sex education in our schools

- good evening, andthank you for attending. my name is natalie sear and i will be the moderator for this evening's candidate debate. the citizens clean election commission is the sponsor for this evening's event.

sex education in our schools, the clean elections act is acampaign finance reform measure initiated by arizona citizens and passed by voters in 1998. participation as a cleanelections candidate is strictly voluntary.

the system provides full funding for qualified candidateswho agree to abide by the clean elections act and rules. to qualify for funding,participating candidates must illustrate the support of their constituents by gathering five dollarqualifying contributions from registered voters in their legislative district. the candidates agree toadhere to contribution and spending limits,and may not accept money

from special interest groups. they also agree to participate in these debates. as we move into the debate, we encourage audience questions. if you have questions, please print them clearly on the card given to you when you walked in, and hold it up. one of our volunteers will pick up the cards and deliver them to me. we screen questions for clarity,to eliminate duplications, speeches, or personal attacks on candidates.

if you need another card, just raise your hand. the debate is scheduled for one hour, so we may not get to all of the audience questions, but we will do our best. there is an independenttimer, who will see that all candidates have equal time to answer questions, and will tell them when their time is up. our format this evening will be: opening statements, three minutes; a quick lightning round; two minutes to answer general questions;

two minutes to answer candidate-to-candidate questions; and closing statements will be three minutes. we ask that you remain polite to all of the candidates and give them a fair and an uninterrupted hearing, no matter how strongly you may agree or disagree with anything being said. this means no applause,outburst or cheers, except now, as we introduce our candidates:doctor randall friese, candidate for representative of legislative district nine

of the house, democrat;and mister ethan ore... mister ethan ore, candidate for representative arizona house district nine, republican. the order in which the candidates will speak has been determined byalphabetical order by last name, and will progress from that starting point. the closing order will be determined by reverse alphabeticalorder by last name. doctor friese, will you please start your opening remarks?

- certainly, thank you so much for this opportunity to meet the voters in our district. i'm a professor of surgery at the university ofarizona medical center. my wife and i moved here six years ago. we chose tucson over several other metropolitan cities because we fell in lovewith the southwest, and tucson and the u ofa, and i thought it was an outstanding opportunity for my career.

at that time, i didn't have any inclination that i would want to enter politics or join the legislature. i had an outstanding career; i was very pleased with where my careerwas going as a professor and researcher and teacher. and then a terrible event happened. in january of 2011, we had a tragedy here in tucson, and my involvement with that made me think more closely about broadening my community service.

i've always felt that being a trauma surgeon is community service, and i thought that by joining the legislature i could broaden that experience andparticipate more widely in making decisions for my community. i paid close attention to what was happening in phoenix, i was very enthralled and excited about the discussions and debates that were going on and i was very excited about participating.

i read the capitol times very frequently. i think participating will be a great challenge and also a great reward. i'm very happy to move into tucson. the most important thing, in my mind, that came to my platform when i entered this race was public education and supporting public education. i'm a product of public education. i had a single parent, minimal opportunities.

without public education, i would not be a surgeon today, so i will fight very hard to protect that opportunity for our young people here in arizona. and as everyone knows, arizona is doing a very poor job at maintaining our system and fully supporting our system of public education. we must do much better, and we can do much better. other issues that are importantto me as a trauma surgeon: i see gun patients, or people injured by gun violence

on a daily basis. it's very important for me to participate in coming up with solutions for gun violence, and particularly, putting forth responsible gun ownership legislation so that we can make as much effort as we can to keep guns out of the hands of people who should not have them: criminals and mentally unstable individuals; while, at the same time,protecting our rights of law-abiding citizens.

and this is something we can do: we can meet in the middle, but we must first talk to each other, we must first trust each other and bring that issue to a close by finding a solution. that's why i'm running. those are some issues that are important to me, and hopefully we'll get into that further this evening. thank you very much. - thank you; mister ore?

- well, thank you. i appreciate everyone being here and i appreciate my colleague as well. as many of you know, i'm a third-generation arizonan. i grew up here and i'vebeen part of the fabric and the leadership and,frankly, the solutions of our community for several decades now. i had the opportunity, even as a republican, to work for a democratic city council member.

i brought the empowerment zone here, which brought about 500 million dollars in tax credits into our city, even helped the city of south tucson start a swat team and do some of the community-based policing. my parents taught for tusd, so i grew up the child of educators. my dad gave up a lucrativecareer because he was very proud to be an educator. i've also taught for theuniversity of arizona

for about 13 years now, and i just started teaching for nau. ultimately, what i have done for the past several decades is brought very diverse groups together and found reasonable, pragmatic and effective solutionsfor our community. and that is what i've done these past two years. it's been a privilege and an honor to serve our community. that's what i've done at the legislature. for our veterans, i was able to create a training program

that would fast-track them to the certifications they need to get employment. at linkages, when i wasthe executive director, we helped a number of veterans with disabilities find meaningful employment. i worked with a group called missing in action program and we identified every cremated remains of a veteran and i changed the liability laws; and on our dime, we gave each and every one of them,

we're finding them a way to get them an honorable burial because they served our community. i work very closely with republicans and democrats to pass a commercial space flight bill, which has already savedor generated 200 jobs through paragon spacesystems here in tucson. i was able to prevent the funding cuts, and hopefully we'll get more into that, to our libraries. we were actually the county,

because of a secondary property tax issue, was going to shut down about athird of our libraries. i built a coalition of conservative city managers from eastern arizona and stopped that bill. i did a number toprotect the greyhounds. i also was able to increase our funding for the university of arizona for the jted, the joint technologicaleducation district, pima college, mental health, first aid,

and public safety schoolresource officers. ultimately, when i think about the arizona that we want to be, i think about the icons: isabella greenway, carl hayden, mo udall, barry goldwater, people who had a sense of place, leadership. and that sense of place, leadership, for our community, was able to rise above partisan politics. even if they disagreed on one issue or two issues, instead of creating divisive wedge issues, they said,

