Congressman Jeff Flake, presently serving his fourth term in Congress, represents the Sixth Congressional D istrict ,which includes parts of Mesa and Chandler and all of Gilbert, Queen Creek, and Apache Junction.  He serves on the Committee of Foreign Affairs, and the Committee on Resources.  Congressman Flake is a fifth-generation Arizonan, raised on a ranch in Snowflake, Arizona (the town was named, in part, after Jeff's great-great grandfather). After serving a Mormon mission in southern Africa, He graduated from Brigham Young University, where he received a B.A. in International Relations and an M.A. in Political Science. More importantly, it was at BYU that Jeff met his wife, Cheryl

In 1987, he started his career at a public affairs firm in Washington, D.C. Soon thereafter,  the future congressman moved to the southern African nation of Namibia. As the Executive Director of the Foundation for Democracy, a foundation monitoring Namibia's independence process, he saw the nation usher in freedom and democracy. In 1992, Jeff and his family moved back to Arizona where he was named Executive Director of the Goldwater Institute. In this role, Jeff worked to promote a conservative philosophy of less government, more freedom, and individual responsibility.

Jeff and Cheryl have been married 21 years and live in Mesa with their five children.

Congressman Flake:
As mentioned, I am a fifth generation Arizonan.  My parents still live on FBar Lane, along with many of my siblings, probably 5 of the 11 of us, still live somewhere up in Snowflake.  How do you think I got elected?  It helps!  And about half of them voted for me too! That’s what I say. 

Congressman Flake:
As mentioned, my great, great grandfather, William Jordan Flake settled Snowflake.  He was sent initially by Brigham Young to Arizona to colonize in the late 1870’s.  The story goes that he tromped around Northern Arizona for a while and went back up to Utah and said there’s nothing worth colonizing down there. I’m told Brigham Young said, “Sell all you have and go and look harder.” So he did and ultimately found what those of us who were raised there consider now the center of the universe, Snowflake. But, and that’s where I obviously spent my formative years.  William Jordan Flake lived until the age of 93.  Rode a horse until he was 93.  He died in 1932 and the flag of the State Capitol was raised to half staff in his honor. 

Congressman Flake:
Now being a Flake from Snowflake has its advantages and drawbacks.  I didn’t realize many of the drawbacks until I left town.  But the true story – maybe some of you may have heard it, but when I left college, I moved back to D.C. for awhile and I was at a reception and I was talking to a fellow and it came up in conversation that I was from Snowflake, but he didn’t know my last name was Flake.  And he knew somebody from Snowflake somehow and he struggled for a long while and I thought, I’ll narrow it down for him a bit.  And I said, “Was this guy a Flake?”  He said, “Nah, he seemed pretty normal to me.” It’s been downhill ever since, I can tell you! 

Congressman Flake:
But I like to think I got my love for politics from my great grandfather, James Madison Flake, the son of William Jordan.  He, like his father before him, was a genuine cowboy.  In his later years when he was losing his sight, he would sit in the rocking chair in what’s called the Big House, or the Flake House in Snowflake in the dining room by an old radio.  They said he would lean over, he only had one good ear.  The other had been shot, a bullet had been through it from an outlaw that he’d been sent, deputized to arrest.  That same bullet killed his brother, but he survived that and with one good ear he would listen to current events on the radio and always kept up and had his grandkids read to him, the papers and everything he could get his hands on up until his death.

Congressman Flake:
James Madison Flake passed on his love for current events and politics to his son, Virgil, my grandfather and around that table, that dinner table, sat my dad and my uncle Jake Flake, whom many of you know.  So, those conversations were interesting I’m sure.  What you might not know is former Senate President, Stan Turley, also sat many times at that dinner table.  He lived under my grandparents’ roof during his high school years when he went to high school as a relative as well. 

Congressman Flake:
But my father Dean and my mother Norita, kept that tradition going.  We discussed politics around the dinner table and I enjoyed that very much.  My father and my uncles all and aunts, provided public service.  My father was a mayor of Snowflake.  I think that position came around by rotation but he also served on the Parks Board and the Judicial Advisory Commission and numerous church callings.  My uncles as you know, Jake served in the State Legislature as Speaker of the House and then in the Senate, now in the Senate.  They’ve also served on irrigation districts and school boards and you name it.  So they’ve provided a good example in that way. 

