Two Democratic candidates in a largely rural, central Arizona legislative district said Aug. 18 they’re against increasing the state’s 2.5% flat income tax that their party fiercely opposed and has wanted to repeal for years.
State Senate candidate Elaine Aldrete and House candidate Julia Romero Gusse revealed their stance in an Arizona Citizens Clean Elections debate that turned into an interview when their Republican opponents, Sen. T.J. Shope, Rep. Teresa Martinez and Rep. Chris Lopez, didn’t show up.
All five candidates are vying to represent communities in Legislative District 16, which is predominantly in Pinal County and includes a small portion of Maricopa County, the Gila River Indian Community, a chunk of Pima County and the cities of Casa Grande, Florence, Coolidge and a section of Tucson.
Election Day is Nov. 3, and early ballots go out Oct. 7.
The hourlong interview moderated by the Arizona Agenda newsletter’s Hank Stephenson spanned a wide range of policy questions, the candidates’ election pitches and revealing personal insights.
Legislative District 16
Their answers to the question about increasing the flat tax brought an uncommon response for Democrats, who are typically more amenable to tax increases than Republicans.
“I think we’re over taxed as it is,” Gusse, a former city councilwoman in Maricopa, said.
Arizona’s tax rate, which the Legislature passed in 2021 and then-Gov. Doug Ducey signed to replace a tiered, progressive structure, is one of the lowest in the nation. Democrats opposed its passage and argue that it favors only the wealthy and corporations while causing budget shortfalls that threaten public schools and vital state services.
Democratic House candidate Julia Gusse
Gusse said tax increases don’t hurt wealthy people, so her answers for relief for middle- and lower-income families who would be hurt by an increase include tax incentive days, a concept she learned about while living in Washington D.C. when she worked for the Biden administration.
She said back-to-school items weren’t taxed for a day, helping working families, a concept she said Arizona could do for an assortment of basic items without affecting revenue.
Aldrete said tax incentives are a better alternative than increases.
“That is always the best way to operate is to have incentives rather than penalties,” Aldrete said.
Neither candidate said they would raise any other Arizona tax, a position that could help them in a district where registered Republican voters outnumber Democrats by six percentage points. Voters who aren’t affiliated with either party make up nearly 40% of the electorate.
Democratic candidates have had some success in the district, and the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee has targeted the House race for extra resources for voter outreach, polling and communications.
Taxes aside, the candidates took more traditional Democratic stances on other issues such as whether they’ll vote for Proposition 318, which would require schools and athletic associations to designate every sports team as either male or female, and would bar transgender girls from playing on female teams. It would also bar schools and athletic associations from letting anyone use private spaces like restrooms, locker rooms, and showers that are not designated for their sex.
“My opinion is let kids be kids,” Gusse said.
She said “no one was having a heart attack” when girls began playing in boys’ sports and she thinks Republicans “invented” the issue of transgender girls playing in girls’ sports and changing and showering in girls’ locker rooms.
Democratic Senate candidate Elaine Aldrete
Aldrete said she thinks the issue is a distraction from more important things like the Epstein files and voters should be more concerned about school safety.
“You know that we’re more worried about whether or not a person can use a bathroom than we are about pedophiles out there harming our children,” Aldrete said.
Aldrete and Gusse want to curtail the Empowerment Scholarship Account program, or vouchers, to find more funding for public schools.
The ESA program, which provides public money for students to attend private schools, is a major source of conflict between Republicans and Democrats at the Capitol. The program costs about $1 billion a year and is rife with waste, abuse and fraud. Republicans want to protect the program from any decrease in enrollment and funding while Democrats want to limit the program to just students with special needs and place financial guardrails and accountability measures on it.
“I don’t understand how this abuse of these ESA vouchers are continuing,” Gusse said. “One of the things that we need to do as legislators is to make sure we’re ramping up the accountability.”
Aldrete said she wants to see a cap on income for participating families and earmark the savings that would bring for teacher pay raises.
She also wants to see more teacher retention programs to help teachers pay off their college debt and convert closed school buildings into housing for teachers.
“I think that would be a great way to make sure that our students are well educated, so that they move on to be well educated workforce members,” Aldrete said.
With public confidence in elections falling — even among Democrats, polling shows — neither candidate is calling for drastic change to election laws, but they complained about Pinal County.
Aldrete and Gusse said Pinal County’s requirement that people who want to cast their ballots in person must go to their assigned precinct on Election Day can be a hardship to some who might have to travel long distances to vote. Other Arizona counties allow people to vote or drop their ballots at any vote center in the county.
Both candidates said they want to protect voting rights and mail-in voting.
Gusse said Republicans tend to allege elections are fixed when they lose, but have no complaints when they win.
“I think there’s nothing wrong with our elections,” Gusse said.