Drinking with Stephen Richer

We're expensing that booze ... Catch you next time, Don! ... And it's a confused laugh.

Yesterday, we got two drinks deep into a wide-ranging policy discussion with Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer for our first experiment in live happy hour interviews with local politicos. 

Thanks to everyone who tuned in or showed up with zero notice! And a special thanks to the Crescent Ballroom staff and owner Charlie Levy who let us use the space. 

It was way more fun than we expected.

Richer was, as always, a good sport, rolling with our increasingly absurd questions and even rocking some Arizona Agenda merch to the inaugural event. 

We covered a lot of ground in the hourlong session, including: 

• What is Arizona doing about the doomsday presidential elector deadline scenario? 

• Should voters be able to drop off their early ballot at the last minute on Election Day? 

• And what’s he texting Secretary of State Adrian Fontes about these days?

We also delved into questions like: What’s the redeeming value of the electoral college system? Why do we even elect a county recorder? Does Richer ever think about running for governor? (“Some days, when I’m feeling petty and vindictive and I want to smite my opponents.”) And why is he still a Republican, anyway?

And of course, we had to ask: If some of our powerful friends from “back east” wanted him to walk away from politics, what’s his number?

“I don’t know, but I feel like it’s phoney to say it’s a non-zero number. Like, let’s take the outlier of that: $100 billion dollars. I feel like there’s some pretty good things I could do for democracy with $100 billion,” he said.

But perhaps most importantly, we now know that Richer prefers recording deeds over plats. (“Property is the backbone of society! … And recording deeds is really important because that’s how you stake your claim for property.”) 

Yeah, it got pretty nerdy. But if that’s your jam, you’re in luck, because we’re going to do it again soon.

Let us know in the comments who you’d like to drink with next!

Dumped by Trump: Former President Donald Trump decided to bail on the Arizona Republican Party’s Freedom Fest fundraiser today, which he was slated to headline until Kari Lake nuked AZGOP Chair Jeff DeWit’s career and confirmed to the world that she secretly records conversations with her friends. The speculation now is all over whether Trump decided just to skip the AZGOP meltdown party generally, or if he got spooked by Lake’s Nixonesque recording style in particular. The cash-strapped AZGOP is promising to refund ticket holders, and Saturday’s meeting should be a lot of fun.

Sunset review: Democratic Rep. Leezah Sun faced her second House Ethics Committee hearing yesterday and it didn’t go any better than the first. Lobbyist Liz Goodman testified that Sun said if she saw Tolleson city lobbyist Pilar Sinawi, she would “bitch slap, throw her over the balcony and kill her.” Sun denied the killing and balcony-throwing parts, and committee members had to repeatedly rein Sun’s testimony as she repeatedly talked trash about her accusers. Republican Rep. Travis Grantham got hung up on comments from Kayla Destiny Ruiz Davidian, also a lobbyist, that Sun actually said she would “F-ing kill her.” 

“I do not care about anybody’s feelings, and I don’t care about anybody’s emotions … I want to know if I can believe who’s telling me this is what she said,” Grantham said of the F-bomb. 

One we’ll actually miss: Democratic Rep. Jennifer Longdon announced her resignation from the Legislature yesterday to take a new job, the Republic’s Mary Jo Pitzl reports. Longdon was first elected to her central Phoenix district in 2018 and served as assistant minority leader during her second term. She was the Legislature’s leading proponent of gun safety legislation, disability rights and memorials honoring murdered journalist Don Bolles. 

Partisan progress: A flurry of bills is moving through the legislative process as the pace at the Capitol quickens ahead of February’s “crossover week” deadline for bills to clear their chamber of origin. These bills will probably be moving to the full House and Senate for votes soon:

• HB2310, which would define grooming in state law, cleared the House Judiciary Committee, per the Arizona Mirror’s Caitlin Sievers. A 16-year-old gave a disturbing first-hand account of a lack of accountability after her softball coach groomed her, while the Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice said laws already exist to prosecute grooming. 

• SB1097, which would make school board races partisan, passed the Senate Education Committee on a party-line vote, per the Republic’s Madeleine Parrish. 

• SB1005, which would ban public entities from requiring diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, cleared the Senate Government Committee on a party-line vote, Cronkite News’ Reagan Priest reports. 

Uphill battle: Rep. Stephanie Stahl Hamilton introduced a trio of abortion-related bills backed by Gov. Katie Hobbs, but as the Republic’s Stacey Barchenger notes, they’re unlikely to get through the Republican-controlled Legislature. The bills would prevent limits on patients or doctors to provide or obtain contraceptives, stop the requirement for doctors to report information about abortions to the state and repeal the pre-statehood ban on abortion. 

"We don't have the numbers in the legislative body, but within the general population, we do have the numbers," Stahl Hamilton said. "And it is very important for our people to know that we are doing what we can to show up and represent so that their voices can be heard through our voices, and our votes."

Dune buggy-ing to school: The Arizona Department of Education has denied non-education related school voucher spending requests like car seats and a $2,300 commercial freeze dryer, KTAR reports. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne told the State Board of Education that more than 12,000 expense requests were rejected last year, and he expects an appeal from a parent to buy a dune buggy to be denied.

Sacred vs. science: Colorado-based journalist Annette McGivney spoke to KJZZ about a brewing fight between the sacred, ceremonial use of Peyote among Native Americans and a growing pharmaceutical interest in the cactus. Peyote also has a psychoactive element that appeals to “earthy grassroots activists,” McGivney said, but Native Americans say cloning the cactuses for medicinal or recreational use disrespects the sanctity of the plant. 

If you’ve been a subscriber for any length of time, you know we’re suckers for weird merch.¹

And if you’re looking for weird MAGA merch, EZAZ has you covered. We won’t pretend to understand all the references on the MAGA voter education group’s swag, but somehow that makes browsing their shop all the more fun. 

You can get this whole mess printed on a single shirt.

1. Our apologies for forgetting to update you on how we liked Mark Finchem’s Trump-shaped “Make Honey Great Again Pure Raw Ultra MAGA honey.” It was fine, but you couldn’t actually taste the ultra MAGA.