Congresman Flake:
As for me, my own motives were a little less genuine.  I just wanted a job where I didn’t have to milk a cow every morning. I had had enough of that by about age 18.  When I turned 19, after graduating from Snowflake High, I served a mission in South Africa and that really whetted my appetite for politics, particularly African politics for awhile. South Africa at that time, this was 1982, was still, it was still the Apartheid era and it was a very interesting time to be there to see the beginnings of the stirrings of change.  A change that ultimately came about a decade later. 

Congressman Flake:
When I got back from my mission in Africa, I met my wife Cheryl actually on the beach in Hawaii.  BYU has a campus in Hawaii and that’s a great way to start school. It almost ended school too!  But we met the first day on the beach.  I walked up and met her and she heard my last name and laughed and we know who got the last laugh! Not Mrs. Flake, I can tell you that. 

Congressman Flake:
But we went to school there and then in Provo and I struggled at that time.  I knew that I wanted to study international relations, political science but I didn’t know that I could make a living at it.  I thought I might have to go back and milk that cow again.  But my wife, to her credit said, “Do what you love. Do what you love.”  And I did.  And I studied and I got a degree in international relations, then a degree, a masters degree in political science and we moved to Washington to finish my masters, to do an internship in the office of Dennis DeConcini, a Democrat. I spent the rest of my career trying to purge that from my record!

Congressman Flake:
No, I know Senator DeConcini’s going to be here next week.  I better be careful there!   No, it was a wonderful experience, it really was.  And I was dealing with foreign policy, mostly issues in Angola and what not and, as you know, Senator DeConcini is hardly a liberal Democrat, or was hardly a liberal Democrat on foreign policy and foreign issues and we had a good relationship.  And now Senator DeConcini is a lobbyist and he comes in to see me sometimes.  And I tell him, go sort my mail, then I’ll think about it. What goes around comes around! 

Congressman Flake:
No, you can ask him about that.  It doesn’t happen exactly like that, but I enjoy a relationship with him. But after a couple of years in Washington working for a firm that had some clients in Southern Africa, I found out that actually – learning to speak Afrikaans came in a little handy.  The firm that I went to work for thought it would novel to have an American who spoke Afrikaans to use with some of the clients from Southern Africa, so I was hired there for two years. 

Congressman Flake:
And then after two years, we went, as mentioned to the country of Namibia.  Namibia at that time was going through the United Nations sponsored independence process under Resolution 435.  And for any political junkie to be in a country when it has its first elections and writes its own constitution, that was wonderful.  It was a great experience and it gave me a great, a deep and abiding feeling of reverence for our own Constitution because, obviously, so many countries in the world have modeled theirs after ours.  And that was certainly evident there.  And so I gained a deep appreciation for the United States while living overseas.

Congressman Flake:
After a year in Namibia, we came back to Washington, worked a couple of years there, but once you’re raised in the West, particularly in Arizona you never can settle anywhere else and we knew we wanted to come back west.  A job was advertised with the Goldwater Institute at that time was moving from Flagstaff down to Phoenix, I see a few individuals here, Lynn Huck, there, Tracy Thomas, maybe there are others involved at that time.  I interviewed with the board of directors and they thought that – they weren’t sure what to think of that DeConcini on the record there. That was an obstacle to overcome!

Congressman Flake:
No, but I had a good interview and felt good about it and I found out I was the number two choice.  Fortunately, the number one choice, passed on the meager salary they offered. And so I had the job.  And we moved, my wife and what was then two kids, moved back across the country to Arizona.  And I have to tell you, it was a wonderful experience at the Goldwater Institute, to associate with such fine people, some of whom are here, and to promote the principles of limited government, economic freedom and individual responsibility.  And that fit squarely with my own philosophy.  And so, it was a great time.  Also, to be able to rub shoulders with the likes of Barry Goldwater and with Margaret Thatcher, with William F. Buckley, Jr., Milton Friedman, that was just an incredible experience and I loved every minute of it. 1990. ’99 came along and there was going to be an open seat.  Matt Salmon had decided not to run again and so I decided to throw my hat in the ring.  Fortunately, there were a number of qualified Republicans who did the same, which meant that I had to convince fewer people to vote with me. And with family and cousins, it put me over the top! 

Congressman Flake:
So my experience at the Goldwater Institute perhaps wasn’t always as useful. I remember campaigning somewhere in Tempe at that time.  I got the walking list, as virtually every candidate does the first time and you only go to those houses of Republicans who vote in the last couple of primaries, if you’re gonna spend time walking door to door, you’re gonna go to the right houses, so I was doing that.  I had a little golf cart and I’d see which house and just zip to the next one, run up and usually if you run to their door and talk to them, you’ve got their vote.  I came back to my golf cart after one house and there was a woman in her car parked right behind it.  And I thought, I think she’s waiting for me here, so I went and she rolled down her window and I said, “Can I help you?”  And she said, “That depends.”  She said, “Are you associated with him?”  and she pointed to my sign on the back of my golf cart.  I said what any budding politician would, I said, “Why?” Profile in courage there. She said, “Because he’s an idiot.”

Congressman Flake:
She went on to recite virtually everything I’d written at the Goldwater Institute for seven years.  She was up on all of it and she didn’t think much of it and she went on and on and finally I thought, well, I’ve got to tell her sooner or later.  I said, “Ma’am, there’s something you ought to know,”  I said, “That he is me.”  And she turned beet red, sped off, almost clipped my golf cart on the way out, but fortunately, they weren’t all like that one so I did. I was lucky enough to be elected and I went back to Congress in January of 2001 and I stood there at the State of the Union address soon after being sworn in and I’ll never forget it.  I was standing there with one of my best friends in Congress, Mike Pence, who ran a think tank in Indiana at the same time I ran the Goldwater Institute in Arizona and we were elected at the same time and the President was talking about the No Child Left Behind Act, which we always thought was a little too much federal intrusion into public education, something that should be handled at the state level.  And as he was talking about it, everybody stands and applauds just about anything and we did there.  And Mike Pence, we were sitting there clapping half-heartedly and he leans to me and says, “Just cuz I’m a clapping for it, doesn’t mean I’m a votin’ for it.” 

Congressman Flake:
And I found that that’s been the case with a lot of pieces of legislation, but it hasn’t stopped any of it.  So Mike and I have teamed up and voted against quite a bit, but we often joke, the two of us, that we’re like Minutemen and maybe that’s a bad analogy now, given the connotation in some circles, but Minutemen in the Revolution where you finally make it to the battlefront after wanting to fight for your country and you report to the Commander in Chief and you say, “I’m here.”  And he tells you, “Sorry, the revolution’s over.”  “You’re done.  It’s done.”  And that’s sometimes how we’ve felt over the past couple of years. I long and I am envious of my colleague, John Shadegg, and J.D. Hayworth and others who were there in 1994 when the so-called Republican Revolution was at its zenith. And the principles that I believe very much in terms of limited government, economic freedom, individual responsibility because I feel that we have strayed quite a ways from those principles and I think our loss in November of last year in many ways, reflects that diversion from principle. 

Congressman Flake:
But I have to say, being raised on a farm has helped me a lot in Congress.  If nothing else, for material.  Remember early on, early on the farm bill was being debated and I was particularly upset because the Congress had done something very good in 1996.  They repealed basically the farm subsidies as they were or at least put in place something called the Freedom to Farm Act and it was a glide path away from subsidies and it was a good piece of legislation.  But year after year, we kept adding ad hoc assistance and then we just basically gave up and in 2002, we passed what was called the Farm Security Act and for those of us who like Ronald Reagan and believed what he said about trading freedom for security, that was particularly galling when you trade the Freedom to Farm Act for the Farm Security Act and heaped a lot more subsidies on top of subsidies that existed anyway, I was on the floor of the House arguing against that bill and finished my speech and then a fellow by the name of Marian Berry from Arkansas, a Democrat from Arkansas, not the Marian Berry from D.C.  But a Democrat, and he stood and said, uh… “That…” He had this thick southern drawl, “That young feller who just spoke,” he said, “doesn’t know a lick about farmin’.”  So I thought, I can’t let that pass.  And so I got somebody to yield me time and I went back to the floor and I said, “You’ll notice, that the end of my right index finger is missing.”  I said, “I left that on an alfalfa field at age 5.”

Congressman Flake:
I said, “I’ve forgot a lot about farming over the years, but I still know manure when it’s shoveled.”  I thought right after I said that I probably shouldn’t have said that, but that ended up on the Wall Street Journal the next day as a quote and, I’m a little more careful.  Not much, but a little more careful after that more recently I wrote in the Wall Street Journal, a column about bloated government and compared it to stabbing bloated cattle on my days on the farm.  I had a lot of people approach me the next day mostly older members who’d grown up on the farm and said, “Hey, I liked that piece.  Did you ever use a bloat knife?”  I thought, what the heck’s a bloat knife?  My dad just gave me a pocket knife or a kitchen knife or something like that.  I never knew there was such a thing.  But I was informed of it and later the Farm Bureau gave me a plaque that had a bloat knife on it.  The first bloat knife I’ve ever seen! But they said, “For use on government bloat, don’t use it on your friends.” 

