Tucson legislative district a battleground for control of Az House of Representatives

Two years ago, state Rep. Kevin Volk pulled off a surprise win in Legislative District 17, a suburban district that includes precincts in Pima and Pinal counties.

As a Democrat making his first run for office in 2024, Volk was an anomaly in a year when Republicans gained ground in the Arizona House of Representatives, going from a 31-29 advantage to 32-28.

Those numbers mean Democrats must hold onto Volk’s seat in GOP turf and win three more around the state to take control of the Arizona House of Representatives.

Volk knocked off a Republican incumbent, Cory McGarr, despite a significant voter registration disadvantage. LD17, which includes precincts in Pima and Pinal counties, was drawn to be a safe Republican district, with 37 percent of the voters aligned with the GOP, 28 percent with Democrats and 35 percent who aren’t aligned with either party.

Volk is seeking a second term and the Arizona Democratic Party is hoping Democrat and military veteran Hollace “Holly” Lyon can win the second seat in LD17.

Volk and Lyon are facing two Republicans: Rep. Rachel Keshel, a MAGA conservative who has focused on her beliefs on that Arizona elections are rigged, and John Winchester, who works as a Southern Arizona government liaison for Arizona State University.

Volk, a former teacher who now works for his family’s real-estate brokerage Volk Company, said it was challenging serving in the minority.

“I ran out of frustration with the existing culture and leadership of the state Legislature,” Volk said. “I felt like it was hyperpartisan, and that hyperpartisan management was crowding out working on actual solutions, whether it’s cost of living, improving our schools, and water management.”

He said working in the House of Representatives “matched my expectations.”

“I don’t pretend it’s going to be magic or easy to improve it, even incrementally,” Volk said. “But I do think it’s a fight worth fighting, even if the impact is going to be incremental.… I’m proud to say that I have great relationships across the chambers and have done what I can to be part of keeping the focus on the issues, calling it out when it is hyperpartisan, and trying to prevent us from normalizing that hyperpartisan management.”

“It’s frustrating to not have be able to get more done because of the lack of bipartisanship,” he added. “But I think it’s worth trying. So I’m gonna try again.”

He said there’s not much the state can do to reduce costs in most private markets, but he said regulators should do more to root out fraud in healthcare programs and protect Arizonans from utility rate hikes.

“I don’t know how much we can directly reduce costs for folks, but I do know we need to try,” he said. “And to me, trying is working across party lines and actually spending serious time on it. What I’ve seen the past two years is we’ve spent time on basically hundreds of bills that everyone knows will never become law.”

Volk’s running mate, Lyon, has made two unsuccessful legislative runs in the area under different legislative boundaries, in 2014 and 2018.

Lyon, who rose to the rank of colonel during her 26 years in the Air Force before retiring to Arizona in 2008, said she decided to get into the race at the request of Democratic Party leaders.

“I still want to serve,” Lyon said. “I don’t feel like it’s out of me yet. I feel like I want to do some good things for people still.”

Lyon said she’d give the most recent legislative session a grade of “D.”

“I feel like they passed a lot of legislation that obviously was just teed up for Gov. Hobbs to veto,” Lyon said. “So to me, that’s a waste of time.”

She also said GOP leaders didn’t give legislation sponsored by Democrats a hearing.

“They just don’t want to consider Democratic bills unless they’re animal rights bills or those sorts of things,” Lyon said. “It’s been very very difficult for Democrats to get substantive issues considered. … When you don’t consider legislation from any other point of view, that’s pretty scary.”

Lyon said the issues she’d like to focus on if she wins the seat include Arizona’s water future, corruption in government and bringing down costs for Arizonans.

“That’s a hard thing to do, other than maybe utilities, which are pretty easy to aim at, but there are a lot of costs that are really hurting people,” she said.

She said she would try to build relationships with members of both parties.

“I am more than willing to work across the aisle with anyone, and I mean that very sincerely,” she said. “I think I’m a great listener and I’m not sure that (incumbent Republican) Rachel Kessel is a great listener. I’m not saying she doesn’t listen. I’m not sure how well she hears.”

On the Republican side, Winchester is making a second run for public office. He first ran for the Pima County Board of Supervisors in 2016, but lost a primary to then-incumbent Ally Miller. In that race, he labeled himself as the “sane Republican.”

“I’m running to make government boring again,” Winchester said. “I want government to be efficient, but I want it to be effective.”

As ASU’s senior director for government and community affairs, Winchester works with local governments in Southern Arizona.

“I work in public policy for a living. trying to at least shape it at the municipal, county level,” Winchester said. “I love my community, and I’ve been involved in a lot of different ways over the years, and I think I can do some good.”

Winchester said he’d like to work on education reform. He said the state spends about half its budget on education but the system is too fragmented between local school boards and college governing boards.

“The state needs to have a much greater expectation of the production of our education system and I think that that requires more alignment between the varieties of the pieces that are there,” he said.

Like the Democrats in the race, he opposes Prop 320, which would require at least 60 percent of a school district’s funding be spent in the classroom.

“That’s a bad mechanism,” Winchester said. “It takes away flexibility from managers.”

He said he’d also like to work closely on budget planning and natural resources, expressing concern over whether the state will have enough energy or water to meet its future needs.

He said he’d prefer to work greater conservation or on plans to purchase desalinated water from Mexico’s Sea of Cortez than set limits on pumping groundwater in rural areas.

He said he breaks with his party when it comes to university funding, which has been cut by GOP lawmakers, as well as on an effort earlier this year to eliminate Tucson’s Rio Nuevo downtown redevelopment district.

“That is a functioning element of Tucson,” Winchester said.

Keshel, who is seeking a third term, did not respond to interview requests from the Tucson Sentinel.