Kari Lake

Vaccines and Covid Mandates

I think it is extremely wrong for government, business and schools to mandate this vaccine.

If the vaccine wasn’t available and available to everyone this would be different. But anyone concerned can protect themselves. Anyone can go out and get the shot today. They can get it free. They can get it all over town in every community in the state. You can get it at a drive-up site, grocery stores, pharmacies, medical facilities. Access to the vaccine is universal in this country. And people have a responsibility to protect themselves—they do not have a right to impose their choices on others.

I am completely against any sort of mandate—especially ones that cost someone an opportunity to further their education or earn a living. As your governor, I will absolutely seek to ban vaccine mandates across the board.

If elected, I won’t take office until January of 2023; in the meantime, I encourage everyone concerned about his medical totalitarianism to contact governor Ducey’s office immediately and tell him to call a special session of the legislature to immediately draft and pass legislation protecting the medical freedom and privacy of all Arizonans in every field.

My policy as governor would be to educate the people of Arizona on any public health risks and then allow them to make the best choices to protect themselves, their families and their businesses, while focusing our resources on protecting and supporting those individuals who – due to age or illness – are truly at the most risk.

Don't California our Arizona

I want to see Arizona remain a great symbol of the American West. We don't want to be some homogenized, unrecognizable state, a second California. California is the "Progressive Dream" realized in full after decades of one-Party Democrat control. And what does that dream look like? It's a deliberate, unmoving traffic jam next to a homeless encampment where people are using the sidewalk as a toilet and shooting up in front of a cop who isn't allowed to do anything about it.

The list of progressive policies that have failed is comprehensive. They've used "Vision Zero" to deliberately tie traffic in knots in an attempt to make driving so inconvenient people are forced onto buses. They've used "Justice Reform" to turn criminals loose on the population to commit crime without consequence. Their version of "Housing Equity" has made it so costly and impossible to build new housing that they've created an artificial housing crisis and tens of thousands of newly homeless people. The list goes on. Their homelessness policies are a complete failure and actively enable long-term street homelessness, vagrancy, and drug use. Their taxes, regulations, and wasteful spending are driving businesses away at a record pace and preventing new ones from getting off the ground. People are fleeing in droves.

We can't allow liberal policies to California our Arizona – if we do there will be nowhere left to run.

Election Integrity

In 2016, over 60% of Democrats believed the election was stolen. In 2020, over 60% of Republicans believe the election was stolen. We cannot continue to have disputed elections and expect this country to survive. Ensuring election integrity in the future is incredibly simple if we simply have the political will to do it.

Arizona’s audit revealed numerous deficiencies and issues with our elections, on a scope and scale sufficient to have changed the outcome of 2020. We must address these problems immediately, or nothing else we do will matter.

First, require voter ID on all ballots. One person, one vote. There is nothing fairer than that, and – despite what the mainstream media says – voter ID requirements are overwhelmingly popular with every single Party and demographic. 75% of Americans support requiring voter ID, as do 69% of Black Americans, and 82% of other minorities. 60% of Democrats, 77% of Independents, and 89% of Republicans support voter ID. The only people who don't want to see voter ID implemented are progressive activists and the media.

Second, require pre-printed paper ballots – no printing ballots on-site at polling stations which increases the likelihood of individuals casting multiple ballots.

Third, take all equipment that uses software out of the counting process. As we have seen in recent weeks with the pipeline hack, and the meat-plant hack: if it has software, it can be hacked. Elections are simply too important to take that risk. Using analog optical scanners will be more personnel and time-consuming than using computers – so we pay for the personnel and resources we need.

Fourth, elections should be followed with regular, highly accurate audits of the results to ensure transparency and bolster public trust.

Pro-Life

I am pro-life and believe that every life, starting at conception, is worth saving. The pro-life movement stands strongly in support of providing the resources necessary for mothers to embrace life, as do I. As Governor, I will put significant new resources into helping pregnant women choose life-saving options including adoption, parental support and guidance, and neo-natal treatment.

