New Rep. educates herself on Yuma issues
Phoenix-area educator Geraldine ‘Gerae’ Peten replaces Jesus Rubalcava
Geraldine “Gerae” Peten is the newest member of the state’s House of Representatives, and she’s an educator ready to focus on improving the state’s schools, as well as learn more about Yuma County and other rural areas of her district.
Democrat Peten lives in Goodyear, in Maricopa County on the northern edge of a district that reaches down to the border and includes San Luis, Somerton and the western side of the city of Yuma. She is currently an educational consultant and retired as the superintendent of the rural Fort Thomas Unified School District, in Graham County in eastern Arizona.
“I’ve been working very actively for the last nine years in politics, just canvassing, phone banking, working on the last three presidential cycles, and I happen to have the time and energy, and I consider myself having the knowledge and expertise to do something that would impact the lives of my fellow citizens, my consituents,” she said Friday in a telephone interview.
She was sworn in at the Capitol in Phoenix on Aug. 25, after being appointed by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to fill the vacancy left when Rep. Jesus Rubalcava resigned in July while under investigation by the Citizens Clean Elections Commission for possible campaign finance violations.
She said she’s been in Arizona for 25 years and has been consistently concerned about student performance and school spending.
“It’s kind of embarrassing when you go all over the country and even the world, it’s documented that Arizona, for a while we were 48th out of 50 in terms of student achievement. The latest statistics I’ve seen, we’re at 44th, so still at the bottom, and I don’t think that’s
acceptable.”
She’s also been educating herself on issues that are more Yuma-specific, including agriculture, she said. “I’ve been talking to the Western Growers Association, and I attended the League of Cities and Towns Conference last week, and I sat in on several of the conferences about water, and water has been an issue for a while, protecting our water rights,” she said.
She said another concern is the state’s incarceration rate, one of the highest in the U.S.: “It’s hard to justify why we incarcerate more people, and we don’t have a high-quality system for education.”
Peten’s addition raises the percentage of women in the Legislature to 40 percent, an all-time high for the state according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. She is also the second African-American to serve in the current session.
She also wants to make her own party more inclusive within her far-flung district, and hopes to hold Democratic district meetings outside of their traditional location, Goodyear, even though that’s where she lives.
“I would like to expand that, to encompass more constituents so we are available to listen, to see what your concerns are.”
Under state law, the Maricopa County supervisors were required to appoint someone from the same party and same county as Rubalcava, who lives in Gila Bend. Peten applied for the position and was one of three finalists selected by a citizens’ committee and then interviewed by board members.