"what's best for our community?" and they sought continually what was best for arizona. more than anything, i wanna bring back that sense of community and purpose and vision, and create the arizona that we want at the capitol. - thank you. in an attempt to lighten the mood, for tonight's debate, we are going to do a quick lightning round of "this, or that?"

this will allow us to get toknow more about the candidates. please answer with just one word. doctor friese-- - you know we're politicians, right? - yes, i do! doctor friese: droid, iphone, or windows? - iphone. - all right! mister ore: facebook or twitter?

- facebook. - doctor friese? - all right. and finally, mac or pc, doctor friese? - pc. - mac. thank you so much. now let's move into our debate questions. so the first question is: howwill you differentiate yourself

from the current legislation, that is, to improve the lives of arizona citizens? doctor friese, we will start with you. - well, i think that's the purpose of state legislature is to ensure that we're working toward the common goal of improving the lives of its citizens. and, in my mind, the most important thing a state government cando is to ensure a sound, well-funded and excellent system of public education,

because public educationequalizes opportunities across socio-economic status. so public education provides opportunity to people who may not have as much opportunity to start with. public education improves not only... i like to say public education, unlike economics, will trickle down, and it will improve your life, it will improve your children's lives, and it will improve your children's children's lives.

so this is a very important thing, and in my mind, the most important responsibility of the state government is to ensure access toand support of a system - well, i certainly agree with that, and i think that's the reason that i've actually received the endorsement of our teachers, the arizona education association. i've received numerous legislative awards from the save our schools,

a public education advocacy group, abec, arizona business education council, and the joint technological education district. the reason for that is we need to move beyond the rhetoric into the specifics. we already fund 46 percent of our state budget to k-12 education. i worked very hard two years agoto get 80 million dollars more, and, again, to get 80 million dollars more,

and then 40 million dollars with the governor'sstudent success program, just for k-12 education. i wanna talk also abouthigher ed later on. but one of the things that was so important: if you look at mo udall, his effectiveness was in the details, and he really was an icon here in the community. and so what i did is i brought our superintendents, because back in october,i knew this would go

all the way to the finish line with the governor; and i had the superintendents of amphi and flowing wells sit down and write the bill. because not only is it about funding public education, it's about making sure that we don't hurt less affluent students for simply being less affluent. we've all seen the data, that basically there's an inversecorrelation between free and reduced lunches and student success.

so i literally brought our superintendent, our inner-city school superintendents, to the table where we drafted the bill and we made sure that we didn't hurt poorstudents for being poor, and we opened up those doors of opportunity. i also did that again with the joint technological education district. they have a 98 percent graduation rate because, frankly, some of the way we do education doesn't work

for all the students. some students are tactile learners, and they need to get their hands on. and so we can put them in amechanic or an auto shop program and they can thrive and do well. so we need to create multiple career paths: one, using the old two plus two program for those that wanna be college-bound; and the other thing thati'll do, if i go back

as the chairman of the higher education workforce committee, is work to create a state-wide financial aid system, so that everyone has, not only access to a rigorous public education,but financial wherewithal to go to higher education. but for those that are not college-bound, we need to create opportunitiesfor them as well. so, to ensure that bothof you have equal time, please allow me to prompt you for the question, okay?

so our next question. we'll start withyou, mister ore. what issue is unique to the district nine, and how will you address it? - well, i think one ofthe things that's unique to district nine is thesense of pragmatism. if you look at our district, it's actually a district that wants to see solutions created. and as i've gone door-to-door, people really want jobs.

one of the things that's so important... i believe workforce development, as i mentioned, is a way of recruiting businesses, but i have literally been at the table negotiating to bring businesses here, when i was in the officeof economic development. when i ran linkages, we helped 855 people find meaningful employment. everyone in this district wants to have a job, because a job is purpose.

whether you're developmentally disabled or you're a phd, you need to contribute to society, and the sense that i get from our district is they want to be able to do that, and they want to have a caring, giving way about them. the other thing that's very important in our district, and we managed to put30 million dollars more through the hurf fund, is transportation and roads. some of us took grantdown here, and frankly, grant is scary, so weneed to look at working

with some of our councilmembers in the rta and shifting those bonding programs up a little bit forward. but we were able to get30 million dollars more into the hurf funds,into our transportation. i think we need to restore the full 120, and i will continue to work to do that, and get better roads in our district. - thank you; doctor friese? - well, i'll be quite frank.

