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First term Arizona House legislator Peggy Judd has announced she will not run for a second two-year term.

The Republican who represents District 25, along with fellow GOP member David Stevens, told the Arizona Range News, a Wick Communications newspaper in Willcox, of her decision last week.

With the proposed new congressional and legislative lines drawn, which have yet to be federally approved, Cochise County will now be in one congressional, CD2, and one legislative, LD14.

Prior to this year’s election, there were two legislative districts in the county, 25 and 30, and with the county going to one, it means instead of Cochise being represented by four Arizona House members and two state senators, the representation will be cut in half to two and one.
Currently, all the state representatives and senators are Republicans.

Judd’s House District 25 seat member is David Stevens, while the state senator is Gail Griffin.
The District 30 representatives are David Gowan and Ted Vogt and the senator is Frank Antenori.
Vogt told the Herald/Review on Monday he is now in LD10 and will be running for the Legislature, but as of yet hasn’t decided if it will be for one of the two House seats or the one Senate position.

With the reduction from four representatives to two due to redistricting, it provides the opportunity for Stevens and Gowan to tag team for the LD14 House seats with sitting State Sen. Gail Griffin to run for the new LD14 seat on the Republican ticket.

Currently, Griffin will face Democrat Pat Fleming, who was a former state representative who lost her LD25 seat in 2010.

Antenori has announced his intentions of running for the special election to replace former Democratic U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who resigned her CD8 seat in January to continue her recovery after being critically shot in the head in January 2011.

He also is filing for the CD2 seat, which will be decided in the November race.

Antenori has to overcome competition from fellow Republicans in both primary races.

In other election news of interest to Cochise County residents, a Tucson businessman, will be a surrogate speaker for presidential GOP hopeful Mitt Romney Saturday morning.

David Hoefferie will speak at 11 a.m. at the Cochise County Republican Committee headquarters located at 525 W. Fry Boulevard in Sierra Vista.

Romney, Rick Santorum who currently is leading in national polls, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul are to participate in a 6 p.m. CNN televised GOP debate in Mesa on Wednesday.