About Jeff...
Some Background info
I moved to Arizona from the Chicago suburbs with my wife Mary and son Justin in 1999. I was drawn to the Phoenix area by the glorious natural beauty and abundant sunshine. When I have time, I am an avid hiker and bicyclist. I also enjoy reading and all types of music. I left a twenty plus year career in computer programming to become a special education teacher, earning my bachelor’s degree in 2004. I continue to teach 7th - 12th graders. Working in the classroom has opened my eyes to the struggles our students, teachers, and school districts face daily when the legislative majority continues to deny proper funding for education.
I was elected to the Cave Creek Unified School District governing board in 2020 and re-elected in 2024. I work to bring the voices of students and teachers to the board dais and consider the impacts on the classroom whenever I take a vote. I have also put my voice and my feet to work in supporting candidates and causes that are focused on properly funding public schools and paying teachers like the respected professionals they are.
I also proudly support candidates and causes that care about human dignity and rights, as well as doing what’s needed to help all Arizonans. This includes 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.
I have knocked on tens of thousands of doors for my school board races, and other candidates and causes. I always work to listen and to understand the issues that are concerning to my neighbors and to find common ground.
I was elected to the Cave Creek Unified School District governing board in 2020 and re-elected in 2024. I work to bring the voices of students and teachers to the board dais and consider the impacts on the classroom whenever I take a vote. I have also put my voice and my feet to work in supporting candidates and causes that are focused on properly funding public schools and paying teachers like the respected professionals they are.
I also proudly support candidates and causes that care about human dignity and rights, as well as doing what’s needed to help all Arizonans. This includes 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.
I have knocked on tens of thousands of doors for my school board races, and other candidates and causes. I always work to listen and to understand the issues that are concerning to my neighbors and to find common ground.
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 and pronoun 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. Kavanagh 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.
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. Kavanagh 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.