the issue that is uniqueto this district is, of course, guns. our district is the one inwhich there was a mass shooting. as i mentioned earlier, i see gun violence daily. we must begin to gettogether, we must begin to talk to one anotherrespectfully, and we must begin to negotiate and find a solutionto the gun violence problem in our district, in ourstate, in our country. and not only are arizonans ready for it, but the majority

of americans are ready for it. we can't continue to turn our backs on one another and refuse to talk about and recognize the opinions and the concerns for safety amongst a large part of our population. one of the things that i dowell is work together on a team. i lead a team in the icu, i care for patients, i take information frommany different sources and, as a team, we come up with solutions and decisions.

so i'd like to go to the legislature and build a team. when you build a team, you must start out with trust and respect. those things must be built; they take time. so we have to make smalldeals first, but we have to respect each other, we have to talk to one another, we have to listen to one anotherso we can find a solution to this very large problem. doctor friese, we'll start with you.

where do you stand on governor brewer's medicaid expansion? - in fact, i'm very grateful you asked that question. i don't know if it came from clean elections or one of you, but that is one of the issues that drew my attention to running for office. i paid very closeattention to the debates that the legislature had on this very important issue, and i absolutely would've sided on the side of voting for medicaid expansion.

in 2010, medicaid was contractedand access was contracted in this state. people fell off the rolls, we had increased numbers of patients with un-reimbursed healthcare. now that access has been expanded, medicaid has been expanded, we're seeing some of those numbers go in the other direction. that was an outstanding vote and an outstandingdecision for our state.

unfortunately, in this session, a vote was taken to limit medicaid to five years, which would have exactly the opposite effect on access and contracted the rolls. that i didn't understand. that, in fact, passed the house; it passed the senate, but, gratefully, the governor vetoed that bill. i actually wrote an op-ed in the paper and thanked her for her veto of that bill, thatvery, very devastating bill.

so i would easily have voted to support for medicaid expansion. healthcare is an important right and important service that our state government must provide to its citizens. - well, i certainly appreciate your praise for my vote you know, that vote, in many ways, was an epiphany for me. i faced incredible opposition, as many of you know, for taking that stance, and it created an epiphany. i remember walking around the capitol hall, and i had people

from all sides within my party and supporters of mine, even threatening to endmy political career, and i genuinely, at the time that i took that vote, thought that my career was over. and my epiphany was that for good policy, even though i didn't run onmedicaid--it was put in my lap-- for what i believed to be good policy, would i sacrifice my political career? and i thought at the time i would be un-electable

and probably continue to beun-electable, because the issue within my party, as some of you know, is so toxic. and that epiphany hasset me free to stand up for what i believe is right time and time and time again, because i said i will always choose good policy. we may not agree on the policy,but i will always choose what i believe to be good policy over politics, and that medicaid vote freed me to do that. now, many of you know the logic that i used to do that.

it made sense; it brought 1.5 billion dollars into our state, saved about 20,000 jobs, kept some of our hospitals fromgoing into receivership. i work very closely with people with mental illness and it gave them access to treatment so that they don't end up in our criminal justice system. it was a good vote, and i was proud to have taken that vote, and i was proud to have stood up in the face of great opposition totake that vote and to do

what i believed to be the right policy decision for our state over politics, one way or another. next question; we'llstart with you, mr. ore. what are two or three issues most important to improving education at a k-12 level? - i think one of the first things that we need to do is look at the way that we do our reimbursement for dual-enrollment. as i mentioned, back in the 80s, we had what was called a two plus two plus two system.

my dad ended his careerteaching at cholla. if i'm a student at cholla, or where i went, amphi, first-generationcollege student. if i do dual-enrollment my junior and senior year, and i actually get 12 units, i'mstatistically more likely to go to pima community college and get my associate's degree. and if, once i complete my associate's-- and, believe it or not, asu is ahead ofus, and i'd like to work with the u of a and pima college

to create a very effective pathway-- if i get my associate's, say, in the mechanical arts, i'm halfway to a systemsengineering degree. so that is very important. more than anything else, when i was at the city of south tucson, working with barrio libre and changing those kids' hearts and minds and directingthem towards education, more than anything else, we've got to give them hope.

and hope comes with awell-funded scholarship to a higher-education institution, it comes with a path to a higher education institution. and then, as i had mentioned for the pima county jted, well-funded alternatives to higher education for those that wanna be going into career technical education, and that would include auto mechanics, police and fire. i got the first funding since 2008, 1.5 million dollars for a pima county jted.

i was one of the people thatsupported its creation in 2006. i worked very closely with our business community. that 1.5 million dollars, i believe, is just a downpayment and an investment into a very good program. if i go back, and hopefully, when i go back, i will be able to get them another 1.5 as the chairman of higher education, but i also wanna get ninth grade funding reinstated. they cut that in 2008;that was before my time. but once we can get ninth gradeeducation, we can transition

more kids that wanna work with their hands in career technical education into that vocation. - i just wanna take ten seconds,and since ethan pointed out that i did give him praise for his last vote, i'd also like to point out that i was not only confused but very disappointed when he voted to limit access and medicaid to five years. i found that veryconfusing and disparate. moving on to the education question:

the most important thing that we can do in our state is, of course, fund our schools. our teachers need to befunded appropriately, they need to be reimbursed appropriately. our teachers are leaving our state to other states because we cannot pay them the salaries that they require. we aren't giving them what they need to instruct the studentsin the classrooms. everyone's aware of theproposition 301 issue

