Latest / Arizona Unscripted / Episode 22: 🌵 Arizona Unscripted - An interview with Brian McMahan!!

Transcript

Episode 22: 🌵 Arizona Unscripted - An interview with Brian McMahan!! · Arizona Unscripted

• Arizona Unscripted: Welcome to Arizona Inscripted. I'm your host, Bart, alongside my wonderful co-hosts Catherine and Jim. From time to time, we'll be joined by special pop-in guests from communities all across the Grand Canyon State. Arizona Unscripted is all about Arizona, its people, its places, its events, and local issues that shape our everyday lives. From small towns to big cities, from hidden gems and great local food to history, culture, and the challenges facing our communities. We're here to have real conversations with real Arizona and have a good time too. So our goal is simple. Celebrate what makes Arizona unique while bringing together voices from every corner of our state. So whether you're a lifelong resident, a newcomer, or just someone who loves Arizona, we hope you'll feel right at home here. So grab a cup of coffee, but probably you'll maybe a beer or something cool. Sit back and join us as we explore the people, places, and stories that make Arizona one of the most fascinating states in America. And with that I'm gonna hand this over to my wonderful co-host Catherine to introduce the other the other guests that are coming on and things that are happening. Thanks, Bart. It's great to be here. Yeah. And ⁓ it's a lovely afternoon here in Arizona. It's a little warm, but it's definitely a beautiful day. hi Jim, how are you doing today? I'm doing great. How's the weather up there in Bullhead? It's real hot. I bet it is. I bet it is. That's probably our probably our our our com constant conversation will be about how hot it is. ⁓ well it's August is almost over. So we that's always a good sign when August comes to a close. Before it evaporates. Well, we have a special guest today. Brian McMahon is with us. He is the Democratic nominee for state representative for L D thirty, which is actually our district. ⁓ where we are located here in Mojave County. So welcome, Brian. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Yeah, Brian, it's great see you. We're really happy that you are able to join us today. And I did a little bit of ⁓ research, although living in your district, I should know about what all the issues are and I kind of have my own idea about what some of them are. But I I learned some things when I went to your website ⁓ I l one of the things that was interesting to me was the number of endorsements that you have accrued. You've you've been endorsed by the Sierra Club, by the Arizona College Democrats, term limits. You've pledged to support term limits and Planned Parenthood. So congratulations on getting those endorsements. I I think that's ⁓ really speaks well for for your values. It's it's an interesting process to answer some of their questions that ⁓ you know, obviously they they are looking something ⁓ what they would like to see, but you have to interject where you're at and so they have to make that decision whether they would endorse you or not. So I've done about ⁓ ten of these so far and still waiting. I know more are waiting their board members to approve them, but we'll see more here in the future on the website, electbrian dot org. Yeah, that's great. That's great. So the other thing so I just want you to go ahead maybe and have a little time just to kind of talk generally about your your campaign and kind of what you're hearing from people on the ground. So ⁓ interesting. This ⁓ this last weekend I was able ⁓ to go to ⁓ Parker and Courtsite along with ⁓ Chris Mays and listen to the kind of a forum of what people are talking about, as well as being able to do some research and ⁓ the Arizona Clean Elections has done some research and it's very interesting. One of the things I learned and that I don't think this is surprising for anybody, but the number one issue in Arizona is affordability. And the number one issue in LD 30, ⁓ essentially it's Mojave, La Paz County, and Wickenberg is ⁓ affordability. So I I think We heard that this weekend very loud and clear. Right. Also, ⁓ the number two thing is water. And again, I don't think that hasn't that that has risen up the list of where it's been since the last year. I think we're seeing a lot of the water issues ⁓ coming up and and ⁓ rulemaking going on and and clearly ⁓ in much more in Parker as they're right along the river, but heard a lot about water and how the importance of that and concerns about that. And I think that's a really big deal that we really need to be following. Yeah, we we had talked about that before, R and we were we were talking about that a few podcasts back about like ⁓ water being ⁓ being drained basically from the groundwater. And then basically the companies in the area, because they didn't have any regulation on that that particular county or that part of the area, ⁓ they just said, hey, hey all the other people in there, you guys