Congressman Flake:
But anyway, and then more recently I wrote about earmarks and how I grew up earmarking calves and didn’t like the process very much and I like earmarking in Congress even less.  So now my staff, whenever they write anything for me, they leave a space at the beginning and say, insert farm analogy here.

Congressman Flake:
So I’ll run out somewhere, 2020 or so, I think.  But there’s a lot of material and I’ve appreciated the background that I’ve had.  But I can tell you, I have, like anybody, it’s easy to be cynical of Congress and to look at what’s going on and think, those bozos there. I think we all do it and with some justification.  But I can tell you I have learned and I’ve grown to love the institution.  It is a wonderful institution and our Founding Fathers had it right there’s a lot we do a lot of complaining about gridlock, gridlock sometimes is beautiful.  And sometimes I wish there were a lot more of it.  I’m glad that there’s a filibuster in the Senate.  Oftentimes it’s frustrating, but boy, sometimes it can slow some very bad legislation down.  And I think the Founding Fathers had it right. 

Congressman Flake:
What has been disturbing, in my view, is how we’ve gotten away from many of the time honored principles that have governed Congress.  In particular, in how we spend money and that’s Congress’ main function under Article 1. We have a process.  It’s called authorization, appropriation and oversight.  And we nowadays do far too little authorizing, far too much appropriating and precious little oversight.  I think that is a bipartisan problem bit it’s certainly something that Republicans have been very guilty of, particularly in kicking out the authorization part over the past several years and earmarking is a symptom of that.  And some people will say, well it’s just a little silly project here or there.  It’s entitlement spending that is the big problem.  And it is.  Entitlement spending is the train wreck to come.  Something we need but earmarking is bigger than the sum of its parts.  It leverages higher spending everywhere else.  Because once you get an earmark in a bill, once you get a project that you need to protect, you’re gonna vote for that bill, no matter how big it becomes.  No matter how bloated. 

Congressman Flake:
And it will also leverage your vote on other unrelated bills.  I would venture to say that the prescription drug benefit that was passed in 2004, would not have passed were it not for the existence of earmarks to use as inducements or threats against members and that is something that we simply, in my view, cannot afford in the long run.  So we really need to change the way we’re doing business and gratefully, some things have changed lately. We Republicans did pass minimal earmark reform in the fall of last year before the elections. The Democrats have come back and actually passed better legislation than we offered in the fall and then, perhaps the best news so far, is just last week, the President, said that he would instruct the agencies not to spend any money that is not specifically in statute.  And that will account for about 6 to 8 billion dollars of the funding for the last year. 96% of the projects, the pork barrel projects that you hear about, whether it’s a teapot museum in South Carolina or the one I kind of ridiculed this week on my website, $93,500.00 for renovations to the historic Biltmore Hotel in Florida.  I think the Biltmore Hotel charges between $300.00 and $400.00 a night for most of its rooms and I’m not sure what the taxpayer is doing there but 96% of those projects are not ever in the legislation that we passed.  They’re in the accompanying report, committee report or conference report that is not statute.  And the agencies are under no obligation to fund that.  They do because they want to keep faith with the Congress, but all the President has to do is instruct them not to.  And he’s done that for the appropriation bills that were contained in the continuing resolution for last year.  Our hope is that he’ll extend that and do that for the time in the years to come.

Congressman Flake:
People often ask what it’s like to be in the minority.  And I often say, not too different from being in the minority. I kind of felt like I’ve been in the minority for awhile, but there are some things that get old.  You know, just after month.  I mean, washing Ed Pastor’s car, you know, and doing Harry Mitchell’s laundry. It’s just you know, it’s demeaning! 

Congressman Flake:
But no, I hope that we’re not in the minority long, but I think that we certainly need to mend our ways and in my view, as Republicans, we have kind of fallen into the trap of believing that you can be re-elected by relying on the machine and the machine has, in my view, about four different elements.  The first is redistricting.  We thought for awhile and we liberally used that process and I don’t fault any party for doing so, it’s just done that way. 

Congressman Flake:
But we thought that we can win more elections that way than actually running on a message, so redistricting is one the second is passing out pork, like I mentioned and raising money that way and pleasing one constituency after another simply by earmarking funds.  The second is passing – or the third is passing legislation to benefit single constituencies, like the Farm Bill for the Heartland.  All those red states in the middle of the country.  Republicans want to keep them red, even if it goes against philosophy of fiscal responsibility.  And then the last, to all raise money for each other through the NRCC and protect our vulnerable members, simply by doing that.  That’s the machine and you can win a couple of seats here and there, but it runs its course. 

