Many people from Legislative District 22 (Gilbert, Apache Junction, Gold Canyon) met with one of their legislators, Representative Andy Biggs (center). There were several others who did not stay for the picture. Representative Biggs met with us for thirty minutes, and we mainly discussed the budget's impact on public schools.
The meeting was a good opportunity for anyone who had never met a sitting legislator to understand 1) they are human, 2) they rarely answer direct questions directly, 3) they daily work with competing interests and complex issues.
Representative Biggs was very clear on a few issues: he will not raise taxes, he is highly critical if not opposed to "social programs" not called for in the Arizona Constitution, and he does not believe government is a useful tool for solving problems.
On other items, he was a bit less clear. For the first half of the meeting, for example, he told a school board member from Higley that public school extracurricular tax credits were on the budgetary chopping block. Then he reversed direction during the last half of the meeting and said "they" did not have to votes to get rid of the tax credits.
Hopefully that was eye opening as well.
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