Jonathan Paton for Congress

Jonathan Paton has built his career fighting against big government, defending our freedom and standing up to the powerful in defense of his principles.

Born and raised in Tucson, Jonathan’s parents and teachers instilled in him the values of hard work, honesty and country.

As a student at Sabino High School, Jonathan worked at Marie Callender’s as a busboy and dishwasher, saving up the funds to go to Germany as a Rotary exchange student. His year abroad in 1989 was an important time in Germany’s history. He watched the Berlin Wall fall and took with him the images of people experiencing freedom for the first time.

After graduating from the University of Arizona summa cum laude and with honors in German and Russian, Jonathan enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve and was promptly named Soldier of the Year. Since 2005, Jonathan has fought for his community at the state Capitol, championing tax cuts for families to grow the economy, policies to crack down on illegal immigration and sweeping reforms to the state’s dysfunctional Child Protective Services system.

Jonathan has always stood up for the heroic men and women in the Armed Services. He authored and passed a more than $10 million tax cut for Arizonans in active duty.

In addition, Jonathan helped pass the largest tax cut -- and the largest cut to government -- in Arizona history.

But his service to his country doesn’t end there. In 2006, Jonathan voluntarily enlisted for service in Iraq during the darkest days of the war. Of Jonathan’s tour of duty, Time Magazine wrote: “When politicians usually travel to Iraq, they go on ‘Fact-Finding missions’ and are photographed shaking hands with U.S. troops. Arizona Rep. Jonathan Paton is going to fight.”

Back in Arizona, Jonathan was deeply disturbed by the deaths of three children in his community -- all while under the supervision of Child Protective Services. While others shied away from asking questions, Jonathan led an aggressive bipartisan investigation into the children’s deaths, demanding secret documents and access to locked files that revealed a flawed and broken child welfare system.

Jonathan went head-to-head with then Gov. Janet Napolitano and state bureaucrats, insisting on reforms to provide protection for the state’s most vulnerable children and transparency to prevent the same mistakes from happening again.

Of Jonathan’s efforts, investigative journalist Laurie Roberts at the Arizona Republic said: “Were it not for Paton's work, I really do believe that more of this state's most vulnerable children would be dying.”

A true government reformer, Jonathan has also successfully fought to stop wasteful spending in Tucson’s downtown redevelopment project by demanding expenses be made public on the Internet.

Legislation he crafted and had signed into law wiped out Jim Crow-era laws that prevent Arizonans from voting directly on their local city councilmen.

And as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Jonathan wrote the nation’s first law to crack down on human smuggling, which has already led to the arrests of more than 1,000 human smugglers. In fact, in 2009 alone, Jonathan sponsored more legislation that was signed into law than any of his 89 colleagues.

Now, Jonathan wants to bring his experience and values to Congress to continue to end fraud, waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars and work to ensure that the next generation of Americans enjoy the same opportunities of generations past.

Fighting for freedom. Fighting for us. That’s Jonathan Paton.

A RECORD OF CHALLENGING THE ESTABLISHMENT

• Jonathan wrote the nation’s first law to crack down on human smuggling -- a law that has already locked up more than 1,000 human smugglers.
• Jonathan continuously challenged Janet Napolitano, most notably forcing her and state bureaucrats to open up secret Child Protective Services’ documents and admit they failed in protecting three Tucson children that died under the agency’s care.
• Jonathan spearheaded the appointment of judges who will follow the constitution -- not their personal politics -- as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
• Jonathan sponsored the effort to let Arizonans vote this November on protecting our health coverage from a federal government run program.
• Jonathan forced Tucson High School administrators to explain themselves at the Capitol and on “The O’Reilly Factor" after a union activist told students at the school that "Republicans hate Latinos."
• Jonathan wrote the law to divest state investments from Iran after seeing first hand in Iraq the IEDs manufactured in that country to kill American soldiers.
• Jonathan called out the Tucson city council for mismanagement of Rio Nuevo when no one else would, pushing laws to report government spending online.
• Jonathan eliminated the state income tax for active duty military personnel, a $10 million tax cut for military families.
• Jonathan supported both the largest tax cut in Arizona history as well as the largest cut to government spending the state has ever seen.
• Jonathan was named a "Champion of the Taxpayer" in 2009 by the conservative group “Americans for Prosperity," a higher rating than any lawmaker in Southern Arizona.
• Jonathan had more legislation passed into law to defend our freedoms than any other lawmaker in the state in 2009.