gotta leave. You gotta leave our you gotta leave the state or leave leave our county 'cause sorry, water. I couldn't believe it. Well, so Brian, what do you I agree. People are now actually starting to pay attention to water. It's kinda like that Joni Mitchell song, you don't know what you got till it's gone. Well that's good. It's gonna be gone pretty soon. And if we don't do something about it now. We're all gonna be pounding sand, as they say. Or eating sand, one of the things eating sand. Yeah, pounding sand is actually raising sand is a song by ⁓ Did did you hear any solutions to the water problem that might be possible coming up? So ⁓ I've of course everybody is trying to determine they take less, they take less, they take less, but that needs to be that's a very overall ⁓ objective, but you need to have specific goals to where that is. I did hear one of the things of ⁓ that's getting very popular, and that's put a moratorium on data centers. Right. So until there gets to be a plan, because Arizona doesn't have a true water plan themselves, put a moratorium on them and to determine what's going on and and how to deal with that. And that was that's something new that I've just again just recently heard. And I think that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I do too. Yeah, great idea. It's like what we're hearing about right now in Gary, Indiana, where they've got data centers that are getting electricity, but the town of ⁓ the people in Gary, Indiana have been without electricity for quite a long time. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I don't get it. I mean, I know there's there's gotta be companies out there making data centers that can are self contained. I keep I mean, I hear this like their own cellar and and battery and their whi whatever regeneration and And and their own even their own water infrastructure. It's like a like any kind of think of it like a nuclear power plant that has its own water con its own water and they call them closed loop, but ⁓ it's a cooling tower which evaporates the water out of there. So it does use water. Uhhuh. I've worked around a lot of them places, nuclear power plants and stuff like that with cooling towers. Yeah, right. That's what happened. They use a lot of water even though they're self contained, they call it, you know, they're not sucking the water right out of the river or anything, but it still uses a lot of water. So there are there are two different data centers right now. Google has one and ⁓ Microsoft has the other. In fact one's in in Nevada that are ⁓ self-contained and they are they're not taking new water. They're using ⁓ they're also using some type of gel ⁓ to help with both with cooling and the the usage and they're using a a in that closed loop system, they're using a ⁓ a gelling, a cooling gelling agent, as well as they're basically having a a mini nuclear plant built there as well. ⁓ which is that's great if you can do that, but let's make sure that's not in somebody's backyard either. Right. Make sure it's that's the other issue, not in my backyard for sure. Another thing on water, about ⁓ a huge the majority of water that you that ⁓ use in arizona is used for ⁓ growing alfalfa. And so while I know not a popular idea is to stop growing alfalfa, but that might be, I mean that's where the majority of the water is or or the use is. And so we might need to put a moratorium on that as well. And again, I know none of these are popular with anybody. Some are popular with some, some are popular with others, but Overall, but I think we really need to have a plan. And my concern about having a plan is making sure that we have the plan now. I mean, quite frankly, in my mind, we should have had a plan 10 years ago. For sure. But I think we need to have that now because in two years, when we get forced to make drastic cuts, we need to implement that plan. And so we all know when we all get pushed to the very edge of time, we make poor decisions. And so I think getting ahead of that and building a plan is something that the legislature ⁓ should have been done. They should have been doing it for at least a decade and they need to do it now because there is no plan. Yeah, I've I've read that seventy percent of the water is used for al agriculture. Yeah. Arizona they they said Arizona grows ninety percent of the of the lettuce that's grown in the United States. Wow. And that I think that's why we're buying them from Taylor Farms in Mexico, right? Yeah, not at the moment. Well the other thing, alfalfa. The Saudis are growing alfalfa. And what is alfalfa used for? It is used in ⁓ factory farming. Yeah, beef production. So do you know that it takes 18 pounds of food to create one pound of beef. So it's ⁓ it's a system that's kind of designed to use as much of our resources as possible. So I would really like to see that alfalfa, ⁓ those alfalfa farms go away. Yeah. You know, I was driving through Wyoming not too long ago and they they got all kinds of alfalfa up there. growing