UPDATED Nov. 20: A Dozen LD9 Candidates Seek Appointment to Replace Rep. Randy Friese

10/20 UPDATE: The LD 9 PCs elected Chris Mathis, Nathan Davis, and Anakarina Rodriguez to the slate of three candidates for appointment to be submitted to the Pima County Board of Supervisors for appointment to the vacant House seat.

First, a few disclaimers: BlogForArizona has no formal association with the Democratic Party, nor any subdivision thereof. We are an independent news and opinion publication. Any videos displayed here do not constitute an endorsement or preferment of any candidate by anyone. All candidates are free to submit videos up to the day of the election because anyone can nominate themselves even on the day of the election in December. I chose to limit the videos to 5 minutes because the time allotted to candidates at the December election meeting is expected also to be 5 minutes.

Full disclosure: Rep. Pamela Powers-Hanley is an author on the Blog, and is a member of our Board, and holds a vote in the upcoming elected-PC vote to choose the 3-person slate of candidates for the Board of Supervisors.

The elected Precinct Committeepersons of LD 9 will elect three nominees on November 20th at 9:00 a.m. to present to the Pima County Board of Supervisors, who will replace, until the next election, Representative Randy Friese, who has announced he will be resigning at the end of November.

Each of the candidates for appointment got just two minutes to make their case to the PCs in attendance for their vote. It did not go so smoothly for some of the candidates. So I offered in the Zoom chat, and in follow-up emails, to post up to 5-minute statements of interest from the candidates. 5 minutes will provisionally be the time allotted to each candidate to make their case at the December meeting at which PCs will elect the three candidates, thus I thought it would be beneficial for candidates to script and/or practice their statements, and this would give them a forum to feature that effort.

Any of the current candidates, or candidates who had not announced yet at that meeting, can contact me (MBryanATgmailDOTcom) at any time to also post up to a 5-minute statement regarding their election to the slate of candidates. I will add their videos to this post as they come in.

Here’s a current list of the candidates for the LD9 PC’s election known to me:

I will be present, but not voting, at the LD 9 meeting tomorrow morning at 9am to cover the election. I will likely post about the outcome shortly following the close of the meeting.

There are a large number of candidates, in no particular order, who have so far requested to be considered for election by the PCs of LD 9 to the slate of 3 candidates who will be considered for appointment by the Pima County Board of Supervisors prior to the commencement of the January ’22 session of the state legislature. The official statements of each is linked to their name. I will add to this list as any new candidates make themselves known:

• JP Martin
• Nathan Bacal
• Christoper Mathis
• Nathan Davis
• Matt Kopec
• Juan Padres
• Dr. Deanna Lewis
• Ted Prezelski
• Kat Stratford
• Tim Sultan
• Anakarina Rodriguez
• Vanessa Bechtol

Thus far, five candidates have filed notices and intend to run in the primary next year to be elected to the seat by the voters of LD 9:

I am extending to all of them an invitation to do an extended interview such as I have done thus far with Nathan and Chris:

• Nathan Davis:
  • Nathan recently appeared at a recent meeting of TheDGT.org.
  • Nathan also sat for an extended interview with BlogForArizona.
• Nancy Gutierrez
  • Nancy announced she will not be seeking the appointment but has launched her campaign for the August ’22 primary.
  • Nancy sat for an extended interview with BlogForArizona.
• Christoper Mathis:
  • Christopher recently appeared at the November 15th meeting of TheDGT.org.
  • Christopher also sat for an extended interview with BlogForArizona.
• Anakarina Rodriguez
  • Anakarina has expressed interest in sitting for an extended interview with BlogForArizona, pending scheduling.
• Dr. Deanna Lewis

Here are the Short Video Statements of Interest:

Below are the video statements I have thus far. This post will be updated as and when new statements are submitted.

Nathan Bacal:

Chris Mathis: