Arizona’s Democratic lawmakers will no longer have to contend with their frequently rebellious colleague, Rep. Lydia Hernandez.
But after losing her reelection campaign in the primary to two progressive challengers, she still wields the gavel on the Cartwright Elementary School District Governing Board.
The outgoing lawmaker has represented the Maryvale area in Legislative District 24 since 2023, plus one term in the House beginning in 2013, before leaving to, quite on-brandly, challenge a more progressive Democrat for Senate.
But she’s served on the Cartwright school board in roughly the same corner of west Phoenix since 2004.
Last year, Lydia became the school board president. (There are so many Hernandezes in this story that we’re referring to them by first name on second reference.)
And since then, board members have separated into two voting blocs defined by their relationship to their leader: Lydia allies and opponents.
Board meetings often devolve into shouting matches and gavel-pounding, which largely stems from allegations that Lydia wields outsized control over major district decisions.
We’ve been mildly fascinated with the Cartwright chaos for a while now — and the various beefs plaguing board members that very seldom have anything to do with children.
The latest feud recently culminated in a board standoff in which Lydia alleged the dissenting board members’ absence from meetings led to unfed kids and unpaid staff.
Now, as she asks voters for another term on the school board, some of the same forces that helped oust her from the Legislature are ready to give her the boot from Cartwright, too.
The ousting effort got fresh fuel last week, when Lydia endorsed Republican Warren Petersen in the attorney general’s race.
District advocates, including the Cartwright Education Association teachers union, criticized the endorsement online. Petersen’s support for requiring public schools to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement, the union said, “seriously worries us about the safety and protection of children.”
The student population of Cartwright is predominantly Latino.
During a phone call interview — which was set up by GOP consultant Barrett Marson — Lydia was emphatic about her support for immigrant communities throughout her political career.
“Over the many years that I’ve advocated for immigration, I’ve worked with several congressmen who were willing to open their doors…” she told us. “I’m an expert on immigration, even down to a very detailed level, because of my personal plight and story with my husband’s journey (as an undocumented immigrant).”
But Lydia endorsed Petersen, despite his public support of immigration crackdowns, because she believes he’d deliver more on “public safety” than current Democratic AG Kris Mayes.
Lydia specifically pointed to Michael Montoya II, a 16-year-old student who was stabbed to death at Maryvale High School last year, and said Petersen “committed to enforcing and providing oversight to the school districts.”
She’s taken a keen interest in the case.
Last fall, Phoenix Union trespassed her from its campuses after an apparent attempt to test Maryvale High’s weapons detection system by helping sneak in a box cutter.
Public safety wasn’t the only reason she cited for the AG endorsement.
Lydia was targeted by a coordinated effort to challenge moderate Democrats in this year’s primaries, and her progressive challengers, Lisbeth Arescurenaga and Alberto Flores, ousted her from her House seat.
Lydia hasn’t forgotten who backed them.
“Furthermore, Kris Mayes did support my opponents in my race,” Lydia said. “So everybody’s entitled to endorse whomever they want.”
Lydia was indignant in her response to the Cartwright union’s criticism of her endorsement, and she accused her opponents of baseless fear-mongering.
But, as the union noted in its original post: “We have many other reasons to oppose the leadership of Mrs. Hernandez.”
And the Cartwright union isn’t the only group at odds with Lydia.
Democrats in her district voted to censure her in June, citing a long list of controversies — including the box cutter incident and frequently voting with Republicans at the Capitol.
But for all the grievances Lydia has racked up from Democrats at the Capitol over the years, some Cartwright school board members have a list of their own complaints.
A beef history
Lydia gained a school board ally in the 2024 election, when voters elected her daughter, Cassandra Hernandez, to the Cartwright board.
But since state law bars immediate family members who lived together within the previous four years from serving on the same governing board, the mother-daughter duo landed in court.
A judge agreed the Hernandezes violated the law, but let Cassandra stay because the challenge to her election came too late. The plaintiff, longtime education advocate Cecilia Moreno, moved faster this year.
Moreno sued a week after Lydia filed her signatures for another term on the Cartwright board, arguing she couldn’t be a candidate while Cassandra remained on the board.
