Olivia Jaramillo
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Contact
Olivia Jaramillo (Democratic Party) ran for election to the Utah House of Representatives to represent District 14. She lost in the general election on November 3, 2020.
Jaramillo completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Olivia Jaramillo was born in Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. She obtained an A.S. in public health and a B.S. in social psychology. She attended the Community College of the Air Force, Oxford University in Oxford, UK, and Park University in Parkville, Missouri, for her undergraduate education. Jaramillo served in the U.S. Air Force from February 1999 to March 2019. She is a medical intelligence specialist with experience in epidemiology.[1]
Jaramillo founded the Davis County Multicultural Committee. She is the chair of North Davis Communities that Care; a state diversity and inclusion specialist for the Utah PTA, and a member of the Syracuse City Architectural Review Committee.[1]
Elections
2020
See also: Utah House of Representatives elections, 2020
General election
Republican primary election
Democratic convention
2020
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Olivia Jaramillo completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Jaramillo's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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Olivia Jaramillo is the Democratic candidate for the Utah House of Representatives, House District 14. Olivia was born and raised in Mexico, and immigrated to the United States when she was 14. She joined the United States Air Force in 1999. She has served tours to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, 7 years in Europe, and humanitarian missions into Sub-Saharan Africa (Mozambique, Cameroon, Nigeria, South Africa). She has written Military Legislation at local and regional Military levels. She retired from Active Duty Military Service after 20 years in March 2019. She currently Chairs the North Davis Communities that Care Coalition, has created a Veterans Benefits Fair in Davis County, in conjunction with Davis County Commissioners, founded and leads the Davis County Multicultural Committee; which brings a voice to minority communities in Davis county. She was recently nominated to be the State's PTA Diversity & Inclusion Board Specialist. She is committed and advocates for the preserve of Constitutional American Rights, the middle class. a proper State tax reform, public education, the environment, and minority communities such as Veterans of war, and the correction of public perception towards legal immigrants. Olivia lives in Syracuse, Utah with her family.
- Our middle class is the backbone of our country and our State! We must fight for their rights to work, flourish and not be crippled by our economy! We must create housing market equity for our children and embrace the population growth; change is inevitable, we must be ready for it!
- We must safeguard our economy, our families by ensuring the implementation of a fair tax reform for all Utahns. We don't have a revenue problem; we need to eliminate fiscal irresponsibility. This means we must be more efficient by creating a simple taxation structure that will allow us to be more accountable and maintain our taxes low. We need to build this reform keeping ALL Utahns in mind, this means no new food tax, no new gas tax or any other service taxes.
- If we improve our children's education, we are ensuring the betterment and the future of our State. The budget must be preserved for them and used on them by investing in our educators; they deserve to be paid more! We need to make sure all public schools across the state receive the same funding; no school should be left behind due to grades or municipal economic levels.
Advancing the progress of our Middle class. Getting to the root cause of issues that cripple their economic stability and growth (increasing debts, bankruptcy, unaffordable homes, low wages)
Labor workers' rights - protections, physical, mental, and health care, and avoid lowest bidder bids that undermine so many workers' wages.
Domestic Violence is a pervasive continuing issue towards women and children. It is important to find ways to improve our response via better first responder training and working with Children's justice centers to afford proper operational funding through appropriation by the Utah State Legislature.
Preserving our second amendment rights by ensuring no state laws infringe upon the rights for individuals to self-defense.
The longer we put off doing something about our air quality, the worse and more problematic it will be to fix later. We must protect our families' well-being by bettering the air quality by working with organizations such as UTA, you DOT, to streamline projects that will expand public transportation, we must also build sustainable long-term projects creating lower mission zones around key places in the states.
I look up to anyone willing to undergo the hard road of living life. It can be difficult with bills, children, spouses, work, an economy that isn't middle class friendly. But to all those people that still get up early, go to work, deal with everything life deals at them and don't lose hope. Those are the people I look up to and that motivate me to make this world a better place for them.
