Two Republicans running for office in a progressive, Tempe legislative district blasted Democrats in a debate on Aug. 27.
Republicans Bill Loughrige and Don Hawker used the hour-long debates, which were sponsored by the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission, to cast Democrats as immoral, anti-American villains.
Loughrige is running for the Legislative District 8 Senate seat against Democratic Sen. Lauren Kuby. Hawker is trying to gain one of the seats that Democratic Reps. Brian Garcia and Janeen Connolly hold. Connolly declined an invitation to attend the debate.
Hawker and Loughrige said they’re running to counter Democratic policies.
Republican Senate candidate Bill Loughrige
“The Democrats have moved so far to the left and have so many things that are creating havoc in our communities and culture that I want at least to have an alternative,” Loughrige said, adding that he’s met his opponent, Kuby, and he likes her.
Hawker was less diplomatic. He said the Democratic Party has waged war on the country’s security and morality “with respect for life, property, sexual and marital order,” and on children's innocence, “with pornographic and grooming books in every library.”
He said Democrats inflame emotions with buzz words like climate change, racism, xenophobia, Nazi and “and now their ultimate cuss word, MAGA.”
Republican House candidate Don Hawker
“They encourage rioting and try to provoke ICE to violence, so they can cry Nazi,” Hawker said.
Republicans comprise only 25% of the registered voters in the district, which covers parts of Tempe, the Salt River Indian Reservation and the Arcadia neighborhood of Phoenix, so it is unlikely their message will resonate beyond their party. Democrats have dominated elections in the area for almost 20 years.
Loughrige griped that the debate didn’t include questions about culture issues, the move towards bigger government, “the Democrats move toward the socialistic states,” or education.
Legislative District 8
But the first policy question in the debate was about education — the renewal of Proposition 123 — and Loughrige didn’t understand the issue.
Prop. 123 is a 2016 voter-approved measure that allows the state to pull more out of the state land trust to pay the costs of annual inflation funding for state funds to schools. The 2016 vote ended a legal dispute over the Legislature’s decision to not make inflation adjustments for public schools for three consecutive fiscal years.
The measure expired in 2025 and lawmakers and the governor have since failed to reach a compromise to give to voters. The Legislature allocated nearly $300 million to backfill the expired funds every year since.
Kuby, a former Tempe City Councilwoman who won election in 2024, said she would vote to send voters a clean renewal of Prop. 123 with no new provisions. Republicans and Democrats have been fighting over how much a new version should withdraw from the trust fund and whether to earmark raises for only teachers or all school workers.
Loughrige said school funding should be left to school districts.
Democratic Sen. Lauren Kuby
Kuby said one of the problems with education funding is the strain the Empowerment Scholarship Account program, which provides public money for students to attend private school, has put on the state budget.
Since the Republican-controlled Legislature and former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey approved the program to allow any student to enroll, it has swollen to 104,000 students and is expected to cost $1.2 billion in the next fiscal year.
“We know that the people that most benefit are in the wealthiest zip codes,” Kuby said.
She plans to introduce legislation if she’s reelected to reform the program, including reintroducing a 2026 bill she sponsored that would disallow using the money for private college education.
Loughrige called the program a net savings to the state, noting the cost of the program amounts to $10,000 per student, but it costs $15,000 to educate a student for a year in a public school.
Hawker said Democrats and teachers’ unions are trying to destroy ESAs “to imprison all children in the Democrat indoctrination centers, which public schools have become.”
Democratic Rep. Brian Garcia
Garcia said members of the House Education Committee have sponsored bills to rein in the program and add accountability measures, but Republicans won’t allow them to be heard.
“When you take public funds, you should be held accountable to the same standards as everyone else,” Garcia said.
The candidates answered questions on other topics.
On restricting the number of residential units investors can buy:
Garcia: “I think bottom line: short-term rentals are eating up our housing stock.”
Hawker: “It's not like the house is just sitting there empty, and that's not keeping someone out of a house. It may cost more or something, but everybody wants to look to the government to solve all their problems.”
On the proliferation of data centers:
Garcia: “In the aggregate, I remain opposed to them unless they are willing to actually make an effort to meet us where we are and where our communities are. But that doesn't seem to be the case.”
Hawker: “I don't know what these data centers are even doing. I'd be more interested to know what are they holding in the way of data, and what are they doing with it? Is it something good or is it something bad?”
On raising the tax on short-term rentals to hotel-level rates and dedicate that money to building affordable housing:
Kuby: “Yes, and Democrats in both the House and the Senate have legislation that reflects this intention perfectly, and I would definitely support it.”
Loughrige: “I agree with Lauren that these rental properties should be taxed at the commercial rate. It's the city governments, basically run by Democrats, that have turned our neighborhoods into dormitories.”
On legislation to address the housing crisis:
Loughrige: “I think that you need to reduce the restrictions, let the free market work its way out, let people build their houses, or let contractors and developers build the houses, but you have to be careful of the water.”
Kuby: “The Legislature, I believe, in 2014 made it illegal for a city to require a certain percentage of affordable housing or workforce housing in a given development that they were considering. So this is a tool used all over the country to create affordable and workforce housing. In Arizona, it's illegal. So that is the very first bill that I would like to repeal.”