Former Arizona House Representative stresses voting to UA College Republicans

By RYAN REVOCK Published February 13, 2013 at 2:59am Updated February 13, 2013 at 2:59am

Former Arizona House Representative Amanda Reeve spoke to the UA College Republicans club on Tuesday evening about her recent trip to Tunisia and Egypt and emphasized the importance of voting.

Reeve spoke to about 10 students from the College Republicans club at the Student Union Memorial Center. Reeve was first appointed to the Arizona House of Representatives in 2010 and served in the House until she lost the most recent election in 2012.

Reeve recently went on an exchange program with the American Council of Young Political Leaders to Tunisia and Egypt. The purpose of the trip was to help build U.S. relations with those countries and to talk about the challenges of democracy, according to Reeve. On the trip, there were three democrats, three republicans and one independent.

Reeve said the trip to these countries was “very emotional” and “life altering.”

At one of the speaking engagements on the trip, someone questioned how a person can make a change in government if there is no one to act as their voice. Reeve said the question took the group by surprise and that it was hard to imagine someone wondering who could act as their voice.

“I told her that when I was younger I watched this movie called ‘The Power of One’; in there the line that I will never forget was that ‘every waterfall starts with a single drop of water,’” Reeve said. “You build a coalition; you are the single voice that builds a coalition.”

During the talk with the UA College Republicans, Reeve also stressed how every vote counts in an election. In her last campaign more than 88,000 people voted in the election, and she lost by fewer than 2,000 votes, she added.

“Each of my campaigns, every single vote counted,” Reeve said. “I won by narrow margins on the first two and lost by a very narrow margin on the last one, so don’t ever believe that votes don’t count.”

The UA College Republicans tries to have a speaker at every meeting, according to Valerie Hanna the club historian and a sophomore studying political science. Hanna volunteered on Reeve’s last campaign and said Reeve is a “really great public servant.”

Most speakers come from the local area, so getting Reeve to speak was a great chance to get a different perspective, she added.

“I felt empowered and moved by what she had to say, comparing our freedoms to the people in Egypt and Tunisia,” said Katie Jones, a political science sophomore. “It really made me realize that we do take for granted the things that we do every day without even realizing it.”