After that i game i went in the crime unit and worked under cover narcotics for a while, had a big beard, long hair and all that stuff and after that family kind of dictates your life a lot of times so i went down to the chicago board of trade and served on their board of directors. What did your years in Law Enforcement teach you about working with others . How has it impacted your career since then . Well, in every way imaginable. In the skill sets you learn as a Police Officer work all through life. You have to learn how to get along with people, read people especially homicide. When youre interviewing somebody you really need to know how to read people. Think quickly on your feet. Not become very intimidated and also respect people and trust people and those attributes as you go through life are very helpful and i found that whether its in other areas of employment or in public service. You left chicago. Went to arizona. I did. 24 years ago. What did you do . First i was going to come out here and ride horses and hike the rest of my life. I was retiring. I was lucky enough to be able to retire at young age. And i got to dealing with environmental waters, forestry issues and a seat opened at the Arizona State legislature and people asked me to run for the seat. I had never been in politics, no intention to ever be in politics. But had been down at the legislature when i was helping the communities and i didnt like the way people were being treated as a public and how the legislature was being run from the standpoint of special interests so it took me a while to make the decision but i made the decision to run and i was elected to my surprise. And i spent eight years in the Arizona State legislature, six years as a representative, two years as a senator. What is different about the Arizona Legislature serving there and serving in congress . Taking away 60 people in the house versus 435 here. And the pressure of National Exposure and National Issues and interNational Issues, it gets about to be the same. Here i feel theres less transparency, more pressure from Interest Groups here. Obviously theres way too much money involved the process. And thats evident when you go to run for office. I used to be able to run for a seat in Arizona Legislature for under 200,000. Here if you dont raise that in three months youre in big trouble. So and i dont know thats good for our society, but the end result is i really believe theres not enough transparency here and not enough debate. What do you mean though, transparency . What happened in the state legislature that was transparent versus here . Well, the bills were generic, every bill was about a specific subject. And here you can get almost anything thrown into a bill. And you have to really watch i dont think its fair to the public to have that type of a legislature we called it a Christmas Tree bill if you tried to get outside the generic. And people have tried to come up with ways to do it, but in the end its hard for the public to be able to follow the process. And i think as the president had indicated in his inauguration address, were going to turn Government Back to the people. They have to be able to follow government and has has been transparent. What are you doing as a member of the house of representative so that your constituents know what youre doing . Every visit i have is recorded on our website. What the issue was. Who i met with. And finally my vote if there was an issue on it. And if its an issue that regards a district as far as a road or Something Like that, people know exactly what im doing with that. Then on the other side, if i go out into the district and have events, every event is identified. So we have transparency across the spectrum. In fact if you were a lobbyist and came in here and gave me a sheet of for information, we would make that available to our constituents also. My district is has as a lot of different types of agriculture and ranching. So its also part of my background and my family. My father was a farmer. My grandfather and grandfather before that. My dad was the first one to leave the farm during the depression and try to make a living in chicago. Then the rest of the brothers they all went to fourth grade was the longest they were allowed to go to school because they had to work on the farm. Then the last brother, they called him the boy, they all got together and made sure he finished college. What do you think your familys history, your history, that background, what impact has it had on you . Work ethic, loyalty. Sense of family. The ability to understand being around good people growing up my life. My uncles whether blood uncles or married uncles they almost all served in the military and it is amazing. When they came home they didnt have stories about it. They just didnt talk antibiotic. And i think thats a credit to them. Also sadness that they had to go through something they never even wanted to talk about. You have a reminder in your office of your uncle and his service in the military. Show us this. And tell us what it is and why you think its important to have it in your office. Well my uncle, he was a Lieutenant Colonel in the army air corp. During world war ii, he served for the whole war, but he did 50 missions in the south pacific. And he was aadearbombadear, an received numerous medals, the significance to me why i brought it to the office of Veterans Affairs and our commitment to veterans has to be remembered all the time so thats why im going to put it up on the wall and make sure its in a position where i look at it every day so that i understand one of the reasons i am here is to make sure our veterans are cared for. In fact we have another piece of his that were redoing with his medals and pictures of him that will go along with this so that again, when you have reminders like that you have more of a te
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