I keep myself motivated with quotes. I may put these as wallpaper at home on my desktop or on my phone as a wallpaper. The one that motivates me most, is by Thomas Jefferson: "If you want something you've never had, you must be willing to do something you've never done".
We all want only what's best for our State, our Country, our World. Much of what inspired the founding of our great Country was to have a free and just society for our families, stewardship, compassion, and self-reliance. We must never allow political parties or fundamental ideologies to divide us: our children, and all in our families deserve better.
During my 20-year Military service, I personally lived and experienced a popular culture phrase and came to discover so much truth in it: the needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few - or the one. Above all else, the most important characteristic for an elected official is unselfishness; an ability to look beyond their own biases and political views and party, and put the betterment of all people they serve above all.
My experiences in the Military have given me so many of the needed qualities to be a successful office holder. Any and all experiences I have acquired afterwards, have built on to a foundation that has already been set in the military. The Air Force instilled strong values such as selfless service, loyalty, and excellence in any project or work I do.
I have the abilities and qualities to take responsibility for myself and my actions, make sound and timely decisions. The air Force has taught me how to set the example, be dependable, disciplined, and resilient thanks to deployments to many locations around the world. These same experiences have cultivated abilities for me to meet a variety of challenges, to create camaraderie and deep friendships between diverse groups of people, work well in teams and understand the importance of cooperation. As a leader, I have learned how to look out for the welfare of the team and completing tasks for a greater cause.
As I mentioned before, putting public service before their self is integral. I always liken this to my Military experiences. I can't even imagine telling my Commanding Officer that I could not go on deployment, because I already had a vacation planned to Paris or something of the sort.
An elected official must be committed to be the best public servant they can be. The duty of a representative does not end; they must be community champions. These individuals must be among the people, all groups, religions, races, ethnicities, it is integral to getting to know what the people's needs are.
There is a widespread belief among the people, that all politicians are the same. That in the end, we are just looking out for ourselves, our own interests, and our own special interest groups. This needs to change. I want people to hold us politicians to a higher standard of conduct. I want us to be held not to political party lines, and to work for the betterment of ALL people. I want to change how people feel about the word progress: it isn't a scary word. If we don't prepare for the future, if we don't evolve with the growing population and its diverse needs and requirements, we will be left behind as a regressive non-evolving state. I want to be part of that change, that helps our State to meet those challenges. I want my legacy to be one of hope and positivity.
I was 21, It was a Tuesday, September 11, 2001. I was stationed at RAF Lakenheath in the United Kingdom, and we were going on about business with our base operations. Around a little after 2 in the afternoon, one of our Sergeants told us there had been an accident in New York; a plane had flown into one of the twin towers. It was a bit unbelievable, and we thought that it was unusual. Then, we started hearing about the rest of the incidents, and our base immediately went into our highest level of lockdown. It was surreal to hear and see what was happening in our country, us being so far away and without being able to do anything to help. We readied ourselves for any orders that came down, all our personnel prepared to deploy, to find those responsible. It truly showed me a side of my brothers and sisters-at-arms that I had never experienced up to that point. It was one of those days that I knew I was at the right place; serving my country.
I was a waitress for just a couple of months before joining the Air Force. It was very demanding and I always think of that time and think of how little income workers in the food industry make, and why sometimes they hold two or three jobs as attendants or hostesses. They are trying to scratch out a comfortable living in a blue-collar America that is tormented with welfare reform. It made me see how holding a job like waitressing can pull in as little as $3 an hour and that is with tips. It makes me think of other professions such as maids, nursing home assistants, grocery salespeople. It showed me a side of desperation, all with the goal of just keeping a roof on their head and some food for their children.