that's facing our state right now. over several years, the legislature that is currently in place has ignoredthe base-level increase to account for inflation that was due to our public school system. we, now, must begin to pay back those monies, those re-set and back-payments. next year, we need to pay back 317 million dollars. on day one, i will voteto pay that money back

when i am sent to the legislature. we need to pay what's owed, and what the voters asked for. in 2001, they passed proposition 301. the current legislature is no friend of public education. i think we need to point that out. there were four votes to expand empowerment scholarships accounts; there were three votes to increase corporate tax credits for donations to stos. two of those bills wereso bad, they were vetoed

by governor brewer. so i think the most important thing we can do for education is support it, fund it like we mean it. let's get down to business and fix this problem. next question: doctor friese, please say, specifically, how you would vote on access to abortions, birth control, and sex education. - that is very simple. i support a woman's right to make her own healthcare decisions,

i support anatomically and physiologically correct sex education in our schools. it will reduce abortion ratesand prevent unplanned pregnancy. is there a third part to that question? i (mumbling). - birth control, sexeducation and abortions. - and i absolutely support easy access to birth control to all working women. - i think, if you look at abortion, most of it's settled law, and i think debate's wrong.

we've created a very divisive conversation of pro-life, pro-choice. one of the first thingsi did when i got up there two years ago,surprisingly, for a republican, is i called planned parenthood. and i've worked with some of my democratic colleagues, and i said no one wants there to be more abortions, and i don't actually, for personal reasons, support abortion, but that is settled law, there were only two abortion votes

in the entire session and i actually sided with planned parenthoodwith one and disagreed with them in the other. but all of us, every single person in this state, wants to see the numberof abortions go down, and i think the way that you start is with medically accurate sex education in the high schools. then you need to look at how are you gonna support women who are in a desperate and vulnerable situation,

some of you. you need to increase wic funding, you need to increase prenatal care, and you need to take care of them as they take care of that child. that's the most important thingyou can do in terms of it. now, if you look at theabortion debate, we're actually, i believe, sometimes harming the very people we wanna help because we're not focusing on what we share in common, which is we wanna make sure that people are protected

and we wanna make sure that they're safe and they have the supports they need. when gaznel happened ayear ago, and that wasan atrocious situation, and i knew there would be a piece of legislation, i actually approached some of my democratic colleagues, and again, some folks at planned parenthood. i said let's work together and get ahead of this issue, let's actually create a compromise and a solution to the issue, and they didn't want to.

and i don't blame them; it's politically difficult to do, but the reality is we have got to move beyond the rhetoric into the realm of solutions. we have got to help andprotect the very lives that we're talking about. mister ore, how will you work with the rest of the house to find solutions to some of these issues? - i think, more than anyone, i'mvery, very effective at that. almost every one of my major pieces of legislation,

from the laser bill idid to help our police, to commercial space flight, to the jted. i actually purposely reached out-- to bicycle safety-- to a democratic colleague, because when i say i want an arizona that works together towards commonality andsolutions, i mean it. and i have done that repeatedly. i brought my colleagues in. in fact, i believe the best way to create legislation--

and this is where iwant to go back to-- is where we take a problem,whatever that problem would be, and we sit down and we get around the table, and we all solve it together. it is veryhyper-partisan up there. i personally passed more bills than the entire minoritycaucus combined. i frankly think that's unacceptable: that you have 40 percent of the votes,

passing zero percent of the bills. so i want to do more tobring the minority party into the table, and i have done that. in fact, the committee that i'm slated to chair, higher education workforce, if i were to return, i've already reached outto the minority member, and this has not been done in our state for over 15 years. but i have reached out to the potential ranking member and i said here's what i wanna do, you and me: we sit down,

chair, vice-chair, ranking member, democrat staff, republican staff, and weset the agenda together. that is the way our state used to be, and that's the way i believe our state will be again. and so i've already reached out to the other side, i've already reached out to people who have different opinions because i believe the very best legislation comes from a ronald reagan working with a tip o'neill and having very disparate

and very different opinions shaping the same solution. - again, i'd just like to take ten seconds to point out something that mister ore failed to mention. when he first entered the legislature two years ago, he also signed a proclamation, declaring roe vs. wade unconstitutional, and promised that he would do everything to obtain rights of personhood for the fetus. moving on to how i wouldestablish a working relationship

at the house: i think that's absolutely pertinent, that you work together as a group. as i mentioned before, i'm a team leader in the hospital and i will take those skills and continue to be a team leader atwhatever job i continue to have the luxury of having. building a team leader is a unique skill set. you have to have the motivation to do it, you have to have the ability to allow someone else to succeed,

you have to be able to share your successes, you have to be a credit-giver, not a credit-taker. all these are skills that i have developed over the years, as both the professor of medicine and a team leader in the icu. yes, it will take time to establish these relationships in phoenix; these things are important, and investing time reaps many rewards. so developing these trusting, respectful relationships...

