Foothills Fracas A Young Challenger Tries To Unseat Incumbent Dan Schottel In The District 12 GOP Primary. By J.E. Relly IN NORTHWESTERN District 12, House incumbents Dan Schottel and Winifred "Freddy" Hershberger are facing an aggressive challenge from Steve Huffman in the September 10 GOP primary. The race isn't necessarily a bitter one, but Schottel and his supporters say that "certain groups" are running a negative campaign to "unseat" him because of his conservative positions. Hershberger is keeping a polite distance and challenger Huffman says he's not out to sling any mud. After all, he and Schottel both attend the same church. But Huffman has set out to unseat Schottel. In a fundraising letter, Huffman specifically targeted the incumbent, and he's launched a door-to-door campaign in the 55 percent Republican district, claiming to have hit some 3,500 households. Hershberger says her challenger's verve got her out in the neighborhoods early. Schottel won't be knocking on doors until next week; he says he's been too busy with committee meetings in Phoenix to get out sooner. His last campaign finance report indicates he's raised $18,465. He'll be placing some of those bucks on billboards. Huffman, who had raised $7,185 as of May 31, will be spending his money elsewhere. Huffman comes from a real estate family and received his Realtor's license when he graduated from high school. His political science bachelor's is from the University of Arizona. He currently works for Coldwell Banker Success Realty. Huffman calls himself a "lifelong Republican." The former Eagle Scout started on the political track at college age working as an intern for Sen. John McCain and for the College and Young Republicans. Huffman also was finance director and assistant campaign manager for Rep. Jim Kolbe's last three campaigns and worked on Sen. Jon Kyl's '94 campaign as well. He's serving as treasurer for Realtor Vicki Cox Golder, a well-funded Republican running for Pima County Supervisor Ed Moore's District 3 seat, which overlaps part of legislative District 12. Huffman is working hard to outmaneuver Schottel. He managed to swing an endorsement by the Arizona Education Association, which didn't endorse Schottel, who chairs of the House education committee. Huffman says if elected his main priority is to support the best formula distributing money to build and maintain schools. He criticizes the incumbents for failing to push through an equitable distribution formula, even though the Arizona Supreme Court ruled two years ago that the state's funding system for public school construction is unconstitutional because it relies too heavily on local property taxes, which vary from district to district. Schottel considers himself a strong supporter of education. The 62-year-old former entrepreneur serves as House education committee chairman and his wife taught for 35 years in Tucson. In response to Huffman's criticism, Schottel, a strong proponent of school vouchers, refers to several bills he's promoted or held back to protect Pima County's education interests. Schottel, who spent two years in accounting at the University of Arizona, communicates in numbers when referring to state programs. He speaks affirmatively about a bill he introduced last session proposing a one-quarter cent sales tax to deal with the property tax inequity in education funding. But that part of his proposal received no support. Critics, including State Superintendent of Public Instruction Lisa Graham-Keegan, called the Legislature's final solution, a $70 million "School Capital Equity Fund" hammered out during a special session this summer, an insufficient attempt at fixing the capital financing crisis. Last summer, a study commissioned by the Joint Legislative Committee on Capital Review estimated there are some $900 million in unmet needs for low-income school districts. Of that, some $50 million were emergency health needs for providing necessities such as lights and emergency exits and fixing leaky roofs and toilets. Critics saw Schottel's proposal as a blatant disregard for the study's results. Today, Schottel favors lowering property taxes and replacing the money in sales taxes to finance school construction and maintenance. But he insists the conditions of many of the state's schools are a result of the school districts' management. Schottel is proud of introducing education reform through "Omnibus Title 15," which addresses the Federal mandates that set standards for spending money in the schools on such items as national testing, grading systems and school lunch programs. He says Arizona parents and teachers know more about what the students need than they do in D.C. During this past term, Schottel has received awards from the Vocational Technical Educators and the Arizona Student Association, but he failed to win an endorsement from the Arizona Education Association. "They like a more liberal agenda," he says. He's a proponent of uniform tax codes statewide and is supporting tax decreases across the board with the current system. He's stringently opposed to increased funding for any state programs, except for a slight increase toward education. SCHOTTEL AND HUFFMAN also split when it comes to environmental issues. It's difficult to pin down Huffman's position on the environment: "We have to look at what we're gaining through specific environmental law versus the