My name is
Mikel Weisser; I am a Democratic candidate for US House of Representatives here
in Congressional District Four. Congressional District Four includes most of
the Western half of the state, the central highlands and the rural area around
metropolitan PHX. That’s portions of 7 counties and/or 9 or 10 legislative
districts. It runs from Yuma to Utah, Parker to Payson. I affectionately call
it the Left Coast of Arizona. I am a vice chair in the Arizona Democratic
Party’s progressive caucus, Mohave County Party Secretary and on the state
board of Democracy for America, AZNORML and the state poetry society. I serve
as the legislative liaison for AZ’s cannabis community, working w Safer AZ, the
folks behind a couple of reform bills that went through the AZ statehouse last session.
I am a longtime political writer, retired teacher, former plumber, teen
runaway, carnie, until recently a touring poet (which is actually a lot like
being homeless), an artist/entertainer of sorts and I have a couple of Masters
Degrees, an MA in literary criticism from University of Illinois at Springfield
and a Masters in Secondary Education from NAU.
My main
platform issues are education, immigration, legalization & equalization.
Education as in doubling the number of teachers in the classroom, doing away w
test centered instruction, equalized funding for all schools no matter your zip
code and increasing on-campus social services. Immigration as in solving the
problem of undocumented immigrants by providing access and documentation
facilities for economic refugees at existing border crossings, stop treating
our neighbors and friends to the South as terrorists, ending the drug war that
has made the border a war zone and insisting that America be a nation that will
not tolerate slavery. Legalization as in ending the corrupt and misguided prohibition
against cannabis and hemp, taking a real bite out of crime instead of fueling
the prison industrial complex, allowing American ingenuity to robustly embrace
the legal cannabis industry. Start treating this start up industry as American
capitalism at its best and stop treating the cannabis community as an oppressed
minority, recognize the legitimate medical benefits of cannabis, end the terrorizing
of our sickest citizens and let tens of millions of Americans in the shadows
learn to respect their country again.
Lastly
equalization is more than issues like LGBT, minority and women’s rights, though
those things are at the heart of my social agenda. When a person cannot marry,
or adopt or be w their loved ones at a time of medical crisis, it is not even
like being a US citizen. We have got to abolish the structural discrimination
of our LGBT community. That is a given. As for women and equality, it is time
to put an end to challenges on women’s reproductive rights and guarantee equal
pay for equal work. I further think we have a long way to go to remove the
structural racism that is still a large part of the American fabric. But more
than that, I refer to equalization as a way to balance the access to quality of
life and opportunity that rural citizens in America rarely enjoy. Roads,
internet and cell service, clean dependable water, medical facilities and
quality schools—these need to be the basics of 21st century America,
not the many sacrificing for the moneyed. For me, American history has been a
record of our efforts to live up to the ideals of our founding fathers. That
cause is why I have devoted my life to changing America for the better,
starting here in Arizona.
Op-Ed News Column: http://www.opednews.com/author/author17330.html
Mikel Weisser
4490 Sundown Dr
So-Hi, AZ 86413
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