Long-time blogger and political activist, Pamela Powers holds a masters’ degree in public health from the University of Arizona and a bachelors’ degree in journalism from the Ohio State University. She has worked for many years in communications and public relations.
Powers stepped down from her position as the managing editor of the American Journal of Medicine to serve Legislative District 9 in the Arizona House. Powers won her seat in November 2016 and won her re-election bid in 2018. She continues to work part-time social media editor for the journal.
In addition to Blog for Arizona, she writes her own blog, The The Tucson Progressive and has contributed political stories to the Huffington Post.
Powers Hannley is co-director of Arizonans for a New Economy, Arizona’s public banking initiative.
Political website: PowersForThePeople.net
Facebook Page: Pamela Powers Hannley for House
Tucson Progressive on Facebook: Tucson Progressive
Twitter handle: @p2hannley Instagram: p2hannley
In any normal presidential election year (when I’m not running for office myself), I would have been hunkered down in front of the TV watching the Republican National Convention (RNC) this week.
But since I have had campaign events every night, I have had to depend upon social media and the lame stream media for my news. From what I have seen, the scene in Cleveland, my hometowm region, has been a wild ride. For a light-hearted look at how dire the situation is. Check out Randy Rainbow after the jump.
Talking about inequality and the stinky wages women make in Tucson.
Last Thursday, the Nucleus Club hosted the second LD9 Democratic Party match-up between the three candidates who will be on the primary ballot in August– Dr. Randy Friese, Matt Kopec, and me– Pamela Powers Hannley.
About 50 LD9 residents and party regulars attended the event at the Viscount. This was the fourth Democratic candidate forum that the club hosted during this election season; all were well-attended. Apparently, Democrats are no longer afraid of primaries because there are several this year: Congressional District 2 (Victoria Steele vs Matt Heinz); LD10 House race (Kirsten Engel, Stephanie Mach and Courtney Frogge), LD2 House race (Daniel Hernandez, Aaron Baumann and Rosanna Gabaldon), Pima County Superintendent of Schools (Dustin Williams and Michael Gordy), and my race in LD9.
Personally, I disagree with those who think primaries are a waste of money. I think they are a great idea. It gets the candidates out and allows different ideas to be heard. (Also, having almost no primaries int 2014 didn’t do us any good.)
Southern Arizona Legislative candidates arranged by the total amount they raised by June 1, 2016. The percentage of PAC funds is given at the top of each column. Green bars are Clean Elections candidates. (Source data: SOS Campaign Finance system.)
June 30 was the deadline for statewide and legislative candidates to file their campaign finance reports. Data nerds like me love slogging through the Secretary of State’s website for Ah-Ha moments of discovery. And there are some.
Remaining funds for each Southern Arizona Legislative candidate, after reported expenses have been subtracted. Green bars are Clean Elections candidates. (Source data: SOS Campaign Finance system.)
My primary reason for looking at these data was, of course, to gauge my campaign against others in Southern Arizona. For nearly a year, people have been telling me not to run as a Clean Elections (CE) candidate because “it’s just not enough money.” These two graphics show a somewhat different picture.
The top graphic shows that Daniel Hernandez (D-LD2) blew the doors off the fundraising barn by gathering $60,437, but Hernandez spent $25,489 to get there, leaving him with $34,948 on July 1. (Yes, of course, he can keep dialing for dollars every day from now until November 8, but that is a lot of time and manpower.) Ana Henderson (R-LD9) with $21,345 is the Clean Elections candidate with the most funds on July 1; she has spent only $1,367. You can see how the difference between these two candidates flattened out when you take into consideration the money Hernandez had to spend to raise $60,000. (Since Clean Elections has strict rules on how much we can collect in seed money and family money and how we receive once we have qualified for public funds, all of the candidates who have qualified for CE have roughly the same amount. Note the green bars on both graphs. (Fun fact: all of the qualified CE candidates in Southern Arizona are women.)
Let’s compare Hernandez to the other two candidates in the LD2 Democratic Party primary.
Unlike other years, when the Dems didn’t have much choice in the primary, this year there are several Democratic Party primaries coming up on August 30.
The Supreme Court is in the midst of its 2016 decision season, when legal cases that have been winding their way through the system for years have their big day. Since the Republicans in Congress refuse to do their job and confirm a new SCOTUS justice to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died suddenly, many … Read more