i'm going to spend a lot of time in the first sessiondoing that, absolutely. but it's required, and i will have success, because i've done it before. one of the most genuine comments i've ever received from one of my residentswas, "doctor friese, "you make people feel comfortable." so my residents are learning how to make decisions, and i make them feel comfortable taking

on that responsibility. so i'm hopeful i can take these skills to the capitol and work together with my fellowlegislators in the future. next question: arizona's unemployment rate has remained around seven percent this year,and has been slow to recover from the great recession. doctor friese, what do you propose to improve the climate of jobs in our state? - everything comes back to the economy, and i think

that we have to start with education. people that get a greateducation will want to stay in arizona. if we have a system of excellent public education, people will want to move to arizona. if, and when, we have a system of great public education, businesses and corporations will want to move to arizona. i think we have to start with the basics: infrastructure. and in my mind, education, and providing an excellent system

of public education is infrastructure that arizona must commit to. other things that we need to commit to to improve our economy:innovation, technology. and again, other pieces of infrastructure: roads, water. those types of things need to be supported so that we can grow. where people want to live is where corporations and businesses willwant to build and grow.

so we must address ourinfrastructure problems. we must address oursocial issues, problems. we have a bad reputation, so in order to get people to move here, we have toaddress these problems with our reputation. we must move forward with equality for all, we must stop being prejudiced, we must come to grips with the fact that a woman has a right to make her own healthcare decisions.

if we correct these problems, infrastructure, education, social issues, our economy will improve. - i've had the opportunity to serve as the director of economic development for the city of south tucson, and as economic development manager for the city of tucson, so i've actually been in the room where we're bringing companies into this town, and i know what it takesto bring them here.

i'll start with infrastructure and trade. one of the things that's very important to me is building a close relationship through a supply chain, and infrastructure development with our neighbor to the south. they're our largest trading partner, and i was actually down in mexico city with the speaker a couple months ago, negotiating that. now, one of the things that's so important,

and i've been pushing for this, is we need to take i-11, the new corridor parallel with i-19, and extend that north-south, all the way down into mexico city; because if you take that route, it goes through every major industrial hub of mexico, and this is why we havethe gadsden purchase. this actually brings theflow of goods up here. the reason that's so important isn't just the flow of goods; we need the inter-modaltransportation.

that's where we take the truck to the train and the train to the truck. it'll create about 100, 150 jobs; that's not much, but it lowers my transportation logistics cost, which, combined with cost-affordable energy, allows me to recruit a plant like tesla. it gives us a competitive advantage. but a scary conversation i had with the federal senators down in mexico: becausewe have not invested

in our infrastructure and texas has, they are actively poaching our produce companies and they wanna go east-west. so we have to get on top of that. i sat down with the us ambassador to mexico, and we're currently working on trying to re-align that trade route. another thing that's so very important is the tax climate. i helped work

to pass the research anddevelopment tax credit to help bring more companies, and then, obviously, work for us. one of the things thatwas kind of an epiphany for me: i helped recruit the slimfast. it was a 100 million dollar facility, oh golly, over a decade ago. they had over 100 jobsthat we could not fill, because they needed machinists and mechanics.

it's one of the reasonsi helped start the jted. we could not fill thosepositions; it was embarrassing, and the company ultimately left. if you look at every city that is who we want to be: boston and biotech, paloalto and silicon valley, it is a strong economy anchored by a well-funded public institution. gentlemen, we have received a request from the audience. if we could please slowdown in our speech,

so that they might capture all the information. and also, a few of us have hearing issues, so if we'd please be mindful of that. so mister ore, what changes, if any, do you think should be made to arizona gun laws? - i will slow down. i will talk with some of the ones we actuallymade last session. one of the bills, 2333 that i helped pass to the floor,

actually expanded the prohibited possessor to include mental illness, and it also made the nixus database fast-track the information getting there. we need to make sure that our databases are working more closely together and that people have access to it. we also need to look atthe broader perspective. one of the reasonsthat i supported mentalhealth first aid, is you look at that awful incident that affected so many of our friends andcolleagues; and mister loughner,

frankly, needed the treatment, and we needed to find a way to get him thetreatment that he needed before he even got his hands on a firearm. that's why the prohibitive possessor, that's why i supported the mental health. and, actually, it was my bill, and i got the funding when we negotiated with thegovernor to start that program. but then the other thing that we did, and i worked with representative kavanagh to do this:

we changed the judicial hold. because before we passed this bill this late year, if a teacher or a trusted colleague observed behavior and a police officer didn't come in and observe that same behavior, they couldn't take that person's word for it. unless they directly observed it, they couldn't put on a judicialhold for mental health. we changed that law this past year, and we actually worked

with our own sheriff, sheriff dupnik, to do this, to make sure that if that trusted person says this, the police officer can take their word on it. another thing that's sovery important: we need to make sure that peoplenot only feel safe, but actually are safe. that's why i increased funding for school resource officers. in fact, i'm working right now to get 300,000 dollars for community-based policing.

last year, i went through the budget line-by-line and found a fund that i could direct towards our community. so that's gonna be 300,000 dollars towards community-basedpolicing. another thing that's so very important: when i was at the city of south tucson, we learned about geo-based policing. if you target crime in a certainarea, it's highly localized. now this is all evidence-based,criminal justice policies

that are so very important to follow. - as i mentioned in my introduction, responsible gun-ownership legislation is paramount in my campaign and in my efforts when i join the legislature. what ethan failed to mention were three really despicable pieces of legislation that were passed by the house this past term: one, basically saying

that municipalities cannot override state regulations on gun-ownership. it also, in the same piece of legislation, put at risk political office-holders. they can be sued, heldpersonally accountable, and they could even be terminated. i'm not quite sure how oneterminates an elected official, but that piece of legislation was passed by the house and then vetoed by the governor.

