictive and would keep the lawsuit going on, that it would be expensive and would take away from the important issues of education, jobs, and making the state energy independent.
Bohlmeyer then turned to the issue of returning war veterans, something, she points out, other candidates aren't talking about.
“We’re going to have all these young people coming back from Afghanistan," she said. "In former wars, you see what happens - they get plunked back into society and we say, 'Okay, take up where you left off'.
"But, they’ve had two or more years of that military culture, and if it doesn’t show up right away, then it’s five, 10, 15 years down the road when we see loss of productivity, relationship problems, employment problems, etc."
Bohlmeyer said she would like to get a federal grant for a pilot program in Arizona to do an intensive re-orientation into civilian life. The program would include counseling and de-briefing of what the veterans have gone through. It would recognize what the emotional impact is for these veterans and would then assist them with getting a job or into an educational program.
"They need to be productive and feel good about themselves," Bohlmeyer said. "And then we'll see if that wouldn't cut down on the awful post-traumatic stress syndrome people are suffering from."
As a representative of LD5, Bohlmeyer said, if elected, she would work as a team player.
"Basically, in both of the areas that I worked — in nursing and school psychology — I had to work in teams," she said. "I had to work with groups and I had to use mediation and collaborative skills and using reason, not just emotion to make decisions because emotional decisions turn out to be short-term fixes that get us in trouble, like SB 1070.”
Since Bohlmeyer has chosen to abide by the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections guidelines, she is restricted financially. She cannot collect money from corporations or political action committees like her opponents who are running traditional campaigns.
"They can collect as much as they want," she said. "I think Clean Elections is a good thing because it allows people like me who don’t have a lot of money or a lot of rich friends, to run.
"Both Sylvia Allen and Bill Konopnicki are running traditionally so that takes a lot of restrictions off them. Some Republicans are saying that clean elections should be done away with altogether.”
No comments:
Post a Comment