STATE OF THE DISTRICT

Thank you Tucson Chamber of Commerce and Cox Communication for the invitation to speak to you.

I am honored to be here today, as a third-generation Tucsonan, a product of our public schools, a former local small business owner, and now as your member of the United States Congress to share my perspectives on the state of the 8th Congressional district of Arizona.

Since elected, people keep asking me if I’m “having fun yet” and I never quite know what to say. The 110th Congress’ schedule is grueling, traveling home on the weekends exhausting, and my D.C. apartment is worse than my freshman dorm room in college.

But as I race from meeting to meeting I often walk through Statuary Hall (which is the old House Floor) and pass the bronze statue of one of our famous Arizonans, John Campbell Greenway, a beloved roughrider and great entrepreneur. It was Greenway’s wife, Isabella, who in 1932 was the first woman ever elected to Congress from Arizona. I am now the third. When I sit in the House Arms Services Committee, I often glance up at the portrait of Bob Stump, the former Chairman of the Committee from Arizona.

These Arizonans have made significant contributions to our country through their service in Congress and I aspire to live up to legacy of those who have served before me and set a new standard for those who will come along in the future.

I would like to report on the state of our district by taking you on a tour of our beautiful region.

Our first stop is Tucson Medical Center. TMC is an exceptional hospital but struggles just as all healthcare providers do today. The many uninsured families that show up for care, the insufficient numbers of Doctors and Nurses, the rising cost of insurance and the challenge of prescribing medication to patients that they may not be able to afford to buy is daunting.

We all know that there is a healthcare crisis in our country - 46 million Americans who do not have insurance -and hospitals often carry the brunt of this burden. Like many of you, I have seen this first hand, as the former President and CEO of El Campo Tire, when my insurance premiums increased by double digits year after year.

But let’s focus for a second on our future - the children of Arizona. The number of uninsured children in our state is currently 265,000. Arizona has the 5th highest rate of uninsured children in the US. This means that almost 20% of all of all of our kids, well above the national average, are not covered. 119,000 of those uninsured children are eligible for health insurance through AHCCCS or KidsCare, but aren’t enrolled.

This new Congress is responding to this critical problem. That is why last week we passed the 2007 Supplemental Budget that had $750 million to fund the current gap in this critical program.

The United States is the richest nation in the world. We should be able to insure all of our children.

Across town patients at the VA Medical Center where I just visited face a host of different problems. In areas such as the Polytrauma Center, real heroes are trying to heal from the extreme physical and emotional injuries of the battlefield.

Fortunately for wounded veterans in Southern Arizona, our VA Hospital is in fine shape, however recently, I along with 41 other freshman Members of the House wrote a letter to the Government Accounting Office demanding an audit of the problems at Walter Reed and of the bureaucracy that led to unacceptable care for our wounded warriors.

I recently formed a Veteran’s Advisory Council with members of every branch of our armed forces, who have served in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. One member of that group, Tommy Mendoza, served with honor in Afghanistan and is here with us today. Tommy, please stand. Thank you for your service and for your commitment to making lives better for all returning soldiers. Tommy’s willingness along with others on my council to share their knowledge and experience helped play an invaluable role in advising me on veteran’s issues.

Community collaboration does matter. On Wednesday, the Wounded Warrior Assistance Act passed the House unanimously. This legislation will improve the medical care and quality of life for wounded members of our Armed Forces. When this bill came before us in committee, based on feedback from my Advisory Council, I added an amendment that will improve mental health services for returning combat veterans. America cannot ignore the real problem of post traumatic stress disorder suffered by our returning soldiers and I am proud to be a part of this important legislation.

The next stop on our tour is Hendricks Elementary School in Marana where Jay Stanforth is a 3rd Grade teacher. Jay will you please stand to be recognized.

Educational quality does not get much better than Jay. He was named the Christa McAuliffe Teacher of the Year and was one of five finalists for the National Award for Teaching Excellence. Congratulations!

3rd Grade is important! Studies show that by third grade successful students should be well on their way to reading and solving mathematic equations. This learning doesn’t happen by accident. In Jay’s classroom, and others at Hendricks Elementary School, the students are engaged and have great questions. The shelves are full of wonderful books; the administrative staff is enthusiastic. The building is very new and was built by a creative architect who designed a school with creative learning in mind.

But not every school in Southern Arizona has the same quality of faculty or facilities.

In fact, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently graded states on their education systems. Arizona received a D in academic achievement and an F in post-secondary and workforce readiness.

