Race for Tucson-area Senate seat pivotal to control of Az Legislature

John McLean never had an ambition to run for office.

He had a long career running a defense contracting business, Arete, in Tucson. After he retired, he spent his days volunteering on the boards of nonprofits, taking care of senior dogs that needed a home and going on hikes.

But now McLean is running as a Democrat against Republican Vince Leach for the Tucson-area Legislative District 17 seat in the Arizona Senate.

Leach worked as a mineral products salesman in Wisconsin before retiring to Arizona and winning a House seat in 2014. He served two terms in the House before moving to the Senate in 2018. After two terms, he lost the 2022 primary to current Sen. Justine Wadsack, but he knocked out Wadsack in this year’s July primary election.

The two men disagree on plenty of policy issues. McLean, who was a registered Republican until the party’s rightward lurch led him to switch to the Democratic Party, said he would describe his politics as moderate, which he defined as supporting public schools, making sure the state has a solid water supply in the future, protecting abortion rights and doing a better job of balancing the state budget, which is facing a steep budget deficit this year and next.

Leach said he wants to push for more tax cuts and secure the border – including using state dollars to work on a border wall – and find ways to ensure Arizona’s water supply if he returns to the Legislature.

“We have a severe problem at our border,” Leach said. “And so that’s high in the list.”

He described himself as pro-life and said he wasn’t sure how he would have voted when the Legislature repealed the 1864 near-total ban on abortions early this year.

“I’m going to be very honest with you and your readers. I would hope that I would have (voted in favor of repeal),” Leach said. “I would like to protect every unborn, but there are people in this world that don’t believe like I do, and they will take every step to end that unborn life that’s in a mother’s womb.”

He opposes Prop 139, which would enshrine abortion rights in the Arizona Constitution. McLean supports the initiative.

Tax cuts vs. spending on infrastructure, education

Leach counts the state’s flat income tax and the expanded use of taxpayer dollars to fund private school tuition as two of his proudest accomplishments. Leach said those votes should win him the support of voters, while McLean said they are reasons to vote against Leach.

The flat tax, by design, sharply reduced the state tax burden for Arizona’s highest earners. The Grand Canyon Institute estimated that 70 percent of the benefits of the flat tax, passed in the 2021 session, went to households with annual income higher than $200,000, while less than 10 percent went to households earning less than $100,000.

Overall, state income tax revenue dropped by 30 percent in fiscal year 2023 after the flat tax was implemented, according to the Joint Legislative Budget Committee. 

The tax cut cost the state $1.3 billion in fiscal year 2024 and is expected to cost the state $1.39 billion in fiscal year 2025, according to a study by the Grand Canyon Institute.

The tax also resulted in an overall shift in what kind of taxes fund state government. In fiscal year 2022, individual income taxes accounted for 43 percent of the taxes collected by the state, while sales taxes accounted for 41 percent. In fiscal year 2023, income taxes accounted for 31 percent of the state’s total haul, while sales taxes amounted to 46 percent, according to a JLBC report.

Sales taxes are regressive and generally affect middle and low-income earners more than a progressive income tax.

The tax cut was passed at a time when state coffers were flush with federal dollars designed to assist states in dealing with the costs of the 2020 COVID-19 outbreak. But with those onetime funds running out along with other federal funding programs created by the Biden administration, state budget forecasters this year projected a deficit of $1.3 billion spread across the 2024 and 2025 fiscal year, which meant state lawmakers cut back on university funding, highway construction and other infrastructure projects and planning for Arizona’s future water supply in the budget they passed in June.

McLean said the tax cut benefited a tiny number of wealthy Arizonans at the expense of everyone else.

“Where did the benefit of the flat tax go?” McLean said. “It went through the wealthiest families in Arizona.”

For most Arizonans, McLean added, “it was like. ‘Oh yeah, you can take your family out to Burger King with what you saved in taxes.’ It was terrible.”

Leach said that the income-tax cut will make Arizona more attractive to wealthy business owners that might otherwise locate in states without an income tax at all, such as Texas or Florida.

He added that if the state government has too much money, it will spend it on frivolous programs.