Nationwide, there are over 2700 pregnancy care centers that serve millions of women annually, and government programs like the Texas Alternatives to Abortion Program which provides counseling, material assistance, care coordination, and housing support. I will ensure Arizona matches and exceeds all other states in supporting these centers and the amazing work they are doing.

Further, it takes two to make a baby. Many fathers report extreme distress in the wake of an abortion, however, fathers must also be held accountable and directed to support women they have impregnated throughout their pregnancy, not just after the baby is born, and I will seek to reform Arizona’s laws to ensure they do.

In short, we must ensure that any barriers to a mother choosing life are removed.

But we must also support people who choose to act responsibly when they are not ready to have a child, and that means making all common forms of birth control available over-the-counter, and providing assistance to those who are financially unable to pay for their own birth control.

Secure the Border - Finish the Wall

As Americans, we welcome all legal immigrants into our country, but what we have now is a security and humanitarian crisis. International criminal cartels are fully in control of Northern Mexico and have turned the flood of people wanting to get into the United States into just another lucrative revenue source to be exploited – they are raping, ransoming, and extorting some of the most vulnerable people in the world, and they won't stop until we stop them.

That's why I am committed to finishing the wall. I will not let this suffering continue.

As Governor, I will direct the Arizona National Guard to deploy along the border and assist Border Patrol for as long as it takes to get control of this disaster. Additionally, while our Department of Public Safety doesn't have a direct role in immigration enforcement, they are a frontline resource in combating sex and human trafficking and drug smuggling. I will expand and redeploy elite elements of DPS to our border to coordinate a massive increase in our efforts to stop these evils. Further, trespassing is a crime, and another area where DPS can take a leading role in addressing illegal immigration as many crossers traversing private land.

But we can go further, I will empower Arizona sheriffs to deputize Arizonans, including retired law enforcement, military, and others with critical training, to assist DPS in enforcing the law and securing our border. Additionally, I will allocate state resources to assist in funding these programs as well as provide hiring and retention bonuses to our law enforcement agencies to help address their staffing shortages.

While the Biden administration may turn a blind eye to all the crime and suffering illegal immigration is bringing with it, we will not. We will enforce our laws every time, without fail. And we will keep the pressure on Washington.

Restoring Quality of Life for Arizona: Tackling Homelessness

Homelessness in Arizona is increasing at a staggering rate. Homeless encampments, drugged-out and deranged individuals, and the extensive damage they are doing to the quality of life in our communities has spread far beyond our biggest cities, even impacting rural and mountain communities like Pine, Payson, and Flagstaff.

Government programs and homeless service providers are not making the problem better. Instead, they have essentially given up and are enabling chronic street homelessness, drug use, and mental illness. They ignore the impacts on citizens, families, and communities.

I am proposing the most extensive, aggressive and comprehensive approach to addressing homelessness and providing real treatment and support to people who are willing to accept it anywhere in the country. They will have beds, treatment, support, and hope. Those who refuse will find something else entirely: a state that simply isn’t willing to tolerate their abuses any more.

Teaching for Success

Arizona students need a great education, they deserve a great education. I will stop the "woke" curriculum overtaking our schools and ensure our kids are given the tools they need to grow and be successful in every phase of life.

No child should ever be taught that their skin color, or where they come from, is what defines them. That is racism, pure and simple, no matter what anyone wants to call it. It needs to stop. This craziness is teaching kids to be suspicious of, even fear, their classmates. It's teaching them to judge every single aspect of life through a racial lens. And it's destroying their self-confidence. It must stop.

Teacher’s unions and school boards that continue to push this terrible ideology while trying to close schools again at every opportunity must be called out, voted out, and shut down. We’ve seen the abuses in this system, and what these radicals are doing: keeping parents in the dark, spying on them, and labeling them terrorists. When I become governor, all that ends. I will use the full power of my office to shine a light on these abuses and send the abusers running.

