About Jeff...
Some Background info
Jeff has been stepping up to do what’s needed - and what’s right - in Arizona since 2017. That’s when he realized that talking to the people in his neighborhood, and actively listening to them, was the most important work a community member can do to contribute to a better, more informed and activated society.
Since becoming a special education teacher in 2004, Jeff has been a public education advocate with a passion for properly funding public schools and paying teachers like the respected professionals they are.
These two forces came together when a bill to make Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs - better known as vouchers) universal in Arizona… taking taxpayer money from public schools and diverting it to private/parochial/home schools with little to no accountability. Jeff joined the effort of Save Our Schools Arizona to stop this bill from becoming law. And we won! At least until the Republican governor and legislature ignored the will of the people and did it anyway.
Jeff has been advocating for candidates and causes since. Candidates and causes that care about public education, about human dignity and rights and doing what’s needed to help all Arizonans. Causes that promote clean and fair elections, expanding voting rights, protecting people’s basic rights, and making sure Arizonans have access to food, shelter and healthcare.
Jeff’s education advocacy and desire to give back to his community resulted in him running for, and winning, a seat on the Cave Creek Unified School District Governing Board in 2020. He has used this position and his voice to speak up for teachers and students and to get support from the community to help the district prosper.
Since becoming a special education teacher in 2004, Jeff has been a public education advocate with a passion for properly funding public schools and paying teachers like the respected professionals they are.
These two forces came together when a bill to make Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs - better known as vouchers) universal in Arizona… taking taxpayer money from public schools and diverting it to private/parochial/home schools with little to no accountability. Jeff joined the effort of Save Our Schools Arizona to stop this bill from becoming law. And we won! At least until the Republican governor and legislature ignored the will of the people and did it anyway.
Jeff has been advocating for candidates and causes since. Candidates and causes that care about public education, about human dignity and rights and doing what’s needed to help all Arizonans. Causes that promote clean and fair elections, expanding voting rights, protecting people’s basic rights, and making sure Arizonans have access to food, shelter and healthcare.
Jeff’s education advocacy and desire to give back to his community resulted in him running for, and winning, a seat on the Cave Creek Unified School District Governing Board in 2020. He has used this position and his voice to speak up for teachers and students and to get support from the community to help the district prosper.
WHy I'm Running
Senator John Kavanagh has not only been an ardent supporter of private schools, a rubber stamp for extremist policies at the state and federal level, and a very strong proponent of the fraudulent Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, but he is also an Epstein apologist who said on the radio he didn’t think it was a big deal. Contrary to his own Christian values, year after year, he supports the persecution of a class of people for the way they live their lives. Session after session, he brings up bathroom bills, wrapped in disingenuous moral and religious indignation. Because many of my current students are LGBTQ+, these attacks struck me very deeply.
Too often, Senator Kavanagh runs unopposed. It’s a travesty that someone of this moral character keeps waltzing back into the Senate without challenge.
Simultaneously, people have been speaking about accountability. Because of what is happening in our country, every elected Republican must be held responsible for their complicity in what their party is doing, undermining democracy, trampling the rule of law, and discarding due process, a right guaranteed to all people, not just citizens, under our Constitution.
So we need to do something now. We have to push ourselves to do the uncomfortable. Now, I have been doing uncomfortable things for so long that they’ve actually become very comfortable to me. So I needed to find a way to get MORE uncomfortable. That was the moment I realized that the someone to run against Kavanagh was going to be me. Given how things are going right now, I believe we all need to be ready to do the uncomfortable. Because for me, losing our Constitutionally guaranteed rights is far more uncomfortable than running for this office.
I understand that on paper, this district is solidly Republican. But it's an American district first and foremost. Kavanaugh doesn’t get to hide behind a red wall. He needs to answer to all his constituents, regardless of party. So I’m getting out there to bring the fight to him.