Congressman Flake:
And after awhile, if you’re not running on a message, you’re going to lose.  And we Republicans lost the message.  We no longer relied on a message and we relied on the machine and it-- that time was spent. Just over the past couple weeks, we’ve tried to inject a new message and get back to the message that we had in ’94, limited government, economic freedom, individual responsibility, and we’re not there yet.  We’re still, as Republicans, just two weeks ago, we spent 4 hours debating Nancy Pelosi’s plane request.  As it turns out, it wasn’t her request at all.  It was the Sergeant at Arms’ request on her behalf but we -- didn’t stop us for spending four hours beating up on her for that.  Now a little sport is okay.  You know, maybe a press release or something.  But four hours on the floor is not my idea of a message and I was asked by a New York Times reporter as I was entering the floor for that debate, “What do you think of this debate?” and I said, “Well,” I said, “This is nothing.  Next week, we’re gonna steal their mascot and short sheet their beds!” 

Congressman Flake:
That was about the level, I thought.  We’d been a little sophomoric at best.  But when I went back to Washington after that quote did run in the paper, I was scolded by a member of our leadership for stepping on the message and I don’t think that that’s any message at all.  I think that we need to get back to a real message.  There are serious policy differences that separate Democrats and Republicans and we should over the next several weeks, next several months, over the next two years, explain those differences and do it in a thoughtful, reasoned manner.  If we will do so, my belief is that those who espouse the principles of limited government will win but we haven’t done that yet. 

Congressman Flake:
Anyway, I know I need to leave time for questions, but just let me say that I am proud of my Arizona heritage.  I’m proud of those who built this great state and have made it what it is.  I still think it’s far more honorable to have a job where you shower in the morning, rather than in the evening.

Congressman Flake:
And I do miss that part.  I miss just, you know, a day of branding calves or hauling hay and getting home deadbeat tired and being able to put it all behind you, for the night at least until you have to wake up again. There are virtues in that and there are better man -- men and women than I am, who did that, to make this great state what it is.  But thanks for having me here and I’d be glad to try to answer any questions you might have.

Congressman Flake:
Except from Tracy Thomas, that is. 

Audience Member:
Well, Jeff I think by now you’ve forgiven me for having – did everything I could to talk you out of running and I’m glad you’re there.  My question is is that it seems to many of us that we are mostly at war for our survival of our western culture against the Jihadists, the Islamofascists, the Mullahs, the Hamas, Hezbollah and so forth, and it doesn’t seem to many of us that our political class recognizes that we are at this war and that we are fighting for our survival.  What do you think that we can do to inform the American people to realize that we are at war and we need to win this war?

Congressman Flake:
Well thanks.  That we did spend -- after spending four hours that day talking about a plane request, we got to some serious business and some thought that we shouldn’t be having the debate at all.  I think that that’s what democracies do is they debate the merits of war and everything else.  And frankly, I thought it was a good debate that we had last year –  last week, for four days on the floor.  Every member of Congress had an opportunity to speak for at least 5 minutes on the floor of the House and let his constituents or her constituents know where he or she stood and I in the end, I think it was expected. We were told all week there would be some 50 or 60 Republicans who had joined the Democrats with the resolution condemning the President’s surge or escalation as it was called on the floor most of the time.  In the end, there were only 17. And I think it was because of the tenor of debate and because of the prospect raised by John Murtha, that they might cut off funds coming up in the appropriation bills.  I think if the Democrats do that, they will severely overreach and I don’t think that that’s the way to go. There are many of us who question, I think all of us wonder if inserting 20,000 more troops into Baghdad at this point will make a substantial difference in the security situation, particularly if much of the violence is sectarian.  The more sectarian the violence, the less likely it is that more troops into that atmosphere will make that difference. 

Congressman Flake:
Having said that we have under our Constitution, we have given the President the role of Commander in Chief and the last thing we need is to have 435 or 535 generals inserting ourselves into the chain of command every time the President decides to make a move.  I think it is important that we finish the job. How properly defining what is the job is a different question and it’s a tough one to answer, but I am hopeful that when you look at the broader picture and when you look at Iran, for example, and that’s what the bigger worry, I think, for all of us in the region because it involves the prospect of nuclear weapons.  You’ve got to hope that over the next couple of years that a system like they have in Iran will the people there will realize that they had better – they would rather be a part of the world community than isolated, as they are now.  Iran in many ways is a progressive society compared to many of the other countries in the Middle East and I don’t know, what we can do other than try to move forward with the international community, never taking anything off the table in terms of military response, but knowing that that’s the last thing we want at this point.

