This Arizona lawmaker is one of few who still hosts town halls — and she says civility is not lost

LAUREN GILGER: It’s pretty rare these days that candidates hold town hall type events where they come face-to-face with voters. But, our next guest thought it was an important thing to do.

So, last year, she held three of them — and found that civility is not lost in Arizona.

Democratic Rep. Janeen Connolly is a freshman lawmaker from District 8, which covers downtown Tempe and the surrounding areas. It’s an historically safe Democratic district, but she wanted to talk to voters who didn’t vote for her — because she represents them, too.

She wrote about it recently for Arizona Talks and came into KJZZ's studios last week to talk more about it — beginning with why she thinks it’s so much more rare today for candidates to hold forums with constituents, or debate their opponent.

Full conversation

JANEEN CONNOLLY: I think that it's really interesting because they are all incredibly bright people. They all have the skill set to be able to sit down and talk to their constituents face to face. I think that as a society we've kind of been rapidly moving away from that kind of communication, not just in politics. And I think that as a society also, we have a little bit of trouble feeling comfortable with sensitive conversations, and it's important for us not to be that way.

We have a lot of sensitive issues to manage right now. Our society is under a bit of duress, and talking to each other and being able to bring up sensitive topics, I think, is vitally important in bringing us through this period of time.

LAUREN GILGER: Why did you decide to hold town halls throughout that primary? Meet face-to-face with voters, take on their real questions?

JANEEN CONNOLLY: The main reason I held town halls is because some people that I'm representing did not vote for me. And so I told my staff, or my team, that I really want to have meetings. I want to invite everyone, particularly people who did not vote for me. I want to give them the opportunity to hear me and see who I am, know that I'm approachable, know that I recognize that even though they didn't vote for me or maybe don't support me politically, that I'm here for them if they have issues. It is my job to help them if they have issues.

And so we set them up, and we fortunately moved through them in an interesting period of time, October of '25. Yeah, yeah. And early October, people would show up with questions, things were starting to happen. Mid-October, more people were showing up. By the end of October, people with very worried looks on their faces.

LAUREN GILGER: This was right at the beginning of the second Trump administration.

JANEEN CONNOLLY: Yeah, and people were starting to think, "What is going on?" We had a great opening to the meetings. We made a little poster for guidelines for civil dialogue, and the person introducing me was very adept at just saying, "Rep. Connolly doesn't care if you voted for her. She is your representative because she won the election, and she wants you to know that she's here to represent you. That's not just something she says on fliers and on her website."

LAUREN GILGER: OK, so you must have known from the beginning that this might not go well. You could very well get some tough questions, some difficult moments. Did that happen?

JANEEN CONNOLLY: Not really.

LAUREN GILGER: Wow.

JANEEN CONNOLLY: Yeah, people were incredibly respectful.

LAUREN GILGER: Even when they disagreed with you?

JANEEN CONNOLLY: Even when they disagreed. The greatest moment was halfway through the second town hall, someone yelled from the back, "What party are you with anyway?" And so that was an interesting question to answer when you don't know who's in the room. I still to this day, a lot of people signed in and gave us their addresses and email addresses to be part of my newsletter, and I to this day don't know what parties they're with. And that's the way I want it to be.

LAUREN GILGER: So when that person yelled out from the back, "What party do you even represent?" Janeen, what'd you say?

JANEEN CONNOLLY: I said, "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm a Democrat, and I'm more moderate." And then explained to them how I vote and that, "Please watch my voting record. Please determine whether or not I'm representing you the way you want to be represented, and if I'm not, here's my phone number," and gave it out.

We've had so many people having issues with SNAP benefits and workers' comp and unemployment, and those are not partisan issues. And walking them through those situations carefully, a woman last night, very worried about her power bill, was she going to be able to pay it, as I helped her find the right resources. Working with state agencies and that kind of critical funding is vital right now. And I don't care what party these people are with at that point in time. At that point in their lives, they just need an advocate.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. We should say your past career kind of prepped you for this, right? It sounds like with your career at SRP had done probably a lot of community meetings and dealing with the public, and maybe on more hostile grounds.

JANEEN CONNOLLY: Yes. Lots of community meetings, lots of elected official briefings, building trust in the community, meeting with community leaders. I sited major infrastructure projects in lots of different parts of the state. And yeah, there would be a lot of opposition.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. I want to ask you though about debates, right? Because one of the other things we're seeing right now as the Clean Elections Commission is carrying out debates for every race across the state is that a lot of candidates, including you, it sounds like, are not debating. And from the governor down, there are various reasons being cited as to why that would be.

But why in your case are you not going to debate?

JANEEN CONNOLLY: I had to make a very difficult choice in the last few days because I committed to debate. But something came into my realm that was just really important for me to take a bye on the debate and go to instead. And I hope that my constituents will forgive me for that. I did debate in the primary, and that's out there. Everyone can go and see that, a much more lively debate probably than tomorrow's will be. And I'm happy to answer any of the questions that come up in the debate. People can call me, but I'm planning to put that out also.

LAUREN GILGER: So what do you think the value of not just debating and answering questions from journalists, but of interacting and answering those direct questions from constituents is today? As you say, we're in this world in which we don't have direct face-to-face conversation all that often anymore.

JANEEN CONNOLLY: So if you don't mind, I'm going to put in a plug for civil dialogue right here because I'm very much a proponent of civil dialogue, and I did plant that seed in the primary debate when we started out. We had a wonderful conversation, the three of us, about all the different questions that came up. And anger didn't get into it, and personal issues didn't come between us. We really had a great conversation.

I think that debate is really healthy. I was on the ASU speech and debate team. Since then, I've been the volunteer coach of Tempe High School speech and debate team.

LAUREN GILGER: Oh, so you're a practiced debater.

JANEEN CONNOLLY: I'm practiced at the laws of debate and the approaches of debate, the perspective of debate, and I think that when people can come together, I mean, it's what the Whips should be doing on the floor, it's what should happen all over the Capitol all the time. I do think debate refines any process.

LAUREN GILGER: So you're defending the efficacy of debating, but you're not debating. And I know for other reasons, but I wonder, what do you think that says about how our elections function today? I mean, when we don't have the gubernatorial candidates all debating or the Senate candidates or congressional candidates, do you think that something's lost in that?

JANEEN CONNOLLY: I wouldn't say necessarily lost, and in some cases I think something can be gained. We don't need to see some of the candidates hash it out. We know they're going to sit down and hash it out, right? I don't see the benefit in the public watching that.

I think for those specific candidates, it's up to us to go and read about the points of view of the two opposing sides. We don't have to have them have a debate in front of us. We can understand where they differ without that, if it's not going to be civil, if it's not going to be constructive. And we can make up our own minds. We're that bright.

LAUREN GILGER: OK. Janeen Connolly, a Democrat in the House of Representatives here in Arizona in LD8. Janeen, thank you so much for coming in. I really appreciate it.

JANEEN CONNOLLY: Thank you, Lauren.