Legislative District 4 in Arizona is a massively important one, not just because many of our readers are within it (as it covers much of Scottsdale and Paradise Valley), but because it is one of the few legitimate swing districts, with one Republican Representative and one Democrat (as well as a Democratic State Senator).
Representative Laura Terech announced that she was vacating her seat, and we recently wrote that the three options that the County Board of Supervisors had to choose from were all very, very familiar names (you can read it here). The Board made its choice and announced that former Democratic Minority Leader Eric Meyer will be heading back to the legislature as their choice,
Meyer was included in the mix as a placeholder, with no intention to run for re-election and the Democrats’ two choices for both seats, current Representative Kelli Butler and Karen Gresham, in the midst of their own campaigns. Clearly Meyer, an old hat at the state capitol, meant a lack of disruption, and considering that sine die (the final day of the session) has already passed, the duties would be light anyway.
However, the choice of Meyer was still a curious choice. It was a curious option to put up two current candidates for the House in that district as well as Meyer; it is almost as if the district forced the Board’s hand, instead of giving a candidate for the office a clear incumbency advantage, the Board was likely to pick Meyer, who has indicated that he has no desire to run for the seat.
Perhaps the bigger issue that we spoke about in our last piece is the apparent lack of a bench; to have the three options for a placeholder seat be two candidates and a retired former Representative would seem to indicate that perhaps there is a relative lack of trust in the district party, or worse yet, an embedded clique culture. While they have done very well in voter turnout operations, perhaps it’s a good indicator to take a few steps back and start training more people for positions of leadership.
Until then, congrats to Dr. Eric Meyer on his temp gig; it is likely to be the easiest job of his now-storied career.