Congressman Flake:
But as far as making the world or the country at least understand where we are and what the stakes are, I think when we debate in Congress, these items, I think it becomes more clear.  Because there were many eloquent members and others who spoke at that time.  And as a Congress, I think we can debate these things, but we shouldn’t insert ourselves and try to tell the President every move to make.  Yes?

Audience Member:
You make a very strong three point position for conservative government.  Are you also making a strong position that Newt Gingrich should be a candidate for President? 

Congressman Flake:
Well…no. We just heard Newt again. We had a conservative retreat in Baltimore the other day and he spoke and there is no more interesting speaker than Newt Gingrich.  There are brilliant ideas that flow from that man minute after minute.  And some very bad ones as well. You gotta pick and choose as they come along and, but I don’t know. I like Newt in the role he’s in, as an agitator and someone on the outside to put out ideas and he doesn’t need to be President to do that.  And we have some good candidates in the field. 

Audience Member:
Talking about good candidates, can you tell us a little bit about the Governor of Massachusetts? 

Congressman Flake:
Governor of Massachusetts.  Somebody trying to box me in here? Oh, I will tell you right now, I’m already indicated my support for John McCain and I think that John McCain would make a great President.  I also think Mitt Romney would make a great President.  I’ve been a friend of his for years.  And a friend of his family.  And I think he has, in a very tough environment, in Massachusetts has done some things that nobody thought he would be able to do fiscally and otherwise so I think that he makes a strong candidate. Guiliani also makes a strong candidate and it’s going to be a very interesting race there and it’s starting far too early in my view and those who say well this happened today, that means you know, that this outcome is going to be different.  I think it’s far too early to speculate on how this will end up.  But in this environment, you certainly have to have money to move forward particularly given the truncated, you know, schedule of the primaries after, you know, the caucus in Iowa and then the primary in New Hampshire.  And those with the money seem to be those three, McCain, Romney and Guiliani.  So, I’d be surprised if there was another who really interjected into that mix.  But we have three good people there who’d be a strong President.  Yes?

Audience Member:
Tancredo, my representative from Colorado, how’s he been able to exercise so much influence on building a fence down here to keep the people out?

Congressman Flake:
Well he, Tancredo, has struck a cord and this is something the federal government has been ignoring for far too long, the entire immigration issue.  And Tom is an effective spokesman in that regard and the need to have better security at the border and so he’s been effective.  He’s been effective there. My differences with Tom Tancredo are only that I don’t think we can stop there or do one and then the other.  I think we need to do the whole thing together, but he has been effective in that regard, I think because those of us in Arizona particularly…

Audience Member:
Can I ask a follow up question?

Congressman Flake:
Sure.

Audience Member:
Well, what chance does the Congress have, the House…uh…doing something about this immigration problem?

Congressman Flake:
No, I think it’s a good chance this year.  I think – unless we get it done this year it’s certainly not going to happen next year.  We have about 8 months in the House until all attention is paid to the Presidential race but in that 8 months, I think that we can get some reform.  Any reform that makes it through the House and the Senate is, by definition, going to be bipartisan legislation.  It’s not going to be everything I want or not gonna be everything everybody else wants.  It’s going to be some kind of compromise.  But I think that there’s a way that we can, you know, certain principles that we can lay on the table and say we can’t go against those principles, but let’s work something out.  We desperately need that here in Arizona.  We cannot continue to live with the effects of the federal government failing to secure the border and failing to have a rational system at the employer level and everything else.  We’re paying the price in terms of health care, education, criminal justice.  It’s a heavy burden that we pay in Arizona disproportionately.  And so I think people here have a right to be upset.  Yes, back there?

Audience Member:
Tell us about your interest in Cuba.

Congressman Flake:
I was wondering when somebody would get to that!  That comes from my childhood – no it doesn’t! My family’s still trying to figure that one out.  No, I you know, people will ask, well how’d you get involved in Cuba and I tell them I took a poll in my district of Cuban Americans and both of them said, move right ahead and do what you’re doing! 

