Campaigns heating up as primary approaches

Arizona voters are getting an earful of claims, counterclaims, robocalls and mailers as legislative candidates brawl before the primary election next month.

It's a sign of how vital the Aug.28 primary is to legislative fortunes: In many districts, the winners are virtually guaranteed a seat at the Capitol.

That's a testament to the lopsided nature of many of Arizona's legislative districts. Although the districts have new boundaries this year due to the once-a-decade state redistricting, many of them still tilt heavily toward one major party or the other.

Voter registration closes Monday night; early voting begins Thursday.

In all, there are primary races for more than one-third of the 60 House seats, and one-fifth of the 30 Senate seats.

Campaign fireworks have included battles over signs, complaints of sloppy financial reporting and public allegations based on rumors.

Pollster Earl de Berge said such tactics are an easy way to avoid talking about the nitty-gritty of a candidate's positions.

"They're distractions and don't focus on the issues that voters are interested in," he said.

Some of the feistiest legislative races, and the most consequential, are for the state Senate.

Two GOP primaries highlight the ideological split in the Republican Party, pitting "tea party" conservatives against "common-sense" candidates.

On the Democratic side, ideological distinctions take a backseat to personal ambitions, as the dueling candidates in three races aren't offering starkly different agendas.

Republican races

The outcome of two Republican races in particular could determine whether the 2013 Senate tacks more toward a centrist approach or retains the tea-party tone set in 2011 when Russell Pearce was president.

In Mesa, Pearce is trying to make a comeback after voters recalled him in November. He is facing off against businessman Bob Worsley in Legislative District 25. The race has some of the overtones of Pearce's recall campaign, with disputes over endorsements and questions about the legitimacy of some of his backers.

After complaints that Pearce was recycling old endorsements to make them look like current support, Pearce's campaign website now clarifies them as "past endorsements."

Pearce is touting support from the Arizona Teacher's Association, but local educators say they've never heard of the group. Caroline Condit, the group's treasurer, said it consists of "educators of all levels, supervisors down to homeschoolers" but she said they are not involved with the public schools.

Worsley has support from many of the groups that backed Sen. Jerry Lewis in his successful recall race against Pearce. Worsley is attempting to paint Pearce as a "one-note" candidate fixated on illegal immigration, while Worsley says he wants to tackle a broader agenda that includes job creation, school choice and border security.

Pearce disputes the characterization; he doesn't even list immigration as one of his key issues and touts education as a priority. He said the public-school system needs to be shaken up and calls education reform the "civil-rights fight of the next decade."

Next door, in Legislative District 16, Sen. Rich Crandall is battling Rep. John Fillmore for the GOP nomination to the Senate.

Crandall, the Senate Education Committee chairman, put pragmatic concerns above party-line adherence on several key votes in recent years, most notably on bills trying to exert state muscle on immigration issues.

Fillmore has sided more with the tea-party wing of the GOP. An Apache Junction small-business man, he complains Crandall "carpetbagged" into the district, which stretches from east Mesa into Pinal County. Crandall initially decided to sit out the 2012 race after the redistricting process put him in the same district as Pearce. But he changed his mind and shifted his sights farther east to take on Fillmore, a one-term lawmaker.

Fillmore has gone on the offensive in the campaign. He challenged the adequacy of the signatures on Crandall's nominating petitions, but lost.

He filed a complaint with Mesa police over a campaign-sign dispute, and then supported a fellow lawmaker's ethics complaint against Crandall over the senator's reaction to the sign flap. The Senate Ethics Committee chairman dismissed the charge; the police complaint is pending.

Democratic battles

Among Democratic Senate races, two newcomers are trying to oust long-serving legislators and a former state senator is trying to return.

Community organizer Raquel Terán is challenging Sen. Robert Meza in the West Valley's Legislative District 30, an area with a large Latino population. The two have filed dueling campaign complaints against each other. They have yet to be resolved.

Terán is criticizing Meza's level of engagement at the Legislature, charging Meza is frequently absent and has missed votes, to the detriment of his constituents.

"I believe we need to be there for the whole process," Terán said of lawmakers being present for daily sessions. "When we're not there, who is representing the District 30 constituents?"

Meza acknowledged he doesn't spend a lot of time on the Senate floor during daily debate sessions, and said he believes his time is better spent dealing directly with constituent concerns. Senate records show Meza missed four votes out of 692 this year and three out of 671 last year.

For his part, Meza charges that Terán is a one-issue candidate, interested only in immigration. In contrast, Meza said, he is "multidimensional," working on a variety of issues including education and the economy.

In the southwest Valley, newcomer Victor Jett Contreras is trying to unseat Sen. Leah Landrum Taylor, who has served the area since 1999. The campaign took a turn into the mud when Contreras tried to paint Landrum Taylor as an insincere candidate, saying he'd heard a rumor she intended to resign from the Senate soon after re-election and run for the Phoenix City Council.

Landrum Taylor denied the charge, and Contreras has backtracked on his claim.

In central Phoenix, former Sen. Ken Cheuvront is trying to return to the Senate after sitting out for two years due to term limits.

He's in a heated battle with Rep. Katie Hobbs that has spilled over into the District 24 House race.

In that contest, Cheuvront's mother, Jean Cheuvront McDermott, is one of four Democrats running for two seats. Rep. Chad Campbell, House minority leader, sees her presence on the ballot as a rebuke to him, stemming from a dispute with Cheuvront.

Cheuvront McDermott denies her son put her up to running, and said she's long wanted to get into the Legislature.

Campbell, who was hoping not to have a testy primary, said the intraparty warfare is regrettable. Competition is good, he said, if it exposes contrasting ideas on how to work on public policy.

But that's not the case with Democrats this year, he said.

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