The Pima County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday appointed Christopher Mathis and Morgan Abraham to take over two vacant seats in the Arizona House of Representatives.
The appointees will replace state Reps. Randall Friese and Stephanie Stahl Hamilton, who represented Legislative Districts 9 and 10 respectively.
Friese, a trauma surgeon who represented LD9, which covers the Catalina Foothills and Casas Adobes, said he resigned to focus on his medical career. His replacement, Mathis, is a professor at the University of Arizonaβs James E. Rogers College of Law who runs a local practice focusing on elder law.
Supervisor Rex Scott moved to appoint Mathis and said, βhaving somebody with a legal background is going to be very helpful to the entire caucus moving forward,β and that he values the new LD9 representativeβs βknowledge of the needs of senior citizensβ in a district with a large senior citizen population.
The Board of Supervisors appointed Stahl Hamilton to LD10βs vacant state Senate seat in October. Now, Abraham will take over her House seat in LD10, which covers much of central and eastern Tucson.
Abraham works at a Tucson real estate investment firm and as an intelligence officer at the United States Army Reserve.
The Pima Democratic Committees of each legislative district provided the board a list of three names for each open House seat. State law tasks the countyβs Board of Supervisors with selecting one of the three candidates.
The boardβs only Republican, Steve Christy, abstained from voting on both appointments. Supervisors Adelita Grijalva and Matt Heinz supported AnaKarina Rodriguez for LD9, but failed to obtain enough support from other supervisors.
