Financial nondisclosures
Inspecting the mines at Bass Pro … Not the Gallego we remember … And time continues to be a flat circle.
Arizona’s statewide officeholders took 17 trips on other people’s dime last year.
And elected officials, from governor to state mine inspector, have side-gigs working at Bass Pro Shops and serving on boards in the banking industry.
At least, those are the side gigs that they’re willing to tell us about.
Anyone who holds public office in Arizona, even for a single day, has to divulge their financial details. That information includes who else pays them, any businesses they own and gifts they received.
Those who “knowingly” fail to disclose the financial information required could be charged a class 1 misdemeanor, and late filings are subject to a $50 daily late fee that’s capped at $500.
But those deterrents don’t keep Arizona’s elected officials completely transparent.
When it comes to politicians' financial entanglements, we don’t know what we don’t know.
If an officeholder received a gift or took a trip and didn’t report it, it’s hard to prove that without documentation on social media or a revelation from a donor.
The politicians’ financial statements also have vague monetary values that make it impossible to assess the scope of someone’s financial situation. Take State Treasurer Kimberly Yee’s trip to Santa Monica, for example. It cost somewhere between $1,000 and $25,000 but we’ll never know the exact amount because politicians only have to report totals in sets of increments.
Nevertheless, there are some insights we can take away from what nine out of 11 current officeholders reported last year. And the financial disclosure data of the state’s current officeholders include some interesting tidbits:
Gov. Katie Hobbs was the only one to report receiving a gift: More than $500 from the Democratic Governors Association. The reporting requirements define a gift as a “special discount, favor, hospitality, service, economic opportunity, loan or other benefit received without adequate consideration.” But filers don’t have to say what the gift was, just who they received it from.
Hobbs took three trips: to the Arizona Mexico Commission Plenary in Sonora, Mexico, to the National Governors Association’s winter meeting in D.C. and to the NCAA Peach Bowl in Georgia. Politicians only have to report travel-related expenses of more than $1,000 that someone else paid for on their behalf.
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes took the most trips — and he went the farthest. He went to a democracy forum in Brussels, a “Meet the Press” interview in D.C., spoke at an AI policy panel at Johns Hopkins University, sat on a PBS election panel in New York and went to a leadership forum in D.C.
Attorney General Kris Mayes acquired 3.5 acres of land in Prescott in June.
Corporation Commissioner Lea Márquez Peterson was a board member for five groups last year: the Arizona Judicial Council, the Pima County Workforce Investment Board, the National Advisory Council for the U.S. Small Business Development Centers, Carondelet Health Network and Stearns Bank.
Every officeholder has to disclose sources of personal income above $1,000.
Besides their taxpayer-funded salaries, Mayes and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne reported receiving state pension money.
State Mine Inspector Paul Marsh had a side gig in sales at Bass Pro Shop last year.
State Treasurer Kimberly Yee ran marketing for her husband’s dental office.
The Corporation Commissioners who reported their other jobs have some interesting work experience:
Marquez Peterson owns a community relations business, and Kevin Thompson owns Broadmore Consulting, which espouses its expertise in government relations.
Nick Myers runs a dog boarding and handyman service company called Psalm 128 Fix-It Services.
Threading that needle: New U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego is walking a tightrope on immigration issues, KJZZ’s Ben Giles reports. He’s leaning into the idea that working-class Latino voters want border security, and might not feel much affinity for recent arrivals. He’s not alone in that view. More than half of Arizona’s Latino voters gave a thumbs-up to Prop 314 in November, which made crossing the border illegally a state crime. A Democratic political consultant, who’s also a Dreamer, backed up Gallego’s view on immigration, saying the border situation “got out of control really fast.”
Nothing to see here: Phoenix officials set up an ethics commission a year ago, but they apparently haven’t found anything troubling yet, Phoenix New Times’ TJ L’Heureux reports. The commission hasn’t sustained a single complaint brought to them. Why not? It’s hard to say. They operate mostly behind closed doors (they’ve also only met eight times so far) and aren’t making much of an effort to help the public understand what they’re doing.
Finding the money: GOP lawmakers convinced Arizona voters to approve Proposition 314 in November, making it a state crime to cross the border illegally. Now they have to figure out how to fund it, and that could tee up a constitutional showdown, the Arizona Mirror’s Jerod MacDonald-Evoy reports. A bill that would provide $50 million for border enforcement is moving through the Legislature, but it would pull money from the state’s General Fund, something the state constitution prohibits, since ballot measures must have their own funding sources.
Local news sources also need their own funding sources. Some have billionaires named Bezos. We have you. And we’re good with that.
Then there was one: Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap fired six of the seven people in his office who work on external communications, which in recent years involved a lot of debunking misinformation about elections, KJZZ’s Greg Hahne and the AP report. Heap hasn’t quite said the 2020 and 2022 elections were rigged, but he’s gotten close. His schtick is that voters don’t trust elections.
Left in limbo: There’s a whole lot of finger-pointing going on as officials try to find $50 million to fix maintenance problems at the Arizona State Museum, the Arizona Luminaria’s Carolina Cuellar reports. The museum has century-old electrical wiring encased in wood, corroded plumbing, and numerous other issues that led to the museum’s closure last August. But officials at the museum, the University of Arizona and the Arizona Board of Regents haven’t been able to agree on who should pay for what.
Getting their ducks in a row: Arizona’s three biggest utilities made a splash last week when they announced they wanted to build new nuclear reactors. Axios Phoenix’s Jeremy Duda breaks down the steps that need to be taken, from getting zoning approval from county officials to gauging whether a pro-nuclear president like Donald Trump will be in office a decade from now when the utility companies would need to get final approval from the federal government.
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🤖Yesterday’s A.I. Agenda delves into Republican U.S. Rep. David Schweikert’s attempts to allow machines to prescribe you drugs. ⚡
🍎Today’s Education Agenda will teach you the best and worst education ideas coming out of the Capitol this year from the more than 200 education bills we’re tracking. 💡
🌊And Friday’s Water Agenda dives into just how powerful one lawmaker has become over her policy domain — Arizona’s most finite resource. 🔌
President Donald Trump (who opened White House press credentials to podcast bros and social media influencers), is barring the Associated Press (one of the world's most respected and blandly factual news organizations), from attending official White House events because the AP refuses to call the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.” 1
Which reminds us…
And since basically every newspaper follows AP Style, almost nobody else is using “Gulf of America” either. Though the AP did relent on calling Mount Denali “Mount McKinley” instead “because the area lies solely in the United States and Trump has the authority to change federal geographical names within the country.”
I complied with the FEC Campaign Finance regulations. Arturo Hernandez did not. He completely ignored them.
Kari Lake should respond.
At some point does that issue not become newsworthy? Or has that bonfire burned out with no one watching?
Better cut the red tape fast on the nuclear energy cause in 10 years we all will be having blackouts.