and stacked in the fields and going to waste because the people don't want to tr pay the shipping for shipping it out of there. Really? Yeah. Fields and fields of it just sitting rotten in the field, you know? ⁓ boy, that's that's really sad to see that kind of type of a So they don't need to grow it here. Well the my understanding is the Saudis grow it here and ship it back to Saudi Arabia for their Cattle. my gosh. It's all this stuff. Well I want to hear actually I want to hear from Brian. Somebody had some this go on a positive note. Make our audience members all like all down and you know, start drinking more beer, which is a good thing. So Brian, yeah, go ahead. Tell tell tell so I wanna ask you about another issue that is this ⁓ term limits. Pledge. Here's my concern with the term limits pledge that you and several other ⁓ candidates have signed. It basically calls for or agrees with the idea of an Article Five Convention of all the states to ⁓ reassess and take another look at our ⁓ constitution. I have some real concerns about that happening and I wondered ⁓ what your thoughts were on that. So I had the same concern because what I think we all want to be really concerned is that we talk about term limits and the next thing we're talking about no mail in ballots voting or something that ends up to be on there. But that is not how it works. It you're not able to bring up anything you want. ⁓ you have to have the you have to ha have Two-thirds of the state to ratify. You need to have two-thirds of the state to actually agree before you can have the convention. ⁓ and you're focused on a single item, or there could be a group of items as long as those two-thirds of those states agreed. I think I think that there's a a fail-safe there that you're okay to address the the term limits. And I just want to clarify for the listeners. The the term limits here is for congressional staff. So it would be our House of Representatives and ⁓ senators and Congress in Washington, DC. Right. Right. We do have we do have term limits in Arizona. We what are the term limits in Arizona? is it two terms, two two two year terms or three two year terms? I I'm not a hundred percent sure off the top my head. I bet it's two because I know that. We have some of our representatives who are leaving after their second term. So I'm guessing that it's two. And in the the term limit pledge that you signed with many others, it's two six year terms for the US Senate and then three two year terms for the US House. And I personally feel it's high time for some term limits for our congressional representatives up there. ⁓ What's his name? Chuck Grassley is gonna be I think yeah, and he's running again. I mean, time to let some younger people come in who are a little bit more on top of what's going on instead of these people who've been in Congress forever and think that they are gonna continue doing the same things that they've been doing. It's all about the money, I think, you know. No, the connection, the money that's the easy guy to keep in there 'cause he's in Iowa, you know, and there there ain't that many people you gotta convince to vote for him to keep him in there. It's just like the ones in Wyoming and places like that. They they don't have to convince a lot of people to keep them people in there, so they don't have to spend a lot of money. Right. Very true. Well, so Brian, what are some of the other ⁓ things that you'd like to do if you get elected to the House of Representatives. So I'm gonna before I get there, I'm gonna take a step back because I think this is more important. The the ranking of things for people in L D thirty, ⁓ there's seven of them. The first one's affordability, second one's water, which we've already talked about. The third one is rural health care. Yeah, big one. And this kind of hit my it's important to me, but public safety and fire and EMS. Is number four. ⁓ government waste is number five, schools are number six, and border security is number seven. Okay. And so when we talk about these items, the reason I bring them up is the ⁓ affordability, the water, ⁓ the the rural health care, the government waste ⁓ and the schools are all priorities of mine. And so they kind of align, my priorities align with what the people in the district are saying are their priorities. ⁓ being a f ⁓ a retired fire chief, I understand, I think we should be concerned about ⁓ rural health care. If you're not, if you're in a city, you're in a city fire department. If you're in an unincorporated area and you they formed, you're in a fire district. Well they're the ⁓ over the last 20 years in tax reform, the fire departments are they're going downward in the amount of ⁓ eligibility of money they can collect. And with our taxing structure, that's not real helpful. And I don't really think anybody wants to have less to fire an EMS service. that's really not in anybody's best interest. ⁓ we also on all of our tax statements, we see the FDAT, FDAT, which is the fire department