there is also a bill that waspassed this legislative period; i call it the guns everywhere bill, but most people call it guns in public places, which mandated that if you're in a public buildingand you didn't want guns inside your building foryour event, you needed to hire a security officer or put up a metal detector at the door to preventthe gun from coming in. again, that bill wasvetoed by the governor. then last session, there was a bill about police buy-backs,

and if i turn my gun into the police, i would hope that it was going to be destroyed. a bill was passed last year that the police cannot destroy that weapon. they must re-sell it and put it back into the pool. i think that those pieces of legislation were bad for arizona, bad for our district, and bad for our country. i will stand up to the nra.

so doctor friese, we'll start with you on this one. what are your thoughts about common-core, home-schooling, and charter schools? - okay, i'll take common-core first. certainly a hot issue this election cycle, particularly in the superintendent ofpublic instruction race. i think it's become a very defining issue. i think that common-coreis something thatwe've invested time and money in; i think that we need to give it a chance

and put it into place. i recently toured several elementary schools in the flowing wells and tust districts, talked to the teachers about common-core and how comfortable they felt with it. the purpose of common-core is to be sure that our students in k through 12 are getting similar curriculum throughout the state. we need to be sure thatstudents in pima county

in ninth grade are getting a similar curriculum as in maricopa county, et cetera. so that's the purpose of common-core, and i think people misunderstand. common-core does not dictate curriculum day-to-day in the classroom. the teachers and principals i spoke to about common-core were very comfortable with it. it was a different way for them to teach

but they've adapted. i think it is meaningful in teaching language arts, math and literacy to our young people; and also teaching themhow to think critically, starting at an early age. we all know how importantlearning is in the early years. so, getting that introduction to critical thinking early can only benefit our students. - one of the things, andit was very revealing,

after i got elected-- iwas actually celebrating with a good friend of mine thatwas a fifth-grade teacher-- and i was telling herall the exciting things that we were gonna do from a legislative standpoint. she had been a friend ofmine for over 20 years, and she broke down crying. and she basically said,"please, don't. please, "just don't do anything else to us." and i think the problem that we have

with the current common-core debate, it was enacted by the school board in 2010. now, for whatever reason, and what we tend to do with our educationalpolicy is we hold it up and we go with the flavor of the week. and we don't understand the impact that is has on our schools and our teachers. to say, "common-core, common-core, oh! "not common core, something else,"

will throw our entire educational institution in chaos. you cannot do this to our teachers. a book that actually really informed and was the reason i stopped the esa bill, based on geographic expansion,and i stood up to the federation of children, which is an organization that promotes that, is i satdown and i read reign of error. and one thing that's very important to me, not only in our education policy but in all of our policies,

is to have an evidence-based system. i don't like to answer questions previously, but i do wanna touch on the criminal justice laws. every criminal justice policy and vote that i took was based on academic research. if you wanna look at it, the university of columbia put out a metastudy on criminal justice from 1983 to 2012. it was a combination of27 different studies. everything that i did up there was evidence-based.

if you can show me the evidence, i will base my legislation on that. and if you look at common-core, that's the one thing that we've got to do. it is a standards choice. much of the angst comesfrom curriculum choices that have nothing to do with the standards; and, frankly, any transition needs tobe orderly and it needs to involve our teachers, because we cannot continue

to change the standards and change the way teachers are required to teach. - thank you; mister ore, next question. what do you think ofarizona's current image, and what, if anything, would you do to change it? - our image needs a lotta work. i think i have changed it, and i'm assuming i'll get some questions on 1062,and i hope i can tell that whole story.

but i was one of the people that stood up against 1062 in the face of tremendous pressure from donors, my party leadership, and i said, based on principle, "i will not vote for this; i will not allow it "in my committee." i was actually in the room where we talked to the governor, andshe decided to veto it. these types of bills arenot what we were sent up there to do.

we were sent up there to create pragmatic solutions. i think those are the types of things that we need to do to improve our state's image. the other thing that's very important is with mexico. and it's the little things. the other thing that we don't need to do, is wring our hands about our image. we need to get in thereand solve the problem. i got a call about a month ago;in the liquor omnibus bill,

unbeknownst to anyone, we actually created a problem, where, if i'm a mexican national, my id is no longer valid to purchase alcohol. this is not really wellknown, but what i did, as opposed to tweeting and wringing my hands about it, is i called the liquor control board and i got ahead of the issue. i said, "how do we fix this?" so we're alreadyputting administrative,and then next year,

legislative changes, to fix that. because the last thing we need is another black eye these are the types of things that, practically, we can get ahead of ourselves. it's also veryimportant to continue... as i said, i was part of thetrade delegation to mexico city. it's very important,through our universities and legislature to legislature,to create those relationships and show them that we are practical, pragmatic,

and that we are open for business. - well, i briefly mentioned this issue before: our bad reputation. we certainly need to cleanthings up when it comes to guns, immigration, equality, and prejudice in our state. clearly, when mister oretook his vote on 1062, i was surprised. he represents me and i had no idea that he was going to vote that way.

