Arizona Daily Star endorses Democrats Victoria Steele, Representatives Randy Friese and Pam Powers Hannley in LD 9

The Arizona Daily Star editorial board has  endorsed all Democrats running in LD 9:  former 2 term House Rep.  Victoria Steele, incumbents House Reps. Dr. Randy Friese and Pamela Powers Hannley. Steele is being challenged by political newcomer Republican Randall Fleenor, and Ana Henderson (R) is again running for House. She lost the same House … Read more

LD9 Reps. Pamela Powers Hannley and Dr. Randy Friese with former representative and current Senate candidate Victoria Steele.

LD9 Clean Elections Debate: Oct. 16 (video)

LD9 Reps. Pamela Powers Hannley and Dr. Randy Friese with former representative and current Senate candidate Victoria Steele.
LD9 Reps. Pamela Powers Hannley and Dr. Randy Friese with former representative and current Senate candidate Victoria Steele.

The three Democrats and two Republicans running for seats in Legislative District 9 will participate in a Clean Elections Debate on Tuesday, October 16, beginning at 6 p.m. at Pima College Northwest.

Running for the Arizona House are incumbent Reps. Randy Friese and Pamela Powers Hannley and Republican challenger Ana Henderson, who lost to the two Democrats in 2016. On the Senate side, Democrat and former House Rep. Victoria Steele and political newcomer Republican Randy Fleenor are vying for the seat vacated by Senator Steve Farley.

Come with your questions. Since this debate is being run by the Citizens Clean Elections Commission (CCEC), at least half of the questions come from the audience.

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Rep. Victoria Steele and Pamela Powers Hannley

Victoria Steele Gets a Write-in Challenger for LD9 Senate Race

Rep. Victoria Steele and Pamela Powers Hannley
LD9 state Senate candidate Victoria Steele with Pamela Powers Hannley, LD9 House representative.

Update: this was previously titled “Democrats Get to Pick their State Senator in Tucson’s LD9.”

After getting 22,590 votes in the Democratic primary for the LD9 state Senate race in Tucson, Victoria Steele has picked up a Republican write-in opponent.

Steele, a former member of the Arizona House of Representatives from 2012 to 2016, collected 82.2% of the votes in the primary.

Now a political nobody called Randy Fleenor has gotten 698 write-in votes (363 were needed) to be the Republican candidate the November ballot. Fleenor is an electrical engineer who works at IBM. He spouts the usual GOP tripe about not raising teacher salaries, expanding school vouchers and not raising taxes.

Even though Fleenor has never been elected to public office, he was put up for the job by Republican national committeeman Bruce Ash. There will be an official hand count audit & write-in ballot tally on Sept. 1.

Steele vows to take action

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Rep. Pamela Powers Hannley

#ICYMI: Watch the LD9 Clean Elections Debate (video)

Rep. Pamela Powers Hannley
LD9 House incumbent Rep. Pamela Powers Hannley

The Citizens Clean Elections Commission (CCEC) organizes and hosts debates for all elections in which at least one Clean Elections candidate is running. In Legislative District 9, three of the five people running for office are Clean candidates: Jim Love, Victoria Steele and me. The other two people who are running for house– Rep. Randy Friese and J.P. Martin– are running traditional.

Since early ballots for the August 28 primary election will be mailed on August 1, the CCEC has been hosting many debates in the past month. On July 19, the LD9 candidates had their debate.  (The LD9 video link is here and the embedded video is below. To watch other CCEC debates go here.)

CCEC debates include some questions that are asked of all candidates and other questions that are asked of specific people. I have annotated the debate with time stamps– in case you want to focus on particular topics. Since there were several audience questions about guns in schools, the environment and prison reform, I have grouped those questions and answers.

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