Jeff Latas is a Democratic candidate for Congress in Arizona’s CD8. What will probably catch people’s notice about Jeff is that he is a veteran, as is his son Jesse. Jeff is one of a group of about 40 veterans running for Congress this cycle, the Band of Brothers. But what Jeff would prefer to catch your attention is his bold stands on energy policy and environmental protection and his training as an aerospace engineer. Either way. Jeff is a man of parts, and he wants to be your representative in Congress.

Jeff is 48, husband to Salette for 26 years, and father of two – 6 if you count the dogs, which they are inclined to do. Salette and Jeff were an ROTC romance, having meet at boot camp. Jeff lived in Arizona while attending UofA, where he received a BS in Aerospace Engineering. He later attended University of Central Michigan while in the service and achieved a Master’s degree in Public Administration. Jeff spent 20 years in service to his country flying F-15E Strike Eagles for most of his career and was decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross on the 3rd night of Desert Storm, as well as 4 air medals, and 9 aerial achievement medals. Jeff retired from active military service in 2001 and took a job as an airline pilot for Jet Blue.

Jeff lives in district 8, and has been a registered Democrat since he could first register to vote at age 18. This is his first attempt at government office, besides student government, and the first political campaign he’s been involved with. Jeff feels that his best qualification for office is his ability to grasp how disparate policy areas, such as defense, energy and environment, interlock. Jeff describes himself as an agnostic who endorses the Gaia hypothesis, and thinks that evolution is a scientific fact.

In his personal charitable giving, Jeff and Salette are supporters of animal welfare causes, such as Foundation for Animals In Risk (FAIR) and pit bull rescue, as well as Defenders of Wildlife and Save the Children. I think it says a lot about someone when they support causes which help protect those who can’t protect themselves. The only magazine that Jeff subscribes to in print form is ‘The Nation’, and the last book he read was ‘Running on Empty’ by Pete Peterson.

I found Jeff to be a credible and well-informed candidate with an open mind, strong principles, and can-do attitude. On the logistics of his campaign, Jeff is realistic, but optimistic. He knows that he is facing at least one, and possibly two primary challengers who likely have the ability to raise much more money that him. He points out that he getting a lot of professionals volunteering for his campaign who are providing many of the services, such as PR and video production, for free that others will have to pay for.  Jeff says he’s not really sure how much his campaign has raised so far, but I would guess it to be around 25K – one tenth of what Gabby Giffords reported for the last quarter.

Jeff has a lot of credibility and expertise on military and foreign policy issues; probably a good deal more than any other candidate in the race of either party. For this reason I dwelt on those issues in this interview. Jeff would probably accept that label, but would also be quick to point out that the centerpiece of his campaign is energy policy and environment. This a new and bold strategy for a Congressional campaign, which usually center on bread and butter domestic issues such as jobs and economic development in the district, or on headline issues which the public is focused on, such as Iraq or immigration, at the moment. It will be interesting to see if the electorate responds to a candidate whose central message is changing our energy economy. In the right hands, Jeff’s theme has the ability to become the center of a powerful narrative that touches on nearly every aspect of our society. We’ll see if Jeff is up to the challenge of getting voters to dance to his tune.

Jeff sometimes talks like a fighter jock in the locker room, so the interview has a few bits with slightly salty language. I didn’t think it right to scrub Jeff’s natural demeanor from the transcript. He is who he is.  The transcript has been edited for brevity (and it’s still really long!) so some of the back and forth and surplus has been removed, but it comes close to a verbatim transcript. This interview with Jeff Latas took place on March 9th 2006.

President Bush’s announcement of a cooperative agreement with India on nuclear power generation technology should have come as no surprise. As early as 2001 the Bush Administration was looking at ways of expanding the American relationship with India. The 2004 India-U.S. Next Step initiative suggested a ‘presumption of approval’ for American dual use nuclear equipment exports to India, and that policy is essentially what the Bush Administration’s agreement with India attempts to accomplish.

However, the Administration’s initiative is not legal under current American law, and poses a significant danger of collapsing the core obligations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT) – the central source of authority for global non-proliferation, and the very treaty under which the Administration currently seeks to refer Iran to the Security Council. In order for the Administration to open India to American exports of nuclear technology, the Congress will have to pass a concurrent resolution waiving several provisions of the Atomic Energy Act. (for details Download CRS Report).

There are significant reasons why Congress should not do so. The most salient being the damage it would do international reliance on core commitments of the NNPT, and the resulting encouragement of nuclear proliferation and regional escalation, especially in Asia.

Political science professors Poole and Rosenthal analyze the political behavior of Congress over time using Roll Call votes to determine the relative position of representatives on a basic liberal-moderate-conservative scale. The results of the their study confirm what many would intuit; that American politics is becoming increasingly polarized, and the views of elected officials have become more extreme.

The data sorts officials by a single score reflecting their voting patterns. The lower a score, the more liberal the official; the higher, the more conservative. This ranking separates the parties with perfect accuracy, except for a few outliers who persist in marginally hostile districts. For Arizona in the 109th Congress, the data shows that several of Arizona’s representative are among the most extremely conservative in the nation – I would contend far more conservative than the mainstream of even the Republican electorate. The Arizona Delegation is ranked here, with #1 being the most liberal member of the House, and #435 being the most conservative.