my job is to tell you, "on big issues like this, "you will know how i will vote." when he made his vote, it was a simple vote on the floor. i didn't hear him speak out against it, he did not explain why he voted the way he did. i wanted to hear him tell me his values on this issue. one thing he didn't mention is, in 2013, he sits on the judiciarycommittee, in 2013, there was an exact same bill.

it came to his committee; hevoted yes, sent it to the floor. the governor vetoedthat bill because it was when she was doing her medicaid bargainings, and she told the legislature, "you send me anything but my budget, i will veto it." they sent her this bill, it was vetoed. so he changed his mindon this issue, i think. but i would really like to have heard a little bit more about why you voted that way.

but yes, we have a serious problem with the reputation. we have a lot of work to do, but we can do this work together, we can do this work by talking to each other, andlistening to each other. doctor friese, what will you do to help fund adult education in arizona? - we've spoken a lot aboutpublic education, k through 12, but public education also includes adult education: post secondary education, community college,

vocational schools, jteds, and our university system. these systems need to besupported, absolutely. the university constantly is asking for increases in its budgets; it hasn't gotten them. tuition in the university of arizona has gone up by 33 percent since 2008. this is not sustainable. we have to, very critically, look at the budgets that the universities are asking for

and give them the support they need, so that our students that are relying on our state schools to get the education that helps to improve their lives, can afford it. i spoke to a young girl when i was on the u of a campus. she stopped me, 'cause we were doing a political event. she stopped me and she said, "i wanna tell you my story. "i am here on afour-year scholarship." she was in her second year; shewas finishing her second year.

and she said to me, "tuition's going up, "and they won't coverit with my scholarship." she now had to pay, out-of-pocket, that increase in her tuition. that should not happen when someone's on a scholarship. so there's a lot of things we need to look at; there's a lot of thingswe need to change. we can fund these systems because they are so important. we need to spend more efficiently, we need

to spend more effectively, but these are things that we can attack and solve as a group. - i see one of my good friends from adult education here. last year, i helpedincrease their fundingby 4.5 million dollars. had i not been in the legislature in the majority party at the budget negotiation table, i don't think we would have gotten that. that meant a lot ofopportunity for a lot of people

here in pima county. it's one thing to say something;it's quite another to do it and to continue to do it. so that 4.5 million dollars meant a lot to our community. i supported literacy connects, particularly when the five separate agencies-- some of you may remember this, three, four years ago-- merged into one; i helped support that because it's so important that we create literacy programs,

and that we unify our resources in teaching that. truly, if you can read, it opensup the door to everything else. one thing that i will say, very briefly, on the 1062: my colleague asked how icame to that conclusion. in 2013, when a similarbill was passed, i not only went throughit for several hours, i went through it with an attorney, and then i called the aclu, and i went through it with them,and then i called (mumbling), and i went through itwith them, line-by-line.

and they assured methat they would be able to make some changes after the judiciary committee, which is why i allowed it go through that last year, or in 2013. they did not make those changes,and i was the one republican that voted against iton the floor last year. this year, i fundamentally refused to allow it to go through the judiciary committee. now, there are... almost no one stands up to their party,

and i've done it repeatedly. i went to the speaker of the house, i went to the chairman of the judiciary, and i say, "i will not allow "this bill to be here," and i was under immense pressure from every conservative in the state for over a month to do that. that's why, if you lookat it, they withdrew it from the judiciary because of me and had to take it up through government.

then, i was one of three republicans that stood up against that vote and continuedto fight it on the floor. and then, when it went to the governor's desk, i was one of six people sitting with the governor when she made that fateful decision to veto it. in fact, i brought some letters from businesses here and personally handed them to the governor. at this point in time, each of the candidates will have the opportunity

to ask one question of their opponent. please briefly state your question. we sill start with you, mister ore. - i was actually preparing for the debate today, and i got a call from a high-ranking elected democratic leader in this region; this question actually comes from them. given the fact that most members of the minority party are notpart of the budget negotiations, have not gotten a single bill passed, and that i was able

to pass more bills than theentire minority caucus combined, how do you proposegetting any of the ideas that you have talked about tonight to the governor's desk and enacted in legislation? - i think that reflects back tothose things i've been saying all evening long: we must work as a team, we must build respect, we must build trust. in order to effectivelynegotiate, you have to have that infrastructure, and it's gonna take time

to build that infrastructure. i've got experience with that. i'm a smart person, i communicate well, and most importantly, i listen well, and that's a skill i've learned as, being a physician, to listen to my patients. and really, half of communication is listening, so we have to listen to each other. those are the things i would do. you can't start out by accepting defeat.

