Competitive races in far-ranging House districts 19, 21, 23

Voters will select two candidates among Republican and Democrat nominees in the Nov. 8 general election in contested races in the newly redrawn Arizona House legislative districts 19, 21 and 23.

The districts represent mostly southern and eastern Arizona, except for LD23, which stretches mostly west of Tucson from the international border north to Yuma and on up to Phoenix.

District 19Two Republican incumbents and one Democratic candidate are running in this race in the district that includes portions of Pima, Santa Cruz, Graham, Greenlee and Cochise counties, including the city of Douglas.

Republican incumbent Lupe Diaz of Benson is a conservative representing District 14 after being appointed in November 2021 to replace Rep. Becky Nutt of Clifton who resigned. He serves on committees including Education, Ways and Means; Land, Agriculture and Rural Affairs. Diaz is pastor of Grace Christian Center in Benson and administrator of the academy. He is a former Benson city councilman and president of the Chamber of Commerce. He grew up in Bisbee and on a quarter and appaloosa horse ranch, according to campaign literature.

Diaz’s platform includes his support of requiring voter identification, proof of citizenship, paper ballots and single-day voting to keep elections safe and secure from fraud. He promotes a completion of a border wall, increased border enforcement, and working to end drug, gun and human trafficking. In addition to funding public schools, Diaz said educators must be held accountable and show results in the academic progression of students. He also supports school choice and offering parents more options for their children’s education.

Gail Griffin of Hereford is the other Republican incumbent, and she has lived in Cochise County for 53 years and in District 19 for 26 years. She is a former state senator from 2011 to 2019.

Griffin serves on house committees including as chairman of the Natural Resources, Energy and Water; Land, Agriculture and Rural Affairs; Appropriations; and vice-chairman of Rules. She is a real estate broker for Sierra Vista Realty.

Griffin’s political platform includes a belief in smaller and smarter government, less taxes, personal responsibility, protection of property rights and in the free enterprise system. She said she “will continue to fight to get education dollars into the classroom for students and teachers.” She advocates for veterans, transparency in government, and will challenge federal overreach.

Democrat Sanda Clark of Green Valley is a concert pianist who escaped communism in her native Bucharest, Romania. She has lived in Pima County for 18 years and in District 19 four years. She studied at the University of Texas in Austin in 1968 and met Harry Clark, a cellist and playwright, who she married. She said her decades-long career, performing in some of the world’s great concert halls, was a heady experience, but her biggest thrill was becoming a naturalized citizen of the U.S., her adopted country. She said she is running for representative because of her life in Bucharest and seeing the events in Ukraine in its war with Russia.

Clark said she will work to establish a sustainable water policy in Cochise County, which is outside the area of Arizona’s Groundwater Management Act of 1980, a law to control rampant groundwater depletion. She said there are residents in the county whose wells have dried up, and they pay to truck in water. “Failure to establish a sustainable water policy in Cochise is not an option. All Arizonans deserve a ‘sustainable yield’ policy,” she said.

Clark said she is supports pro-choice because she lived in communist Romania where abortion was not legal. She said recent state laws banning abortion gives her “flashbacks to the forced birth policies.” She also favors fully funded public schools and trade schools, fair wages for teachers, and making charter schools accountable and ending “the get-rich-quick charter school scams.”

District 21

Two Republican nominees and two Democratic candidates are facing off in this district that encompasses western Pima County, about half of Santa Cruz County and the city of Bisbee in Cochise County.

Republican Damien Kennedy of Amado has lived in Pima County for 15 years and in District 21 for one year. He received a master certificate from Cannabis Training University, a college in Denver. He also has an associate of arts degree in design and visual communications, and a bachelor’s in web and multimedia from Collins College in Phoenix. He is a contract employee of Amado Management. The business is a medical marijuana production complex and Kennedy works to provide genetic acquisitions and analytical analysis to create “medical cannabis strains that will better help patients across Arizona and beyond,” he said.

Kennedy said he wants to work with Pima Community College, Cochise College and business schools about developing programs in Southern Arizona high schools where students can earn college credit. He said he also plans to meet with officials of Pima, Santa Cruz and Cochise counties to discuss the reduction of bureaucratic regulations in order to help promote economic development. After speaking to small business owners in rural communities, he said he learned that owners are ready to expand their businesses, but they cannot afford to do so because of additional regulations, including the expansion of parking lots.

Kennedy also said he plans on holding the secretary of state accountable for working to make elections fair and equal for every voter and making sure voters have easy access to vote. He said the Legislature has to toughen laws to do away with ballot harvesting and must monitor ballot drop boxes. He said politicians should not legislate morality regarding pro-choice or pro-life. “We are here to protect rights and not to approve or disapprove abortion. It is a choice between a woman and her doctor,” said Kennedy.

Republican candidate Deborah McEwen of Rio Rico has lived in both Santa Cruz County and District 21 for five years. The native of Howell, Michigan, is a retired federal and state criminal justice employee. “Representatives are defenders of your civil rights and guardians of constitutional rights for every American,” said McEwen. “As a conservative, I will defend the right of every parent to have access to school choice, for Arizonans to freely practice their religion and follow their convictions.” She advocates for veterans and supports law enforcement and border security.

