Arizona Daily Wildcat
Wednesday October 30, 2002
Raul Grijalva (D)
Education: Bachelor of arts in sociology, UA
At-a-glance: Grijalva said he needs more information about Focused Excellence, because he worries that the plan could make the student population less diverse.
"Likins wants this to be a smart university," he said. "I think this is a public institution and if that's going to change, then it needs to be done carefully."
Grijalva said he thinks Arizona needs to work to get more federal dollars pumped into the state.
He said that Tucson has been co-dependent on Phoenix and a Legislature that doesn't care about education for too long.
Tucson needs to create an environment where people feel safe to ask for things, Grijalva said.
"There are needs in this community that need to be attended to," he said.
Grijalva wants to promote economic plans developed by the border communities, instead of letting Washington decide the strategies.
Ross Hieb (R)
Education: Bachelor of arts in Far East studies, University of Washington; master of science in systems analysis, Naval Postgraduate School.
At-a-glance: Ross Hieb understands the role the university plays in the economy and development and he plans on continuing federal funding of research programs, said Benny White, a campaign worker for Hieb.
Hieb said he would like to diminish money spent on bureaucracy and put it back into the classrooms.
He said K-12 schools should be based on their community values, and therefore educational policies and curriculum should not be federally mandated.
Hieb would like to see a guest worker policy set up for immigration and wants to be able to know who is coming into the country and where they are working, White said.
White said Hieb feels too much money is taken out of the economy through income, capital gains and social security taxes, referring to this practice as "an economic depressant."
John Nemeth (L)
Education: High school diploma
At-a-glance: Nemeth feels the universities in Arizona are strictly state entities and that any federal involvement or money for education is illegal and unconstitutional.
Nemeth wants to focus on the campaign finance reform bill recently passed by Congress because he feels the 29-page law is "impossible to comprehend," and therefore thinks that every candidate will inevitably break some part of the law.
He also feels that the law will silence the Libertarian party making the Republican and Democratic parties the only parties with a voice.
Nemeth said the border should be handled federally and said that the solution to the border problems is Mexico "getting its act together."
He feels that the border should be relatively open, but with checks.
"I have Mexican nationals living next to me," Nemeth said. "I would rather have them than Tony Soprano."
