Losing an election, for most people, triggers some soul-searching about what comes next.
For Democratic state Rep. Stephanie Stahl Hamilton, a former Presbyterian minister, you might even expect some prayers.
Stahl Hamilton lost her Democratic primary this summer, bringing an end — at least for now — to her six years representing Southern Arizona in the state Legislature.
When Joe sat down with Stahl Hamilton for a post-election interview, one thing became clear — she doesn’t see those six years as the end of her public life.
Arizona state Rep. Stephanie Stahl Hamilton
What best prepared you for running for office and then serving in office?
Life. Before she was the Honorable Stahl Hamilton, she was a youth minister, camp director, substitute teacher, cross-country coach and a banquet server at the Arizona Inn.
“I was scratching together everything I could to supplement my husband’s teaching salary.”
Politics would come later. The first domino was getting involved in her daughter’s school.
There were a number of issues, but many of them stemmed from a single source: the loss of state funding for public schools.
“What I started to see … was that our state was balancing its budget on the backs of our children.”
Then the recession hit in 2007, and it was brutal for her family.
“My daughter was in kindergarten. My husband taught at the middle school just right up the road. In one board meeting, all four members of my family, their schools were closed. And so I was in that, trying to keep my children’s school open where I found my employees and surrounded by a group of moms that said, ‘you need to run for office.’”
She resisted that first call, but she found herself getting more active in the community.
Stahl Hamilton would spend the next decade working in education and nonprofit circles before opting to run in 2020.
What was the final push?
“I showed up with a calling to serve youth and children, with a justice lens, grounded in community, for all the things I did in the community. And then when I started looking at the logistics of nuts and bolts of what helps a candidate run, well, I had just organically been building those over the years.”
What did you tell people would be your first bill?
”I told people I’m not here this first year to run a bill…. And the first thing I need to do is learn the lay of the land and build the relationships. Because if I am going to get a bill across the finish line, it’s going to be because of the relationships that I formed.”
The Stahl Hamilton family
How did COVID change things in your first year?
It turns out it wasn’t the pandemic that kept Stahl Hamilton awake at night. It was how Arizona would react if the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the law of the land on reproductive rights — Roe v. Wade.
Arizona had a law on the books dating back to the territorial days, and it hung like a dark cloud over the freshman legislator’s head.
“One of the things that did keep me up at night was that 1864 territorial ban. I was really extremely concerned about that should Roe ever fall.”
When it did, Stahl Hamilton was no longer a backbencher, and she remembers clearly the careful choices she made on the floor to keep the discussion moving forward over the bill repealing the 1864 ban.
Some of her Republican colleagues, she said, didn’t want to hear certain terms as every state lawmaker debated the proposal.
The Republican running the floor debate, Rep. Travis Grantham, said he didn’t want to hear about abortion, contraception or pregnancy while discussing the repeal of the 160-year-old ban.
It was an unnecessary restriction, but she knew that it was part of the price of keeping the conversation alive.
”That’s the thing for me is that my approach, you got to get to 31 in the House, you got to get to 16 in the Senate.”
Once it passed both chambers, Gov. Katie Hobbs signed the repeal on May 2, 2024.
How many of your bills got signed into law?
For a Southern Arizona Democrat, any number — no matter how low — is a victory.
Generally speaking, Republican chairs don’t give hearings to Democratic bills.
And the Tucson vs. Phoenix rivalry is still a roadblock for those representing the Old Pueblo.
So, Stahl Hamilton says, her number is higher than what the record shows.
Why? She gave some of her best bills to Republicans who were more than willing to back them and take the credit.
“I was smart enough to know, even this session, that I needed a Republican to carry the legislation to get it there.”
For now, only Stahl Hamilton knows the true number, and it will probably stay that way unless she writes it in her memoirs.
But it is way too early for that.
You are not done, right?
She expects a yet-to-be-announced special session to ratify the new Colorado River deal will bring her back to Phoenix before her term expires.
“Conservation is not going to get us out of this mess. Returning water to the river is not going to get us out of this mess. We have to have a comprehensive water policy dealing with both groundwater and surface water that helps Arizona state be able to provide water for all its people in the state, as well as enough water for businesses.”
So what’s next for you?
She’s certain she isn’t going to be sitting on the sidelines for long.
“There is never any shortage of things for me to do. But what I think will come next is a whole lot more of the same. That I will make a decision based upon what’s practical for my family and also somewhere where I can use what I perceive to be my strengths and my talents in order to give back to the community.”
The baby and the bathwater: Local officials are pushing back on what they call “extractive” industries like mining, data centers and military weaponry, apparently hoping Tucson can become a hub of green technologies, Arizona Daily Star columnist Tim Steller writes. But they might miss out on big businesses that bring better salaries and opportunities for employees, especially as local economic indicators are flashing red, including a shrinking population and fewer Tucsonans working.
Running between the raindrops: The tension over which industries should be encouraged in the Tucson area was one of the reasons Pima County Supervisor Jen Allen wanted to postpone a discussion about the county’s economic development plan, Stephanie Casanova reports for the Arizona Luminaria. Next month, the supervisors are going to hash out whether the seven industries the plan is designed to foster, such as aerospace, defense, advanced manufacturing and logistics, make sense for the county. They’ll also address how county officials can block specific projects, like Project Blue, without turning the county into a no-fly zone for investors.
“We’re at a time with such economic instability and unprecedented wealth concentration, and people making our average salary for the region being unable to pay the bills, let alone thrive,” Allen said. “So, you know, our roadmap for strengthening our economy, I really feel should be discussed thoroughly by us and between us.”
Sign of the times: Tucson Unified School District officials are moving ahead with plans to close as many as eight schools, the Tucson Sentinel’s Mia Kortright reports. Like many districts, TUSD is seeing a pretty steep decline in enrollment at its 88 schools. District officials are keenly aware that parents could be mad if their neighborhood school closes, so they set up a 22-member School Reconfiguration Committee and scheduled several public outreach events planned for September, in case you want to make your voice heard.
Step by step: In a more encouraging turn of events, the new Tucson School for the Blind got approval from the state to accept public school kids, Noor Haghighi reports for Arizona Public Media. The school emerged after the Tucson campus of the Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and the Blind was closed. Now that the state says the school’s teachers have the appropriate certifications and the building passed inspection, the school can start accepting students who fit within 15 special education categories.
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Sticky fingers: The president of the organization that puts on Rex Allen Days, an annual festival in Willcox, was charged with embezzlement after allegedly stealing funds from the organization, Terri Jo Neff reports for the Herald/Review. The scheme came to light when board members found out their checks were bouncing and the organization had less than $1 in the bank. On top of the embezzlement charge, John Alan Oberreuter faces charges of tampering with evidence, money laundering, fraud, and as Neff put it, “myriad types of theft.”
Sure, it’s juvenile, but isn’t that what political signs are all about?
Some pretty funny signs are getting tacked onto the ones two-term Republican Congressman Juan Ciscomani is putting up around town.
The new signs read “Juan + Donald” inside a heart.
Like we said, it’s pretty juvenile.
But the messaging is about as straightforward as you can get. Throughout Trump 2.0, Ciscomani has touted his ties to the president and let slide even the most bizarre stuff coming out of the White House.
Why not take it further? How about “Juan wuvs Donald” or an image of Ciscomani staring lovingly into Trump’s eyes? An ambitious sign-maker could even lean into the whole nursery rhyme side of it and picture the two of them sitting in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g.