Ladies and Gentleman, we can do better! Six years ago the landmark education bill, No Child Left Behind set out to raise student achievement, close learning gaps, and ensure that every child in America is taught by a highly-qualified teacher.

NCLB will be up for reauthorization this year and it’s important to understand if and how it is achieving these worthy goals.

In order to better understand how NCLB has impacted our schools, I have already convened two educational summits in the district, one in Pima County and the other in Cochise County, to gather input from school administrators, parents, teachers, business leaders and yes, even students. More than 300 citizens showed up at these forums to share their views on their reauthorization.

What I heard from people all over the district is that there are big problems in how we assess our students, especially the English language learners and special education students. Teachers spoke about the constant pressure to teach to the test and parents spoke on the frustration of their children being deprived of specialized educational opportunities.

The good news is that we now have a much better sense of the schools that are in trouble, the bad news was NCLB was under-funded dramatically which has left schools struggling for the resources they need to educate our kids. When this legislation comes up for reauthorization, I will work to amend it to address the many concerns expressed by the people of Southern Arizona at these summits.

Now I know that you’ll find this as a surprise, but Washington does not always have the best solutions to our local problems. That is why I spend so much time listening to what people here have to say.

For over 10 years, I have worked with many of you on workforce readiness and this week, I took our Southern Arizona perspective back to Washington and used it in my Science and Technology Committee where we are focusing on making sure that our students have what it takes to be competitive with children all over the world.

Here, Democrats and Republicans work together to focus on the provisions of the National Academy of Sciences’ report entitled Rising Above the Gathering Storm.

A few weeks ago we heard from Norm Augustine, Retired Chairman and CEO of the Lockheed Martin and an Arizonan Craig Barrett CEO of INTEL who were on the committee that wrote the Gathering Storm report and it concluded by stating this.

“The scientific and technological building blocks critical to our economic leadership are eroding at a time when many other nations are gathering strength…we are worried about the future prosperity of the United States.”

As a new voice in Washington, I worked to amend legislation that passed out of committee on Wednesday that will implement many of the recommendations of this report.   My amendments to the 10,000 Teachers, 10 Million Minds Act better prepare America’s math and science teachers to inspire their students to become the next generation of scientists and engineers and provide more support for students from poor rural and urban areas that want to pursue a degree in these critical fields.

Now on our trip let’s go to Cochise County and the border town of Douglas. The towns we pass along the way (Benson, Tombstone and Bisbee) — along with many others — are Ground Zero of our national immigration crisis. The fact that at least 4,000 illegal immigrants cross our border every single day - this places a security threat as well an unfunded burden on our health care system, our educational system and law enforcement agencies due to the constant flow of people into Southern Arizona. This is unacceptable.

I agree with President Bush in calling for Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform. This cannot wait. There are many of us Democrats and Republicans working very heard right now to bring others to the table and solve this national crisis. Time is not on our side.

Over the past three months, I have met with representatives of law enforcement, the Border Patrol, business owners and faith leaders to hear their ideas about what should be included in reform legislation. I am proud to co-sponsor along with another fellow Arizonan Congressman Jeff Flake a tough, effective and practical bill that is now working its way through the process.

At a teleconference meeting that I recently convened, Sheriffs Dupnik, Estrada and Dever sat at a table with business leaders such as Nan and Dick Walden (Nan is here today who represents Agriculture Interests), Mike Hammond and Frank Siquieros along with Representatives from Immigration Customs and Enforcement, Border Patrol, AZ Department of Corrections and the Governor’s Office to share ideas on a range of immigration issues. We discussed cooperation between federal and local law enforcement, how we address the worker shortage, biometric identifiers for employees and how we can alleviate the unfair and often excessively high costs to our border communities.

With us today we have the new Chief of the Tucson Sector of the Border Patrol who just took command yesterday. Chief Robert Gilbert, please stand to be recognized. Welcome to our community and we look forward to working with you.

Several of the people mentioned after the meeting, said that this was the first time in their memory that law enforcement, federal and state agencies, agriculture and business sat at the same table, working toward solutions in the immigration debate. This kind of cooperation needs to becomes the rule, not the exception. In fact, on April 4th I will be convening a special meeting with the business community to get your feedback on new immigration legislation. I hope to see many of you. With us today is a real friend of all of ours as well as a real leader, Bill Valenzuela. We all know Bill as Man of the Year named by both the Tucson Chamber of Commerce and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, but many of you may not realize his leadership in the immigration issue.Bill is a member of the newly formed Arizona Employers for Immigration Reform. Through this organization, he along with other business leaders like Nan Walden Stockholm are dedicated to getting the immigration bill right and to making sure that business interests are listened to. I look forward to reporting back to all of you on our progress in this arena.