“We have to continually look at how much money we could take from our taxpayers,” Leach said. “That’s important, because if you take too much, then we do too many things, in my humble opinion, that really government shouldn’t be involved in, and we need to watch that carefully.”

McLean said businesses want to see more than low tax rates when they consider where they want to expand.

“For Arizona to be competitive, we don’t have to have the lowest tax rate in the nation,” McLean said. “We have to be competitive compared with everyone else, both regionally and also across the nation. I’m not sure people are going to be satisfied by having a slightly lower tax rate, but not having any infrastructure, not having good schools, not having good community colleges and universities. So we really need to think about priorities very carefully.”

McLean was similarly critical of Leach’s vote in favor of Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, or, as they are more commonly called, vouchers for private school tuition.

McLean said the biggest beneficiaries are wealthy families that were already sending their kids to private schools.

“Republicans figured it was better to allow people in Paradise Valley to buy dune buggies than to fund colleges, universities, water conservation and, oh, by the way, the Department of Public Safety,” McLean said. Worse, he added, there’s no accountability for how the funds are being spent.

Leach defended the program, saying the amount of money that taxpayers can receive to send their kids to private schools is less than the average per-pupil spending on schools.

A Grand Canyon Institute study said the program cost the state $332 million in the 2024 fiscal year.

McLean said that Leach’s policy votes have left the state in a compromised financial position that will make it harder to weather future economic downturns and invest in education, infrastructure and other basic needs.

“Just over the last two years, we’ve seen revenues go down,” McLean said.

Leach said the notion that tax cuts and the voucher program caused the state’s revenue problems is mistaken because the state had a big surplus when Republicans passed the flat tax.

Leach blamed the budget problems on decisions made over the last two years, including a fiscal year 2024 budget that allowed every member of the Legislature an opportunity to direct $20 million to $30 million toward pet causes. He called that plan “an abomination” that led the state to go from a massive surplus to a shortfall that required cuts in state spending.

Balance of power in the Arizona Legislature

As with the LD17 race for Arizona House of Representatives, where Democrat Kevin Volk is hoping to unseat one of the two Republican incumbents, Reps. Cory McGarr and Rachel Jones, the Senate race is key to next year’s balance of power in the Arizona Legislature. The Senate is now split 16-14 in favor of Republicans, but Democrats are hopeful they can pick up a seat to achieve parity and some kind of power-sharing agreement, or pick up two or more and take control of the chamber.

The GOP-leaning LD17 is home to an electorate that’s 38 percent Republican, 29 percent Democratic and 33 percent independent of those two parties, according to the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office. The district includes precincts in Pinal County’s Saddlebrooke and Pima County’s Oro Valley and Marana, as well as Tucson’s East Side and Vail.

Leach quietly lobbied behind the scenes to draw the district, whose odd configuration drew complaints that it was gerrymandered to create a safe GOP district. The Independent Redistricting Commission describes the district as “outside the competitive range.”

Despite the GOP’s registration advantage, Democratic strategists see it as a top target because in the 2022 election, several Democrats, including Gov. Katie Hobbs, Sen. Mark Kelly and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, all defeated their GOP opponents.

Democrats had been eyeing the seat as a potential pickup in November when they thought Wadsack would prevail in the primary because the legislation she sponsored, her ferocious attacks on her critics and her general behavior in office would make it easy to paint her as a weird extremist. Instead, Leach prevailed in the GOP primary with 53 percent of the vote.

Democrats still see Leach as vulnerable, especially since Wadsack has been encouraging Republicans to sit out the LD17 race or write in her name.

Leach said he’s heard about Wadsack’s comments but he has brushed them off.

“I really didn’t – and don’t – have time to ruminate about those types of things,” Leach said. “They’re not a plus. And they will, in fact, kneecap you, if you listen to it too long.”

He said he hopes Wadsack can get over the sting of losing an election and support the GOP ticket.

“I hope that she sees the necessity and the value of holding on to a majority here,” Leach said.

McLean said voters have a chance to make significant changes in the state if they support him.

”We can flip the Arizona Legislature,” McLean said. “If we flip a seat in the House and we flip a seat in the Senate, we will have a Democratic House, a Democratic Senate, a Democratic governor, and we’re going to pass some serious legislation. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make change in Arizona.”