New state committee could address Anthem traffic
Sen. Gorman to serve on traffic, healthcare committees
Staff Report

NORTH VALLEY – Residents of Anthem begging for alleviation of the traffic problem to and from the community could be helped by a new Blue Ribbon Transportation Committee.

State Sen. Pamela Gorman, R‑Anthem, who has heavy influence in transportation circles at the state level, will serve on the newly formed committee that will review and make recommendations on which transportation issues to address next legislative session.

Gorman said she is anxious to convene the committee because she feels Arizona is in a crisis as it relates to transportation.

“We are all inconvenienced through lost time in traffic,” Gorman said. “But the very real concern is bigger than a few lost hours of productivity.”

Gorman pointed to studies showing the economic impact when goods are slow getting to market, tourists are significantly delayed in getting to their destinations and employers can’t justify relocating to Arizona due to difficulty in attracting good employees.

“The word ‘crisis’ is not an exaggeration,” she said. “Rather, it is an unfortunately accurate description of our looming future in Arizona due to our transportation shortages.”

Gorman is the state senate’s vice‑chairman of the transportation committee and previously served in the same capacity during her years in the Arizona House of Representatives. She has focused on transportation issues throughout her service in the legislature and was a natural choice for appointment to the committee.

Specifically, the committee will review all reports it receives relating to the transportation framework in the state and submit recommendations for legislative action on or before Nov. 30 to the governor, president of the senate and the speaker of the house.

The committee must also provide a copy of its report to the secretary of state and the director of the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records, and is due to report on its work later this year.

In addition to the transportation committee, Gorman has been selected to serve on the senate Healthcare Group Study Committee, created by the legislature last session in an emergency measure to look into the failed experiment of state‑subsidized health insurance. 

The senator has been openly critical of the move to have taxpayers bail out the program through a $30 million appropriation in the state’s budget and voted against the portion of the budget containing the bail‑out of the insurance plan.

“Voters didn’t send me here to create universal healthcare, socialized medicine or tax‑ subsidized health insurance for only a few lucky residents,” Gorman said.

By transferring money away from essential services for taxpayers into an insurance program to help it stay afloat, it is, in effect, setting precedence she explained. That precedence, taxpayer‑funded healthcare, she said, has been rejected by a majority of voters in the past.

Gorman challenged her fellow senators by publicly saying that if they, as an elected body, want to debate, study, and openly vote before their constituents to create socialized medicine in Arizona, so be it. But, they were voting in sweeping unpopular policy, hidden deep in a $16 billion budget.