Changing my destiny. I was born in Mexico. We were poor: very poor. Having had the opportunity to legally immigrate to America, and then experiencing poverty in America, the only thing taking me out of inter-generational poverty was going to be my determination to change my destiny. I went out on my own, served my country, received education with some great institutions, I pulled myself onward on to a better life for not only myself, but for my son. This is the one thing I give thanks for every day, for what I have now. I hope this can inspire others to have that self-reliance to make their lives better every day.
It is difficult to differentiate in our State because there is a super-majority in both chambers.
What I believe beneficial for elected officials to have undergone at least one term (2-4 years) in our military. That would be a highlight for them as it would instill integrity, hardworking ethics, and a higher respect to the calling of public office. It would enable them to brig that ethos of defending ALL Americans to any public office.
Middle class survivability - I was unpleasantly surprised to learn that in my House District alone, there is an almost 13% poverty rate. Many members of our middle class seem to be edging more and more towards this category, and we cannot let this continue. We must start implementing ways to make mortgages, homes, more affordable, we need to ensure we don't hike taxes, especially unnecessary ones on them. We simply cannot allow poverty rate to grow throughout our state!
COVID recovery - Our economy must get going again! With this said, we must also take precautions so as to not make the most vulnerable in our communities sick with this terrible virus.
The coming generational shift - There has been a great disagreement between the older generations' ability to understand and connect to the younger generations. I believe that is one of the biggest challenges to overcome. We must enact legislation that looks to the future of Utah and prepare our children for those challenges. Our world is more connected than ever through social media, we can no longer hide away what happens outside our borders.
This relationship in tandem must seek to be stewards of our state. Above all, it must be full of diverse ideas and contrasting views. When we allow others to share their perspectives, this provides alternatives or solutions previously unthought of. These allow the growth of our state and the discovery of new ways to get things done. Slowly, our own chambers' relationships with the Governor are becoming more diverse, and this is something that can be recognized with the creation of the Utah Division of Multicultural Affairs. We must aim to change the way people outside our borders view us Utahns. Overall, their relationship should aim to make legislation that enables and empowers the people to grow socially and economically.
It is important to build an agreement, and there must be maturity and the ability to see beyond party lines and work in unison. There must be awareness in knowing that there will come a time for disagreements and perhaps strong oppositional words aimed at each other. The balance is in realizing where the line is drawn on professional matters and personal matters, and that we are all elected to make Utah stronger, and better.
There are three committees in particular I am looking forward to being a part of in the future: Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee, Tax Restructuring Equalization Task Force, and the Health and Human Services Interim Committee.
I have been on multiple Stateside and Overseas analytic and exploratory Military committees while serving on Active Duty. I have also had the experience to work with State level organizations in their different subcommittees.
At the moment the party conference has elected fantastic individuals to be whip and assistant whip. I would love the opportunity to learn more from them how these inner processes exclusive to legislatures work.
It is difficult to pinpoint only one individual. I want to model myself after any legislator who seeks to serve their public office role for the people; all the people. I want to model myself after that legislator that believes being a community champion does not end once they are elected; That believes holding an elected official position is as high a calling as serving in our Military and defending our Country.
I served 20 years in the United States Air Force. Now, I seek the Utah House of Representatives. I believe it's important to look beyond to be fully prepared, but for the moment, everything must be maintained and focused on this objective.
I'll share one of the stories I heard from an older single mother, whom finds herself with a disability and unable to work full time due to her disability. Her daughter, an adult, is physically and mentally disabled, and requires full time care, which she only receives from her mother and older brother. These people are what I call the forgotten: the ones we don't talk about. It resonates with me, as my mother also was a struggling single mother for me and my younger autistic brother. I have first hand experienced exactly what this single mother in Clearfield is going thru, and I know that our economy, our laws, our society, tends to not want to deal with these situations nor properly aid them. We must change this and prevent these instances from happening as much as possible!
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See also
External links
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on May 22, 2020
Leadership
Speaker of the House:Mike Schultz
Majority Leader:Casey Snider
Minority Leader:Angela Romero
Representatives
Republican Party (61)
Democratic Party (14)