i'm not going to go tothe legislature saying, "i'm in the minority party; "i'm not gonna have any participation in these processes." no; i actually will have participation in these processes; i will talk to peopleon the side; i will meet with people who are willing to listen and share ideas. so yes, i think i can be effective; in fact, i'm certain i will be effective. maybe not as effective as i'd like to be,

and will that be problematic for me? i'll just swallow my pride and continue to do the best i can do,and work hard, and work on my communication andmy trust and my respect, but that's how i will attack this problem, and i will be effective. - thank you; doctor friese, your question for mister ore. - this is, i think, a very direct question, and hopefully you cangive us a simple answer,

but again, i don't wannaharp on the 1062 issue, but it is an equality question. across the country, gay marriage bans are falling. i refuse to allow arizona to be the last state to shed its prejudice. would you join with me to allow two same-sex people who love each other to marry? - yes, i actually would. in fact, one of the things that is so very important

to me, and this is... jim colby and i, who's afriend and a supporter of mine, had a good conversationabout this. the way that i view marriage, from a deeply-held, religious belief standpoint, is... i am asking you... i've been married to my wife happily for 13 years. we have three kids, andit is my deeply-held, religious belief that she isthe right one for me, and i hope

that i will be married to her for the rest of my life. if i am asking you to acknowledge and ratify my deeply-held, religious belief that that is correct, then i believe, on a moral standpoint, i have to turn around and acknowledge and respect your deeply-held, religious belief. one of the classes i teach, so i get a little esoteric, is civil liberties and constitutional law at the university; i'vetaught it for years.

i believe that thegovernment recognizescontractual obligations. so, one: on a moral standpoint, i need to respect your deeply-held, religious belief, even if it is not the same as mine, because we live in a constitutional republic; but i also believe that the government has an obligation to recognize that contractual relationship, which is, ultimately, what is; and that the government should never be in the business of limiting people's right to contract, through marriage

or through entering into a business, or in any other way, shape or form. the government should not limit people's ability and right to contractand respect each other. we will begin candidateclosing statements. the first closing statement will be given by mister ore. - thank you; i really appreciate everyone that's taken the timeto be here for, i think, a very lovely debate.

i respect my colleague,i respect his mind, and i respect all of you. i will say it has been aprivilege to serve my community, and whether or not i'm elected,whether i have two months left, two years or twentyyears, i will continueto serve our community. i've been an integral part of the leadership and the fabric and the solutions that we have created together as a community,and those solutionsare uniquely tucson. i have been at the table, time and time again,

when we made the decisions. even some of the successes andfailures we had with rã­o nuevo, the street car, some of these other things; i've been at the table, i have the institutional knowledge and the memory, and ihave taken that with me. it is a distinct honor to represent the district that i grew up in, to representthe people that raised me, and do everything i possibly can to make this community a better place.

and i've mentioned in my opening statement, when i think of the arizona we want to be, it is an arizona that rises above partisan bickering and partisan politics. when we think about the people that made this state great, the carl haydens who built the center for the cap project, when we think about them, they had their ideological beliefs, but they always supported each other. jim colby told me this: when mo udall, who i respect,

i grew up watching him; when mo udall was on his deathbed, barry goldwater came and visited him every single day. that is the arizona we want to be. they were far apart onideological differences, but the difference is they were friends, and they came to a point where we can disagree here, but we can go and we can have coffee and a beer afterwards and we can find a point of agreement. we will never, evermove this state forward

when we're willing to sacrifice bi-partisanship and commonality for partisan differences. as long as we continue to talk about divisive, wedge issues, and not put our statefirst, we will always be in the same situation. the truth is, 80 percent of the goals we have in common. and i look at susana martinez, what she was able to do as governor of new mexico. that's who i want to be: i want to identify the issues

that we support each other on, have in common, and move our state forward. everyone wants there to be less abortions; everyone wants there to be more jobs; everyone wants to make sure that every child in arizona has a well-funded, world-class education and the opportunity to stay in this state because we'vecreated an economic environment where there are jobs. let's focus on that.

if you look at thebills that i supported, my commercial space flight, jted, police safety, supporting veterans' education and burial rights, every single one of my bills passed; even on the controversial issues, like supporting some changes to the medical marijuana law, the most controversial issues in the state; every single one of my bills left the house with over 50 out of 60 votes because i made sure

that everyone was at the table,and whether i needed them or not, that their voice was heard. doctor friese, yourthree-minute closing statement. - i'd like to thank clean elections commission, as well as everyone heretonight for taking time out this evening. i'd also like to thank ethan for his participation in this debate; it's great to share our views. in closing, i'd like to sayit's time for change in arizona.

arizona has been moving backward for far too long. i am passionate about participating in this process. i'll take that passion to the capitol and work for you with that passion. i think passion is a very important part, and dedication to a cause is a very importantpart to be an effective leader. i also can bring uniquetalent and expertise to the capitol, and i'd like tobe able to participate in some of the decisions that are being made about healthcare.

i also wanna be very specific, and i'm gonna leave you with a few things that i want to do in the legislature. i will reverse legislation that systematically de-funds public education. i will defend a woman's right i will ensure that we have communities safe from meaningless gun violence. i will stand for equality for all, and work to stop the politics of fear, and the politics of hate.

i will work to reverse the economic hardships faced by many arizonan families by supporting our business community; by working with our neighbor, mexico, to enhance trade opportunities; and by properly funding our universities' efforts in research and development. we need arizona leadersto stop fighting, and to work together tomove arizona forward.

we thank you both so much for participating in our forum this evening; and to all of you who came out this evening, we thank you for yourtime, the time you took to inform yourselves before voting. we encourage you to find out more about clean elections and the candidates running for office by visiting www.azcleanelections.gov. a video of this debate, as well as other clean elections debates,

will be posted on that site within 72 hours of a scheduled debate. thank you all for coming this evening. (applause)