We’re going to get back to teaching American history, not anti-American history. That doesn't mean ignoring our flaws, but it does mean standing up to the revisionist attacks on the past progressives are using to promote their ideology.

Instead, kids need real, quality education that starts with the basics and ensures students have a complete grasp of them, before moving on to the advanced learning they need to succeed in a high-tech, fast paced world. Schools, and students, must be held to the highest standard, and the excuses for not doing so need to stop, also.

As Governor, I will ensure that our schools have the resources and support they need to give our kids their very best chance at a lifetime of success. I will ensure that parents have every available option to give their kids the best education possible – great public schools, great charter schools, great technical schools, and real support for homeschool parents.

We're going to fund students not systems, and replace woke curriculum with education that gives our kids the real-world tools they need to achieve their dreams.

Second Amendment

Shall. Not. Be. Infringed.

Protecting Local Business, Not Box Stores

When the pandemic hit, states across the country – including Arizona - put the hammer down on small businesses; forcing their closure, limiting their occupancy, and requiring costly modifications to their operations. At the same time, they bent over backwards to accommodate the needs of many big box stores and online retailers. The damage those policies did will be felt for decades.

I care far more about the local retired couple who poured their life savings into a restaurant and then had government take it away from them than I do the shareholders of Walmart or Amazon. I will never allow our state to do anything like this, ever again.

No shutdowns, no restrictions, no favorites.

In a public health crisis, or any crisis, it is the responsibility of the government to give our citizens the very best, most accurate information possible, and allow them to make their own informed decisions. I trust you, the people of Arizona, to do what's best for you, your family, and your neighbors over bureaucrats who are mostly interested in protecting their careers.

Religious Freedom

As Americans, we have the freedom to worship where, when, and how we choose. I will work with our legislature to pass a law preventing any government interference of this fundamental liberty under any circumstances. No governor, no Mayor, no board will have the right to shut down religious observances or worship. Ever.

Back the Blue

This awful, insidious "defund the police" movement needs to be stopped in its tracks. There is a direct correlation between this movement and the explosion of violent crime happening across the country. The leaders of this effort have proven time and again they don't care about poor people, or people of color – if they did they wouldn't ignore and excuse the horrific gang violence spreading through our cities that disproportionately damages poor and minority communities. It is not compassionate or just to leave good people at the mercy of criminals.

I won't give an inch to people who want to tear down law enforcement for their own benefit. Not only will I ensure that State Shared Revenues are withheld from any city, town, or county that defunds their police department, I will push to include significant grants to local governments in our annual budget for the recruitment, training, and retention of great police officers.

We need great cops, and we need them to have all the tools and training they need to perform their jobs safely and compassionately. Instead of defunding police, I will fully fund police.

Arizona's next governor must #BackTheBlue. They put their lives on the line for us, making sure they know how much we honor and respect that commitment is the least we can do.

Preserving Rural Communities

Arizona's rural and farming and ranching communities are being ignored by politicians who know they can get all the money and votes they need in Maricopa County. I will not do that. Rural and farming communities remain the backbone, and one of the great economic engines, of our state. I have been all over the state in recent months, talking with people on their farms, in their stores, and on the streets of virtually every small town in Arizona, and it is clear they are getting the short end of the stick.

Under my leadership, we’re going to turn this around. Many family farms are under pressure due to rising water costs (and increasing scarcity), taxes, and regulations. As Governor, I will push to reduce property taxes, secure a new long-term source of additional water for our ranching and farming communities to benefit from, and push back against EPA overreach and their absurd interpretation of their Waters of the U.S. rules that are making it impossible for farmers and ranchers to best utilize their lands. These folks understand how important protecting our environment is – it’s their land we’re talking about – they don’t need some bureaucrat in Washington DC breathing over their shoulder every time they water a field or graze a herd.