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McEwen said she supports “the enforcement of immigration policies that keep families safe and together with a clear pathway to citizenship.” She favors the expansion of mental health services for youth and families through mental health agencies, and mental health counseling at schools. McEwen also supports an increase in mental health services for the homeless, including substance abuse treatment. She advocates for the adoption of minimum standards on voter education, registration and ballots, and believes this would improve standardization between counties, creating a fairer and more transparent voting experience.

Democrat candidate Consuelo Hernandez serves as president of the Sunnyside Unified School District Governing Board, and she attended Sunnyside schools. She has lived in Pima County for 29 years and in District 21 for one year. Hernandez received a bachelor’s in global health from Arizona State University, and a master’s in legal studies with a concentration in economics from the University of Arizona. She has hosted free citizenship clinics in Tucson and has raised money for students to pay for their DACA renewals. She said she learned the importance of community service and public service from her parents.

She has campaigned on her commitment to restoring funding for education by providing monies for the classrooms and paying teachers competent salaries so they do not have to work up to three jobs to pay their bills. She does not believe public education dollars should pay for school vouchers. She is a pro-choice candidate and said abortion is a health-care issue and the matter should be between the woman and her health care provider.

Hernandez said she favors rebuilding Arizona’s economy by investing in small businesses and investing in infrastructure and renewable energy. She said she will work with house members to build critical coalitions that will deliver on the needs of her district and for the needs of Arizonans.

Stephanie Stahl Hamilton is an ordained minister and serves as parish associate at St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church. Hamilton was born in Flagstaff and during her childhood she spent years on the Navajo Nation. She received her master’s degree of divinity at Princeton Theological Seminary. She was elected in 2020 as a state representative, and last October she was appointed to replace District 10 Sen. Kirsten Engel who resigned to run for Congress.

She has campaigned for higher pay for teachers and to fully fund education and said she has seen as a substitute teacher, a coach, a coordinator of after school programs and a member of a parent teacher organization how the lack of investment in public education has adversely affected communities. She has worked to reverse the voucher expansion law passed in 2017, and worked in 2018 to stop the expansion and the lack of regulation in the voucher expansion system. She said higher education and job training must be more available for youth to keep them in the state workforce.

Hamilton said the environment needs protection and “regulations need to be put into place regarding water use, ranching, farming and mining. Our decisions must reflect a mindset of sustainability. Our state lands and sacred sites contribute to the overall quality of life in Arizona and must be honored and protected, as well.” She favors enacting sensible gun safety laws, including universal background checks, mandating a waiting period, and requiring education for safe gun storage practices. She also believes in access to reproductive health care and contraception.

District 23

One Republican candidate and two Democrat nominees are campaigning in this sprawling district that runs mostly west of Tucson from the international border to Yuma and meanders up to Phoenix. It includes the Tohono O’odham Nation, a small section of Tucson’s southwest side and portions of Pima, Santa Cruz, Yuma, Pinal and Maricopa counties.

Republican Michele Peña, who was born and raised in Yuma, has lived in District 23 for 35 years. She works for ALCO Harvesting, an agriculture business that manages farm workers in California and Arizona. She is a fourth generation Yuman who lived in Tucson for 12 years in what is now District 23. She said her mother is an immigrant from Mazatlán, a Mexican resort town in Sinaloa, and her father is a Vietnam veteran who was born in San Antonio, Texas and raised in Yuma.

She said one of her top concerns is the Arizona economy and the impact inflation is having on working families when they go to the gas stations and grocery stores. .

She also said she supports the teaching of back to basics — reading, math, writing and history — in public education. She said the Legislature needs to take a major role in funding public schools, and the federal government should not be involved in Arizona’s education.

Democrat Jesus Lugo Jr. of Gadsden is a native of Yuma. He is a social worker who has lived in Maricopa County for four years and in District 23 for 24 years. He received a bachelor’s from Arizona State University in 2014. He works part-time in administration at Southwellness, a medical practice in Paradise Valley, and part-time in suicide prevention for La Frontera EMPACT Suicide Prevention Center in Tempe.

In a survey for Ballotpedia, he said he will work to improve the life of working families, children, the elderly, the sick and the poor. Lugo favors putting more resources into education, mental health and substance abuse treatment, and also increasing support for domestic violence victims. He said he supports pro-choice.

Democrat Mariana Sandoval of Goodyear grew up in the San Fernando Valley in Southern California. She is a graduate of Los Angeles Mission College with a degree in interdisciplinary and paralegal studies. Her mother immigrated from Mexico to give her family a better life. Sandoval and her husband moved to Arizona in 2007 and own Sandoval Legal Services in Goodyear, according to financial disclosure documents.

In campaigning, Sandoval said the “public school system is failing children and educators” and everyone should have access to safe and quality education regardless of socioeconomic status. She said she will prioritize investing in education and “fully funded K-12 schools, increase educators pay, expand quality early childhood programs and restore funding to our community colleges.”