Learn more about the four candidates for the 2024 Arizona Legislative District 4 House race. LD4 covers parts of Phoenix, Paradise Valley and Scottsdale and is currently represented by one Democrat and one Republican. It is one of a only a handful of competitive districts that could determine which party controls the chamber in 2025.
Matt Gress
Party: Republican
Website: mattgress.com
A budget director under former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, Gress was first elected to the Arizona House of Representatives in 2022. Gress, a former school board member, has focused on several issues while in office, including education. He backed a Republican plan to renew Prop. 123, which pulls money from the state land trust to cover education expenses. That plan would have used all the funds to increase teacher pay and differed from a similar Democratic proposal to increase the draw from the trust fund to pay for teacher raises and other education expenses.
Gress also sponsored a bill to study teacher retention and another backed by state Superintendent Tom Horne to make retired police officers eligible for grant funding to serve as school resource officers. Gress also waded into controversial territory, opposing the use of hotel rooms to house individuals experiencing homelessness in favor of other solutions to the issue and becoming one of only three Republicans in the House to vote to repeal Arizona’s territorial-era abortion ban.
Pamela Carter
Party: Republican
Website: pamelacarter.com
Republican Pamela Carter, a Scottsdale entrepreneur, is seeking election to the Arizona House of Representatives. Carter, who unsuccessfully ran for Scottsdale City Council in 2022, lists her top issues as border security, public safety, fighting inflation and school choice. While running for the city council, she said she opposes “woke policies,” including Scottsdale’s non-discrimination ordinance that was adopted in 2021.
Kelli Butler
Party: Democrat
Website: kelliforaz.com
Butler is a former state lawmaker, who represented a Phoenix and Paradise Valley-area district from 2017 to 2022. She also served on the Maricopa County Community College District board. While in office, Butler backed bills to expand access to Arizona’s child health-care program, and to increase unemployment benefits. She opposed legislation that banned abortions performed due to non-fatal genetic abnormalities and several Republican education proposals, including a bill that would have given teachers a $200 stipend to spend on school supplies. Butler says she supports broader increases in funding for public schools and reining in the state’s school voucher program.
Karen Gresham
Party: Democrat
Website: karenforaz.com
Gresham, president of the Madison Elementary School District board, is running on a Democratic slate alongside Butler. A retired accountant, Gresham has served on parent-teacher organizations and volunteers with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. She says her top issue is ensuring teachers and students have the resources they need, and she has participated in rallies at the Arizona Capitol with education groups calling for increased funding for public education.
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Every two years, Arizonans cast their votes in primary and general elections. And every two years, critics complain it takes too many days for all the votes to be counted. Through KJZZ’s Q&AZ project, a listener asked: Why does the vote counting process take so long?