Water

Water is perhaps the single most critical issue facing Arizona today. Too many people now rely on a single watershed that is unable to support them, and our population is continuing to grow. Ranchers and farmers are already suffering from the effects - seeing significant cuts in their water allocations from the Colorado River and watching their groundwater dry up.

The next Governor of Arizona must be a leader on this issue, not only for Arizona, but for the future of the entire Southwest and Northern Mexico. We must seek and immediately implement both long and short-term solutions to address a rapidly growing crisis that threatens the future viability of our agricultural heritage, our manufacturing growth, and our population alike.

After meeting with experts across Arizona on this issue, I am committed to being the Governor who addresses Arizona's future water needs by stepping up to lead a national and regional effort to ensure Arizona and the entire Southwest have all the water we need to continue to grow into the future.

Short term, that means increasing our storage capacity on the Salt & Verde River system by improving and expanding our dams and reservoirs, capturing storm runoffs, lining and covering our canals, and properly managing the forests and wildlife areas surrounding these critical rivers to prevent forest fires which cause significant damage to the river ecosystem. We also have to support responsible transfer of water rights, especially working with the various tribal nations throughout Arizona. Lastly, we need to expand effluent capture and purification.

We do a lot of this stuff well already, and it’s one area where both Phoenix and Tucson have been real leaders. But, long term, we need more water. Period.

Our population, along with that of the entire Southwest and Northern Mexico continues to grow. Unless we develop a new, sustainable source of water we will soon be facing a very bleak future. Instead, the future is desalination. Israel - facing very similar circumstances as Arizona in regards to a growing population and dwindling water supply - has proven, and improved, this technology to the point that the majority of water now used in Israel comes from desalination, and an Israeli company just built the largest desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere outside of San Diego

This is proven technology. It works. What will the cost be? Right now, we don't know. In either case, the cost and scale will require Arizona to forge agreements with the federal government, other Western states, and Mexico. Whatever the price tag ends up being, it will be far less than the cost of a future without the water we need to survive.

We can't do it alone, but we can do it. And the next Governor of Arizona must be the leader of this fight.

The upside is potentially enormous. An ample source of new water would carry with it the possibility of completely transforming the economies - and ecology - of this region. With plentiful water and extraordinary amounts of sunlight, Arizona would have about the best growing conditions of anywhere on the planet. Israel is rapidly turning the Negev Desert into one of the world's great agricultural areas, we can do the same. But the benefits wouldn't stop there. Reducing our dependence on existing groundwater and river resources will drastically improve the environmental conditions of those watersheds, and our region as a whole.

Protect & Support Our Military Base

Arizona is home to seven military bases and installations, which have contributed tremendously to the prosperity of our state, and the safety of our citizens. Maintaining and expanding Luke AFB, Davis-Monthan AFB, Fort Huachuca, the Barry M. Goldwater Range, Yuma Proving Ground, Camp Navajo, and MCAS Yuma as well as our National Guard installations is critical to our future.

I will work with our representatives in Washington to ensure the continuation of current operations, and advocate for expanding the missions and personnel assigned to each. The first step to doing so is to help the Guard get the approval they are seeking to expand their footprint at Sky Harbor Airport.

This is an essential expansion of the Guard facilities to make it possible for them to service the next generation of aerial refueling tankers, which are too large to fit in their current hangers. Failing to do so puts current squadron deployments at Luke and DM at significant risk of being relocated to other bases. We cannot allow that to happen. As Governor, I will push hard to get this done, and do everything I can to support the men and women of our armed services here in Arizona.