Congresman Flake:
But it has always bothered me that we have a policy around the world in terms of engagement and commerce and that you can change governments economically and change them politically and that we should engage but not with Cuba, it’s not gonna work there.  It’s just never seemed right to me.  In particular the travel ban you can say what you want about economic sanctions and perhaps there was a need when Cuba was a satellite of the Soviet Union.  But the travel ban never made sense.  During the entirety of the Cold War, we encouraged Americans to travel to Russia and elsewhere to export democracy that way, to engage and we encouraged them to travel here as well.  Yet, with Cuba, we can’t travel there unless you jump through every hoop and have a license and are a journalist or whatever else. And it simply seems wrong to me and I’ve been several times.  I’ve never met Fidel.  I’ve refused to do so.  I don’t think there’s any reason to.  I – not -- don’t think he’s going to change his stripes and, frankly, when you’re there for a limited time why spend 5 hours listening to the guy? 

Congressman Flake:
So, but the sad thing is I was there in December and it was interesting you -- I headed this delegation, there were 10 of us, and so you typically have a gift that you exchange and I was kind of uneasy exchanging gifts with a communist government, so I didn’t have the International Relations Committee, you know, purchase any gift or anything.  I said, I’ll take care of that myself and so when we got there, the rest of the delegation was wondering what I was exchanging and I took three books down there.  One was Capitalism & Freedom

Congressman Flake:
By Milton Friedman and another was Adam Smith’s tome and another was Hernando DeSoto’s The Mystery of Capital and these government officials would get these things and think, smart aleck! But whatever!  But when we were down there, what is striking is that there’s been no riots in the streets.  Fidel has passed from the scene for all intents and purposes.  He has passed power to his brother Raul, and if it wouldn’t have been Raul, it would have been some other functionary there. And there are no riots in the streets.  Unfortunately, it’s been a smooth transition.  And here we are on the sidelines having virtually no influence and it makes it far too easy, in my view, on the Cuban government, we make it far too easy to scapegoat all of their problems on us. 

Congressman Flake:
And also, I think a side benefit is to have Americans be able to travel to Cuba.  You have a museum of socialism there for people to see that it doesn’t work.  That when government owns the means of production, it’s a mess.  A complete mess.  Everybody ought to have the opportunity to go to Havana and try to order ice cream, to go to the state sponsored ice cream stand and to stand in line for vanilla, stand in another line for chocolate and to go up and wait for hours and then get exactly two scoops and be on your way.  Along those lines, this is a funny anecdote, but when I did that we went with some students who were American students who were still allowed to go there.  They took us and I said is there any other way to get ice cream?  And they said, “Oh sure.  There’s, there’s always a way.”  Every socialist or communist system doesn’t work like this and so there’s a black market.  In this case the employees will skim a little off the top of the barrel and put it aside and there’s an alleyway that everyone who likes ice cream knows that you can go to late at night with a bag and you hand it through a gate, an ivy coated gate and with a certain number of pesos and wait for awhile and its handed back to you.  And then you go on your way. 

Congressman Flake:
But as people do what they have to, to get by.  But Americans should be able to see that.  It would be good for us and it would be good for the Cuban people to have contact with Americans. Americans are the best ambassadors and our dip – our diplomacy with Cuba is a little below the level.  We have an intrasection in Havana, our version of an embassy because we don’t have formal diplomatic ties and we have a screening scroll board where we put messages and a messages this last January were -- a school child in Miami will start the day with a free breakfast of sausage, eggs and bacon and by implication, what do you kids get?  And it was just, it’s just a little demeaning and it, I think turns Cubans off that way and I think we can do better than that without compromising our principles. So, but thanks for the question.  Yes?       

Audience Member:
What happened to J.D.? 

Congressman Flake:
I don’t know.  I wish he were there.  I wish he were still with us and hopefully we’ll have either J.D. or another Republican back.

Audience Member:
Do you know what he’s planning to do or…?

Congressman Flake:
I don‘t know.  He spoke to this group a couple of weeks ago.  And -- but I have to tell you, J.D after his loss wrote a piece in Roll Call and I think in Roll Call, the newspaper on Capitol Hill, that was just among the best pieces I’ve ever read by a member of Congress and what his service meant to him and it was just great piece and I think he probably shared many of those same thoughts when he was here.  I heard a few of them reported in the press.  So, I can tell you the Arizona delegation is a lot more boring without J.D. too. None of us hold a candle when it comes to oratory or anything else.  So, but I think he was guest hosting for Laura Ingraham this week and so J.D. will not go away.  That voice will not be silenced.  Yes?

Audience Member:
I’m not an expert in the Middle East.  Are some of the boundaries kind of haphazard or arbitrary?  Is there a possibility that an Iraqi will say I’m proud I’m Iraqi, I’m proud I’m an Irani or is it tribal and sectarian and the chance of a central government obscure? 

