The Courage to Stand Alone

In only Week 2, plenty of opportunities have arisen to go along with the crowd

I am in the second year of my first term as one of two Arizona House Representatives from Legislative District 17, along with my fantastic seatmate, Cory McGarr.  We were both elected in an absolutely filthy race with much tighter margins than we expected in a R+9 district.  This year, I am running for reelection and have drawn the following committee assignments:

·      Education

·      Elections

·      Government

·      Military and Public Safety (Vice Chair)

I served on each of those except Education last year and considered Elections my favorite and most important committee in 2023.  The purpose of today’s post is to underscore an important belief that an effective and sincere statesman must hold deep in his or her core:

Stand for what is right even if you are standing alone.

That quote, and all variations of it, is attributed to many people all holding differing worldviews.  Legislators are given plenty of options to run with the crowd as people pleasers or to do all those fancy things they promised their constituents, which requires conviction and taking hard rights over easy wrongs.  On two occasions this week, once in Education committee and then again in Government, I provided the only no vote, for a total of two no votes, against a total of 17 yes votes over both committees.  In the Education committee, my vote was intended to steer the committee to backing Constitutional legislative oversight of the charter school state board.  In the Government committee, a bill was presented by a Republican colleague that would have removed hurdles for affordable housing in Arizona, which would cause issues with water policy, a huge issue here, and open a pathway to 15-minute cities.

My votes did not win out, but I kept my word to do my best job for those who elected me in keeping with principles of limited government and the Constitution.  Opportunity exists every day for every leader to do the right things, or personally and politically expedient ones that preserve an unacceptable status quo.

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