assistance tax. That's a that's a tax that we all pay. That's supposed to help fund the fire districts. So when you live in a city, ⁓ if you live in Parker as an example, and you go outside of Parker, the idea is there would be funding to provide services for you if you're out there, if your car catches on fire, if you're having a heart attack, those type of things. That's we we all pay that, we kind of ⁓ pay into a pot, and then the county redistributes that money based on a formula. out. ⁓ I I think that's that's important. And especially when we tie it together with rural health care, a concern we really need to have is I think everybody in LD30 is struggling from ⁓ availability of rural health care, ava availability to find the right kind of doctors to get ⁓ to get what you ⁓ the services you need without having to go to ⁓ Phoenix or Las Vegas for some more specialty items. So that's a real problem. And with the big beautiful bill that was passed last year and or maybe it was the beginning of this year, ⁓ there's gonna be ⁓ after the November elections, is the kicker point that we're losing some Medicaid money. And that Medicaid money is to help ⁓ or that's to help fund primarily the rural area. To make sure that you have access to doctors and we're gonna see a reduction in that. And I know that we've ⁓ heard from some ⁓ local healthcare providers ⁓ here in the district that says they're concerned about if they can stay afloat and and maintain some of these smaller hospitals or or ⁓ specialty clinics. So that's a real concern we need to have. Indeed. ⁓ I think I you know, I worked in healthcare for forty-five years and when you have ⁓ people show up there the emergency room is required by law to take care of them but if they have no Medicaid insurance, if they've lost their Medicaid, which ⁓ is gonna happen to an awful lot of people, then the hospital has to provide those services, but they don't get reimbursed for anything. So there's a limited period of time that any hospital is going to be able to stay afloat in a system like that. I've had doctors that had to they quit taking Medicare payments. They wouldn't they you have to pay the Medicare on your own because they won't r ⁓ ask Medicare for the money because it's they said it they have to write too many ⁓ too much ⁓ information on you to get paid. And they said they're they're staff, they have to hire staff to write all that stuff and it cuts down on the amount of money they get from Medicare. They don't they only get so much, so they quit and they they make you pay it on your own. My my doctor right now is a concierge. He went to a concierge, so you I have to pay him a hundred dollars a month just to have him as a doctor. He don't accept Medicare and I don't get reimbursed from from my insurance for that either. And I think if I'm not mistaken in Medicaid, I think they're all other ⁓ I think they're paying ⁓ or Medicare, I think they're paying like twenty-four or twenty-six cents on a dollar. Yeah, something like that. So they're not it when you when you charge a hundred dollars and they only pay you twenty six, you can't keep doing that forever. That's right. Yeah. However, we do need to fix how we charge for healthcare. That's another issue. Yeah, that's another issue. Healthcare, there's so much that needs to be fixed with healthcare. It's it should be the number one issue. And it's ⁓ it it's like the water, you know. Once it's gone, then we're gonna start paying attention to it and realize that rural is losing hospitals there and it's already started in Arizona down in Casa Grand, I believe it is. They lost their OB unit. ⁓ really? So now ⁓ folks in Casa pregnant women in Casa Grand have ⁓ I think about a an hour and a half drive to get to a delivery. ⁓ geez. But this is just the first in a long line of what's going to come if especially once these cuts kick in. Yeah. And I think in in 2027, we're going to see a much bigger this list that I just gave you is dramatically going to change because I think water is it's number two on the list now. I'm pretty sure it's going to be a number one issue. And I'm sure the healthcare is going to move up to that number two spot. Because once people start actually getting affected, I know there's a lot of talk about here's what's going on, here's what we expect in different things. But the reality is when it actually hits someone's pocketbook or you're unable to get what you need, ⁓ I think that's when it all of a sudden hits very strongly that it's in people's face. Now we have to deal with it. And this is what I was saying earlier about having the water plan. We need to have a plan in place. before we get to that emergency point. Right. And make poor decisions. That's that's that's really true. Well thank you so much for coming on today, Brian. We're running out of time, but if we get a chance, we'll have you back again. So thank you and ⁓ thanks to everybody for being here today. Hope to have you back on again. Hi guys. See you soon. Take care.