By Haarika Raavi
Ocotillo City Reporter
Amongst a contentious general election day, the citizens of Arizona Girls State were granted the opportunity to be in the presence of the Arizona Attorney General, Kris Mayes, who took her speech by storm as she explained her lifelong journey to becoming an elected official, the second woman Attorney General in our state. With passion and apparent genuineness, Attorney General Mayes approached the minds of so many young girls with the absolute ferocity that she holds for reproductive rights, elder affairs, and the current disputes over water for the people of Arizona. Afterwards, she took on much more interactive role as she took on questions from the reporters in the auditorium, many of which were surrounding the Attorney General Office’s plans for the duration of her term in office.
As Mayes began to discuss the topics that her office approaches most feverently, she did mention many specific cases and circumstances which she had encountered during her time in office, including that which has pushed her to continually fight for the reproductive rights, most prevalently Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and the recent reappearance of the 1864 Arizona abortion ban, the latter of was successfully repealed with H.B. 2677 only last month. Attorney General Mayes claimed with a proud stature that she would “never stop fighting for [our] reproductive rights.”
In accordance with her passion for our futures as young Arizonian women, a notable statement which she had repeated remained that we, as Girls’ State delegates, are the future of not only our cities and counties, but our state and great nation as well, whether we enter the field of government or any other career path. For that, she was determined to ingrain it in the minds of those present that as they approach the voting age, particularly in an election year as contentious at 2024, they should become registered voters. She emphasized the importance of voter registration, stating that from the urgency of lower-level county positions to the more contested federal ones, all be impacted by each individual vote, much like how her own election was won by about 280 votes.
Attorney General Mayes was heard telling delegates, who inquired following the allotted speaking time about when she is up for reelection, that her campaign to be reelected in 2026 will begin in 2025. In finality, the collective consensus seemed to be that the speaker’s presence has made a motivational impact upon the delegates of the 2024 Arizona Girls’ State session, with various reporters wholeheartedly thanking Kris Mayes for her having taken time out of her day to speak to this group.