House choice:
Geraldine Peten, an educator from Goodyear, will be the newest member of the Arizona House of Representatives as the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors voted to appoint her to a recently vacated seat.
Geraldine Peten, an educator from Goodyear, will be the newest member of the Arizona House of Representatives.
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors voted 5-0 on Wednesday to appoint Peten to the House seat vacated by former Rep. Jesus Rubalcava, DGila Bend, who resigned in July amid scrutiny of his use of public campaignfinance funds.
Peten, a Democrat, will represent Legislative District 4, which sprawls from parts of Goodyear and Buckeye to Tucson and Yuma.
Supervisor Steve Gallardo, who made the motion to appoint Peten, said she stood out because of her long career in education. She has been the superintendent of a rural Arizona school district, an administratorat several schools and has a doctoral degree in education. She runs an education consulting business today.
“The Number 1 issue facing the Legislature right now is education,” Gallardo said. “This is a good day. We’re getting a doctor in the House. I mean, how many other legislators have PhD’s?”
Peten’s appointment also was an important moment for the state’s AfricanAmerican community. Once sworn in, she will be one of two Black representatives in the 90-member Legislature.
Peten choked up with tears after the board’s vote. She said she will work to improve education, reform the criminaljustice system and listen to her sprawling district’s various needs, from suburban to rural areas.
“I’m honored,” Peten said after the meeting. “I think there’s power in diversity. You get different perspectives, not just racially but from different backgrounds, different people’s experiences.”
More than a dozen African-American leaders and residents also attended Wednesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting and broke into applause at Peten’s appointment.
“Absolutely it’s important to the community,” said Rep. Reginald Bolding, DPhoenix, who is black. “Over the last three years, we’ve only had one AfricanAmerican serving in the entire state Legislature.”
Peten will serve the rest of Rubalcava’s unfulfilled term in the House. The seat, along with the rest of the Legislature, is up for election in 2018.
Rubalcava resigned at the end of July as the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission investigated him for potential campaign-finance violations.
A random audit from the commission earlier this year found problems with the freshman lawmaker’s accounting, and a follow-up audit identified $9,200 in expenditures that can’t be clearly determined to be related to his campaign.
Tom Collins, executive director of the clean elections commission, said the investigation into Rubalcava’s campaign is ongoing.