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Pima County Attorney: Democrat: Barbara LaWall

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Name: Claudia Ellquist

Office seeking: Pima County Attorney

Party registration: Green Party

Age: 59

Occupation/employer: Self-employed political consultant. Clients have included the Healthy Arizona Initiative Committee and the Coalition of Arizonans to Abolish the Death Penalty. I have also taught at Pima Community College as adjunct faculty, and, of course, practiced law.

Family: I am married to John Yoakum. My dad still lives here in Tucson, but the rest are scattered elsewhere.

Religion: Elder at First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ); national chair of Action and Global Concerns, for Church Women United in the United States

Income: Enough, thank you!

Residence: Tucson

Education: BA in History, 5th year teaching certificate, and Juris Doctor, University of Arizona

Offices held/run for: I was appointed as a founding commissioner on the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission, 1999-2001. I ran for Pima County Attorney in 2004. I am elected to the National Committee of the Green Party of the United States, and am state co-chair of the Arizona Green Party.

Civic activities/organizations: Led the successful recall against Alan Lang, on behalf of the National Organization for Women and several supporting groups, including the Green Party. Served on NOW's national board for two terms. I represent Church Women United at several levels, in action and programming and worship celebrations. I sit on the boards of Healthy Arizona and the Arizona Ecumenical Council.

Why are you running? The County Attorney's Office needs the challenge of someone from the outside, who can see, without bias or blinders, where changes need to be made. I went to law school in the same class as Barbara LaWall, and she is head and shoulders above her predecessor, and has instituted some very positive changes. But she has always been there, and the internal institutional culture is what she knows. The same for Brad Roach, over a shorter period of time.

When I ran for the same office, in 2004, I raised many issues, and I subsequently saw improvements in those areas. By voting for me, people showed that my ideas had substantial public support. My background, particularly in the institutional creation of the Clean Elections system and enforcement of election law, show that I have the competence to do what is necessary if I am elected, and the tenor of my issue-based campaigns shows that I have the temperament and integrity to do it well. But, win or lose, a vote for me sends a needed message, about what is pragmatic, workable, decent, just.

The biggest issue facing my constituents is: How, in a squeezed economic environment, and massive budget cuts to come, to get the best justice that the allotted amount of money can buy, in ways that impact our everyday lives. This means that we must spend the money on what works, and give up some of the stuff that makes headlines and political careers, but is just too expensive to subsidize. A prime example is the pursuit of the death penalty in crimes that are better combated by life imprisonment. The decision to seek death adds literally millions of dollars to the cost of each case, without buying us a shred of added community safety, and it is irreversible when mistakes are made. And, when the stakes are that high, mistakes are made, and justice is shortcutted, so there is an unacceptable level of reversal, retrial, and, occasionally (and even with an ethical person at the top), scandal.

Even though I have personally known the mothers of both murder victims and of murderers, I am not typical. Even less typical, I know Ray Krone, and I was the one who arranged for him to receive public apology, in 2007, on the floor of the Arizona House and Senate, for the 10 years of his life, two on death row, for a murder he did not commit. The system is just too flawed, too expensive, and too damaging to the lives of those already bereaved.

The resources, both financial and in attorney focus, that are saved by a moratorium on death penalty requests, may be needed just to keep our system solvent. But, buttressed by other reforms, like adequately staffing the Public Defender's Office instead of expensively privatizing indigent defense, may enable us to better fund programs that actually address crime, drugs and recidivism, in ways that will make our community safer.

Favorite local hangout: Forest Service cabin on Mt Lemmon.

NPR or FOX? KXCI, with NPR coming in second. Or a bit of country music, when the news gets repetitive.

How long have you lived in Arizona? My parents moved our family here in 1962, when my dad retired from the army. I have been here since then, and in the same neighborhood since 1975.

What kind of vehicle do you drive? What kind of mileage does it get? A 1999 Nissan Sentra. When I drive, it gets 30 mpg, in city, because I hyper-drive. (A fancy term that covers what Mama taught me about "safe driving and saving gas.")

If I could have dinner with any living person, I would choose: Honestly? My husband. He can always make me laugh, and relax, and think, and he thinks I'm a gourmet cook.

If I had my own reality show, it would be titled: I have never actually watched a "reality show," so I'm stumped. Ask me about my favorite book. . .

First job: I left college for two years, for my first full-time job, which was to work as a community organizer for the Board of American Missions of the Lutheran Church in America, in the Visitation Valley/ Hunter's Bay area of San Francisco.

No. I agree with incumbent LaWall that county courts should be used for prosecuting actual crimes, not milking publicity out of status offenses. I believe that current immigration law is a travesty, and will require comprehensive reform before it is enforceable at any level. In the meantime, I will not grandstand on this (or any) issue, pretending that misguided action solves anything. The intent of the laws against trafficking was to deal with serious issues, not to get Maricopa County politicians re-elected for staging media shows.

That's going to require funding, so the first step will be the reforms I list above, as I discuss my priorities. [No tax and spend.] The way to effectively reduce the crime that supports drug-addiction is to deal with the addiction. With meth, reduction has been proven when supply is curtailed, so that is an essential component. But another component is the medicalization of drug addiction. When people are addicted to cigarettes or to alcohol, we "get it" that the problem is addiction, and learned a long time ago that criminalizing the addiction does not work.

This may sound like a legislative problem, and the Legislature should certainly take the lead in it. But a county attorney has wide discretion in charging and bringing individuals to trial, and every county attorney makes judgments about where to best put resources, including resources confiscated from criminal activity, so this should indicate the direction I would hope to follow, pragmatically and under budget.

It is reasonable, and a good thing, that not all cases are prosecuted. The question isn't mathematical — whether 50% or 49% is a better number — the question is, which cases. My answers above give an indication of my priorities in prosecution.

No. This is like asking if 100 executions are enough to make us safe, or are 1,000 executions needed, and will 10,000 makes us a hundred times safer. What is the value of human life, or human grief, when we think a number is anything more than an indication of how broken the system is? An ethical county attorney always has to be wary of the glamour of headlines, the drive of personal ambition, and the seduction of counting courtroom "wins" instead of seeking justice.

The problem is institutional culture, and its invisibility to those within the system, so that, on occasion, even "good" prosecutors end up cheating in court, because they put greater reliance in their own invincibility and discernment, or those of their fallible law enforcement colleagues, than they do in our system of justice. And the higher the stakes, and the greater the publicity, the more temptation to stack the cards. It is not coincidental that the few scandals that emerged in the past decade were all in capital cases. The citizens of Maricopa County should be very uneasy about having to pay out millions, yet again, for false capital prosecution.