Next we go to Sierra Vista where Ft. Huachuca contributes about $2 billion into the area’s economy. This important Army Installation has just opened the doors to a Human Intelligence Training Joint Center of Excellence. That means that the military has made a long term commitment to intelligence training in Southern Arizona. The importance of the language and cultural knowledge that soldier’s acquire at Ft. Huachuca will be critical to the nation’s ability to understand people and societies very different from our own.

I had a chance to visit with some of these soldier’s in theatre when I became the first Freshman member of Congress to visit Iraq last month. Senator Jon Kyl invited me to join a small delegation to Iraq where soldiers from Ft. Huachuca and Airmen from both Davis Monthan and the 162nd Air National Guard are deployed.

Drawing from my past experiences in the Middle East, the countless briefings in both House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs, and hearings from our nation’s top military experts, I continue to believe the President’s decision to surge troops into Iraq is not the best strategy. What we need is a surge in diplomacy.

After five and a half years in Afghanistan and Iraq, we still lack a thorough understanding of the religious factions in the region: their motivation, their decision-making processes, their organizational dynamics and their ideological appeal. Adding 21,000 troops is not a long-term solution to this global war against terrorists. Despite different views on the surge, In the United States Congress, Democrats and Republican alike stand firmly and unconditionally in support of all of our men and women in uniform.

One of the reasons why I voted for the Iraq Emergency Supplemental Appropriation bill last week was because I believe that we must address the many political and economic challenges that Iraq faces and change our strategy to look for ways to push the Iraqi government towards the political negotiations, between Sunnis and Shiites, that must occur for that country to stabilize. We need to demand accountability from both the Iraqi government and our own Administration.

Frankly, if the Iraqis won’t come together and work to build a stable society, then we can’t do it for them.

For a final stop on our trip, let’s visit the small town of Benson. Once a small rail town, this community currently has a population of 4,200, but now over 50,000 homes are slated for construction.

Arizona is now the fastest growing state in the nation, and towns like Benson are virtually exploding over night. Folks, we have some choices to make. Arizona has a unique opportunity to take the lead in national issues such as smart growth, transportation infrastructure, water conservation, and renewable energy such as solar. The tension between growth and nature can be lessened through smart policies and collaboration.

One example of such collaboration is the Arizona Water Institute. Katharine Jacobs is executive director of this exciting consortium of the three state universities that focuses on water-related research and education. (Please stand).

Her work brings together the top experts at each of our state’s universities and the three state agencies that serve Arizona’s communities and private sector partners on water issues to deal realistically and actively on water issue. Water as we know is probably the biggest issue facing our region today.

Yesterday, I hosted a meeting in Washington DC at which Dr. Jon Overpeck from the University of Arizona educated many of my colleagues. Dr. Overpeck is one of the world’s leading climatologists and was an author of the recent Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change Report.

The science is no longer disputed. Global warming is occurring and we will feel it in the west more than in other areas. Kathy, thanks so much for being with us and Congress looks forward to working with your organization to help develop strategies for adaptation across the country.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the state of Arizona’s 8th Congressional District is strong. But we also find ourselves at a crossroads. Between health care, education, immigration, the economy, defense, and energy, we are truly a microcosm of the enormous issues facing this country and the planet.

The decisions that we make here, small and large, day in and day out, will shape the Arizona, and the America, of tomorrow. As business leaders, policy makers, and community activists, we owe a solemn responsibility to our community and to our children to make good decisions that lay a firm foundation for the future.

I want to see an Arizona that leads the nation in high-tech business development that produces high-paying jobs for our citizens.

I want to see an Arizona that is committed to smart growth policies that safeguard the rugged natural beauty of this land while allowing the population growth that must accompany economic development.

I want to see an Arizona where our children grow up in healthy communities, with quality schools and bright futures.

I want to see an Arizona with safe and secure borders - prospering under rational immigration laws.

And most of all, I want to see us working together, to build a community of mutual respect that is dedicated to solving these issues so that future leaders in Arizona will look back on this time as a watershed moment, when many great collaborative projects began.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the state of Arizona’s 8th Congressional District is strong. And I look forward working with all of you to make it even stronger.