downside." Huffman says he wouldn't have supported the Environmental Audit Bill, dubbed "The Polluters' Protection Act," because it would have granted polluters immunity from civil and criminal penalties as long as they filed a secret report with the state. He also criticizes the 1994 legislation which legalized the production of Freon in Arizona. Schottel supported both proposals. Although Huffman exhibits better intentions for the environment than Schottel's voting record demonstrates, both support additional funding for Gov. J. Fife Symington III's Constitutional Defense Council, created two years ago to challenge the feds over states' rights issues. Since it was formed, the council has threatened to sue the federal Environmental Protection Agency over the Endangered Species Act. The council has also thrown money at a property rights dispute between the federal government and Nye County, Nevada. Even Hershberger signed off with Schottel and 18 other Republican colleagues in the Legislature as a "friend of the Court" in support of the Nye County fiasco, which brought the issue of county rights to national attention. Nye County lost its case. Since then, Hershberger has backed away from supporting the Constitutional Defense Council; she says she's leaning toward supporting its suspension and returning the unspent budget to the general fund. Huffman finds having such an apparatus around to be worthwhile, but says the fights chosen to date have been "ridiculous." All three candidates believe the state should reimburse private citizens when environmental regulations limit the use of privately owned lands. ALTHOUGH FREDDY HERSHBERGER is not known for her leadership role on the environment and her voting record has waffled, unlike Schottel, she didn't support the failed "Polluters' Protection Act." A Vassar graduate and District 12 resident for 45 years, Hershberger is known for her moderate and independent votes in the legislature. She was one of three Republicans in the House this year who took heat and voted against parental consent for abortion. "Parental consent sounds so innocent and positive," she says, "but if a girl doesn't want to tell her parents, she has a pretty compelling reason." She sees the legislation as a step toward more limiting laws in the future. Schottel, however, doesn't support a woman's right to an abortion unless a pregnancy results from rape or the woman's life is endangered. He voted in favor of parental consent, as Huffman says he would if elected. Hershberger says her campaign is spending a chunk of the $17,599 raised thus far on targeted mailings to natural constituencies like teachers and pro-choice voters. The 74-year-old Hershberger has worked in politics for 30 years. She ran former Sen. Barry Goldwater's Tucson operation for 18 years and organized southern Arizona campaigns for Richard Nixon and Symington. Hershberger has championed several bills focusing on kids and social issues. She's sponsored legislation to aid abandoned children, children of divorced parents, victims of Domestic Violence and the developmentally disabled. Her priorities include increasing funding for education at every level, from early programs such as Healthy Start and Healthy Families all the way through college. She's currently serving on a committee analyzing problems and solutions at Child Protective Services. She's also on a teen pregnancy prevention committee targeting teen males and their parents. Like Huffman, Hershberger exhibits moderate views in the human service area, supporting funding for job-training and other prevention programs. Citing statistics on violent juvenile crime peaking within the next four years, Huffman is the only candidate in favor of building more prisons and toughening penalties for illegal possession of firearms. Like Schottel, he believes violent juvenile offenders should be tried as adults. This may be his rookie race, but Huffman has already mastered the art of creating a distracting campaign issue. He sent a registered letter to Hershberger and Schottel challenging them not to take Political Action Committee money. The 27-year-old Huffman supports campaign finance reform and says he won't take PAC money even if elected. Schottel says he received Huffman's letter after he'd already received PAC money. But the letter actually offers the option of returning the money already received. Hershberger says she'd vote in favor of prohibiting PAC contributions in the statehouse. In his campaign literature, Huffman writes that Schottel received 70 percent of his '94 campaign contributions from Maricopa County. Schottel, former owner of the Wooden Nickel Tavern, shrugs off accusations that he doesn't support his county, stating the verity that most PACs are located near the state capitol. When Lobbyists are happy with the incumbents, says Schottel, they almost always give them most of their PAC money; his challenger therefore doesn't have much to lose with his opposition. Huffman argues that PAC contributions unfairly weigh elections in favor of the incumbent, leaving little choice to the voters. Huffman defends his own involvement with a Realtor's PAC; he says, "I never confuse what a lobbyist says with what the people in my community say." We'll see, Steve. The two winners of the race will face Democrat Mark Osterich in the November general election.

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