If Arizona Democrats take both houses of the State Legislature in 2026, they would probably accomplish it by taking the House and Senate seats in Legislative District (LD) Four, located in Northern Phoenix and Scottsdale.
School Board Member Karen Gresham is taking her second shot at winning one of the LD Four State House seats.
Running on a platform of accountability and affordability, Gresham promises to, if elected, help turn state government policy in the right direction after decades of Republican incompetence.
She would also work to fully fund public schools, provide housing and health care assistance, and protect the state’s natural resources.
Ms. Gresham graciously interviewed with the Blog for Arizona to discuss her candidacy for one of the State House seats in Legislative District Four.
The questions and her responses are below.
Please explain to the readers two reasons you would like to run for the Arizona House seat in LD Four.
“I ran last cycle. I’ve been on the school board for five years, and I’ve been an advocate for many, many years, and I decided things weren’t going to change unless the people in our legislature change. That’s why I decided to do it. Our state’s been going in the wrong direction for decades now. I grew up here in the state, and it’s really changing in a bad way. That’s a couple of reasons among many.”
Please tell readers what two reasons voters should choose you over your general election opponent.
“As far as our general election opponents, there are current representatives in our district, Matt Gress and Pamela Carter, whom I ran against last time. I could go on about them, but a couple of things about me are that my background is in accounting. I was a CPA for many years, so I have actual accounting experience. I know about budgets and have actually worked in those areas. I cannot say that about my opponents, our current representatives. Even though one of them has a reputation for being good at that stuff, I think that is a myth. The State House could really use some more people with actual experience at the Capitol right now. The other reason is that I have governing experience. This is my fifth year on the school board. My other opponent, Pamela Carter, had never done anything before she won her office. It’s great to run for office, but actually doing the job is a whole other thing, and having experience is important. And you know, I’ve been involved in my community and advocating for our state for almost 20 years. My oldest son is 20, and I have pictures of him when he was a little two-year-old out, you know, protesting, and stuff. That’s another thing I cannot say, for my opponents.”
What are at least two issues you will be running on this cycle?
“Fiscal accountability at our Capital has been completely absent for a long, long time. Our state is basically bankrupt, and most of that was under the watch of my opponent, Matt Gress. He was the budget director for many years, and he helped enact the flat tax and the voucher expansion. This year’s budget is going to be abysmal, and schools are already feeling the effects of that. As a school board member, we’re trying to fund our schools, and so fiscal accountability is huge. The state has almost no revenue coming in. Corporate tax breaks are more than the total budget. Then you know the vouchers are at a billion dollars, so that’s also helping to bankrupt our state. There doesn’t seem to be any accountability about it at all, as far as who’s using the vouchers, what they’re using them for, and our lawmakers have been using the legislature as their personal bank account for decades, starting with Charter schools and the School Scholarship Tuition Organizations. They’ve made millions of dollars, and they voted for those things as lawmakers, and so there are no conflict-of-interest rules. No accountability. We need to bring a lot of accountability to our state and to our legislature.”
“Public education is the biggest part of our state budget, but there’s also the environment. We’ve got water issues to deal with. I’m on the board of the Arizona Trail Association, which is the National Scenic Trail that runs from Utah to Mexico. We advocate for resources and to keep our public lands intact. I’m the current president of the board there. They’re asking, how can we get funding? How can we get our states’ support? You have to maintain the trail and many other things. I was telling them there’s no money. When your state has no money, and there’s no revenue coming in, our chances of getting any support from the state are almost zero at this point, so I had to tell our volunteers and supporters that it’s probably not going to happen at least this year. The legislature has been controlled by the same party for about 60 years, and that’s not a Democracy. The majority rules in our state legislature. If you even have one more vote than the other party, you control everything. The Speaker of the House controls all the committee chairs. The committee chairs control all the committees and what bills get heard, and I know a lot of people think, well, you’re almost half the members. That doesn’t matter because your bills will not get heard unless you’re in the majority. They wonder why we can’t work together. It’s because the Republicans are controlling everything that goes on at the Capitol and we cannot get anything passed the way it is right now.”
The issue of affordability and lifting people up.
“Of course. I would represent LD4, one of the wealthier districts in our state, but our decisions in our legislature affect everyone in the state. I’m not just representing our district, but one thing that can actually affect them is housing. People can’t afford houses. They can’t afford apartments. There’s no housing affordability right now, and so a lot of these people in our district, at least, with their children growing up, they can’t afford to buy even a starter home anymore. Affordability is a huge problem, especially with housing in our state, and there are a lot of things we could do to help with that, and legislators, like my opponents, just ignore it and focus on culture wars, and stuff that you know doesn’t help anyone.”
“There are a lot of things we could do to help with the housing situation. A major problem in my district is short term rentals. Investors are buying up the housing supply, driving home and rental prices out of reach. We can better regulate those, and let cities do what’s best for their communities. We could do other things we can do to make things affordable. Health care, of course, is always going to be an issue because what happens at the federal level does affect us at the state level. Take healthcare subsidies. Are they going away? Some states can afford to step in and help with those. Unfortunately, we have no money for that right now. Our residents in our state are going to be out of luck because our state chooses not to spend their taxpayer money in that way.”
How are you and your team conducting voter and social media outreach to Democrats, Independents, like-minded Republicans, and the people who don’t pay attention to politics on a day-to-day basis?
“That’s always the trick, getting to voters who don’t normally pay attention. It usually takes an issue that’s affecting them personally for them to actually start to pay attention. I’ve always lived in swing districts, competitive districts, so we always reach out to Independents and Republicans, if they’ll listen. When we canvas, especially as candidates, that’s who we focus on. We go door to door. We do a lot of those. Everyone can follow our social media @karengreshamaz. They can reach us at Karenforaz.com. We do a lot of ads on streaming services and social media. It’s an all of the above approach. We wouldn’t get anywhere without reaching out to everyone, including Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. We do a lot of house parties, so people invite their friends or interested voters to their house. We come and, and you know, talk, and answer your questions.”
Is there anything not covered by the first four questions that you would like the readers to know about you and your candidacy for the State House Seat in LD Four?
“One thing I’m really proud of is that I grew up here. My family has been here for over 100 years. So, third generation, I was raised here. I’m raising my kids here. I have two in high school, one in college, and so you have to invest in your community today. Even before I was on the school board. I was helping out in my kids’ school’s fundraising, like crazy, which is also why we should maybe pay more attention to the legislature, because I’m like, why are we having to pay for all of this? I still coach cross country at the middle school. I’ve been doing that over ten years. This isn’t a career for me, unlike Mr. Gress, whose whole career is just politics. For me, this is about our community and what’s important for our state. I am doing this to serve, invest in the community, and make sure my kids and people their age have a better future than me.”
Please click here to find out more about Karen Gresham and her candidacy for one of the State House seats in Arizona Legislative District Four.
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