Cancel Culture & Censorship

We’ve allowed a handful of perpetually-aggrieved emotional infants to hijack our language and culture while trying to dictate the words we speak and the thoughts we are allowed to hold. We used to call these people what they are: mentally unbalanced. We humored them, but we ignored them. Then along came Twitter, and suddenly tech companies, media, schools, and governments decided it was better to give the unbalanced what they wanted than ignore a bunch of unhinged tweets. In turn, these self-appointed high-priests of cancellation are making everyone else’s lives miserable. Why are we allowing this? The vast majority of Arizonans, and Americans generally, abhor political correctness and cancel culture.

This isn’t a game anymore. This is about your freedom. Freedom from censorship. Freedom from oppression. Freedom from thought-control. Freedom to not be afraid that a slip of the tongue today, or twenty years ago, will be used to take your job, your life away. The unholy alliance between cancel culture, big tech, higher education, and government must be broken.

As Governor, I will lead the way to stopping this assault on rationality.

First, any government in the state of Arizona, including publicly funded schools, that engages in limiting freedom of speech beyond the traditional boundaries of incitement to violence and so forth, will immediately lose all state shared revenue, state grants, etc. Not one dollar of state taxpayer money will go to support these limitations on speech and assaults on freedom.

Second, businesses or companies that engage in cancel culture and censorship will not be eligible to receive any tax breaks in the State of Arizona, including property tax abatements and other incentives typically offered by local municipalities or universities as part of development deals.

Pure and simple: we are going to end taxpayer subsidization of these attacks on our freedom, conscience, and free will.

Arizona In the Space Race

American space exploration and science has demonstrated the ingenuity, capability and resolve of a free people to conquer seeming unsurmountable problems. From the Apollo moon landings and International Space Station, to the Hubble Space Telescope and Mars Rovers our nation has led the world in expanding humankind’s understanding of the cosmos for more than half a century. NASA’s accomplishments have also inspired millions of children to pursue careers in STEM fields.

Arizona has made significant contributions toward our nation’s success in space. The University of Arizona and Arizona State University have designed, built, and supported a variety of satellites and deep space probes. NASA’s upcoming Psyche mission, the first visit to a potentially valuable metallic asteroid, is headed by an ASU professor with support from other university faculty and labs. ASU has launched the world’s first business degree program focused on space.

The economic, technological, and societal return on our nation’s investments in space have been nothing short of incredible. Satellites track our weather, hurricanes and wildfires. Medical telemetry, cordless power tools, memory foam, and hundreds of other technologies have crossed over into the commercial sphere. Space research supported the development of solar power, fuel cells, computing, and the internet. Space technologies have also provided our warfighters with unparalleled advantages. America’s space navigation, communications and surveillance satellites are essential on the battlefield. Aid and rescue operations across the globe also now rely on many of these same innovations.

President Trump had the vision to see that the space domain now required its own, dedicated service of professionals as well. I am honored to support the Guardians of the United States Space Force in their mission to protect our freedom around the world and beyond.

Arizona can and should be at the forefront of developing the next generations of these technologies, and many others. Space manufacturing promises to revolutionize communications, computing, and medicine in the very near future. Miraculous materials produced in zero-g on the International Space Station or upcoming commercial stations may include vastly superior fiber optic cables and computing components, innovative drugs, artificial retinas, and a staggering array of new materials.

Today, commercial space companies are taking the lead in developing the final business frontier. While the Tucson area is already home to several new space startups, Arizona’s open land and business friendly environment provides us with the opportunity to capture more of what promises to be the most exciting growth industry of the 21st century.

As governor, I will work with the legislature to ensure that Arizona attracts existing and startup firms in the fast-growing commercial space sector. These firms generate high paying jobs for all skill levels from machine operators to actual rocket scientist. The construction, supply and service requirements for these firms can drive employment in many of our rural communities, and across our state. Arizona must embrace these opportunities, and pair them with our critical investments in, and support of, developing Machine Learning, Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence, and Bio-Medical fields.

In a single generation, Arizona has transitioned from an economy powered by tourism and construction, to one driven by high-tech innovation. It’s time to blast off and put Arizona into the Space Race. ^[18]