Congressman Flake:
Well, it’s -- if you saw 60 Minutes on Sunday, they had a piece on Kurdistan and how separate it is.  They you know, that section of the country, the northern, not third, but northern portion, they ask how many U.S. troops have lost their lives in Kurdistan.  Not one.  There’s virtually no violence there and it’s -- but it’s separated geographically and what not from the rest of the country and there, there’s a strong identity, but it’s to Kurdistan, not to Iraq.  They don’t fly any Iraqi flags up there.  It’s going to be difficult.  These lines are arbitrary.  They were drawn by European powers years ago and it is difficult, but as we’ve seen elsewhere in the world, splitting up those arbitrarily drawn lines may be even more difficult and you don’t have – you know, there are more Shia in the south and Sunni in the mid section, than there are vice versa, but there are mixed neighborhoods as well and some kind of partition would be very difficult.  It is being floated, Joe Biden, has been talking about that for a long time, Presidential candidate and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in the Senate. But I’d be surprised if that were to happen.  I think that these lines, no matter how arbitrary -- you’ve seen Africa with 54 countries on that continent, you rarely see a line moved at all.  Somalia, Ethiopia, a little there, but you have problems when you do and so…I’m not sure that that’s the solution.  Oh yes?

Audience Member:
In many ways your style is in stark variance to J.D and…

Congressman Flake:
I’ll try to change.

Audience Member:
No, no, no.  I prefer this, but listening to your carefully, you really are a maverick, but within your party. Have you suffered sanctions, for lack of a better word, from your party for maybe not [inaudible] claim to be mavericks, but you really are in many ways listening to some of your positions, a maverick.

Congressman Flake:
Let me show you the whip marks…No!  Have I suffered any consequences for outspokenness or whatnot?  Yes. I, you know, I’ve often joked when people said, well, how can you stand on the floor and challenge, you know, earmarks?  Aren’t you gonna get retaliated against and well, let me just say in that regard I’ve been yelled at on the floor just three times.  Three times. The first by Duke Cunningham, who is now in jail.

Congressman Flake:
Another, if you saw a 60 Minutes piece, Kurt Weldon from Pennsylvania yelled some pretty strong words because I challenged one of his earmarks but he lost his election largely because of questionable earmarks and another, the same question, another lost his race as well.  So, on the floor, I’m okay.  What are they going to do?  Take away my earmarks?  I haven’t got any ,so no I haven’t suffered any consequences there, but one unexpected consequence I had was this January I was removed. I’m on involuntary leave from the Judiciary Committee.  Now, Republicans lost the majority and so we lost some seats.  And some people lost their committees but you typically lose your waiver committee, that’s your third committee or your low priority committee, I was removed from my priority committee and six junior members held onto that seat.  And so it was very arbit – it was very much to get back and there’s no other way to say it. 

Congressman Flake:
And I wish it hadn’t happened, but if that’s the price you have to pay, that’s the price you have to pay.  And it’s unfortunate.  I mean, there are a number of reasons -- judiciary, some thought it was because of my stand for comprehensive immigration reform when the chairman didn’t want it.  Some thought it was challenging the wiretapping or wanting it to be under FISA.  That may have had something to do with it, but mostly it was that the steering committee that makes those decisions is dominated by appropriators.  And they were not happy at anyone who challenged earmarks on the floor of the House.  So…yes?   

Audience Member:
Congressman, I’m pleased with the pride that you exhibit in your Arizona heritage and the wonderful lifestyle that we enjoy here.  I’m concerned about the effects of all forms of pollution that we see in Arizona, perhaps a bit more so across the United States and in our [inaudible] the world. Could you speak to that issue in terms of any serious initiatives that Congress is taking or action in this area?

Congressman Flake:
In terms of pollution just in our air, rivers, okay.  Well, I think if you look the country as a whole and compare the situation now to several decades ago, we’re better in almost every area.  The air is cleaner.  Our rivers run clearer.  And we have taken measures to do that.  So, I think that there are still things that we can do. What we need to do is make sure that the right incentives are there and that we use the marketplace wherever we can rather than simply more government mandates.  So, I think that things are being done. What I’m not particularly fond of is everyone knows that if you want less of something you tax it.  And if you want less pollution, you tax it.  And the government does in many areas, but typically government will then take that revenue from the tax and then decide where it wants to go.  Ethanol, for example, we’re gonna spend it there.  In the 70’s it was sin fuels.  They’re pretty much gone.  The government doesn’t do a very good job picking where the markets will go.  And I would rather, you know, let the market do that, but I think that by using market incentives we can certainly have a better environment and we’ve been able to do that in many areas.