A superior court judge agreed and ruled Lydia ineligible for the ballot.
That meant one of the Hernandezes had to go. And it wasn’t Lydia.
Cassandra resigned, while Lydia asked the judge to reconsider in light of her daughter’s departure, and the courts allowed her to remain on the ballot.
The vacancy from her daughter’s departure left the board split 2-2 between Lydia’s allies and foes, and set off a fresh round of chaos at Cartwright.
But the chaos started well before that. The various recent controversies surrounding Cartwright include but are not limited to:
January 2025: After Cartwright’s former superintendent retired, a 23-year district employee took over as interim superintendent. Weeks later, the newly Lydia-led board put her on paid leave while investigating her contract and hired former Maricopa County schools chief Steve Watson — who came with baggage — as acting superintendent instead.
January 2026: The board voted to return Cartwright to a five-day school week after years on a four-day schedule, despite widespread community opposition.
March 2026: The board fired two administrators after keeping them on paid leave for more than a year, citing a range of concerns about their conduct and job performance. Both disputed the allegations and said they were targeted by Lydia and her allies, including one who had previously reported Lydia’s alleged misuse of a district credit card.
April 2026: Watson abruptly resigned as superintendent, having served just over a year in the role, without providing a reason.
Now, the main issue dividing Cartwright’s current board is its use of outside consultants.
To summarize: Board member Denice Garcia alleges the district is overspending on consultants while failing to clearly explain what they’re being paid to do.
Lydia says Garcia has gotten the answers she asked for, and the district says consultant contracts are capped at $49,000 per fiscal year.
“We do business like any other school district, and when we’re lacking capacity or expertise in any subject matter, we consult,” Lydia said.
But Garcia has also brought up concerns about how the contracts were awarded — at least one known consultant contract went to former Cartwright administrators.
Another went to Hernandi Group LLC, the political consulting firm operated by Lydia’s allies at the Capitol, Democratic Reps. Alma and Consuelo Hernandez and their brother, former Rep. Daniel Hernandez.
Lydia said hiring consultants is an administrative decision that “doesn’t involve the board,” and requires a competitive process of soliciting proposals and interviewing applicants.
“It’s not just ‘Hey, I want him to get a contract’ — it doesn’t work that way,” she said.
The sack lunch saga
When her daughter left the board in July, Lydia was left with one reliable ally: Rosa Cantu, her running mate in their unsuccessful House bid earlier this year.
Garcia and board member Jennifer Romero kept raising concerns about the consulting contracts and later started skipping board meetings.
Without three members to make a quorum, the board couldn’t meet.
By mid-September, 58 items had piled up, including a wheelchair-accessible bus for students with disabilities, an agreement to keep a district food pantry running and an increase in spending authority needed to keep the district’s dairy supply flowing.
The Cartwright Elementary School District issued a notice from Board President Lydia Hernandez blaming two board members’ absences for delays in district business.
Lydia went on a mini press tour accusing Garcia and Romero of letting their grievances interfere with basic district operations. The headline for her interview with Arizona’s Family alleged: “Sack lunches replace hot meals in Phoenix school district as board stalemate drags on.”
But hot lunches weren’t among the unresolved agenda items. And Laurie Richards, president of the Cartwright Education Association, said the board standoff didn’t interrupt them.
“Students continued to receive hot meals. A temporary power issue affected meal service at one school, but the district responded promptly by arranging for hot meals to be provided at the affected site,” Richards said in an email. “Students therefore continued to receive hot meals throughout the disruption.”
Lydia acknowledged to us that the sack lunch debacle was tied to site-specific HVAC and facility problems, but argued the board still bore responsibility because some of the delayed agenda items were maintenance-related and meant to address those kinds of problems.
Regardless, the 2-2 board member split disappeared last week, when Republican Maricopa County School Superintendent Shelli Boggs appointed Teresa Tapia to Cassandra’s vacant seat. In announcing the appointment, Boggs rebuked Garcia and Romero for the missed meetings.
“It is unconscionable to prioritize playing politics ahead of feeding children and paying teachers,” Boggs said in the press release. “When a board cannot hold a meeting, every day of delay is paid for by children. Their irresponsibility created an extreme need to expedite the process to seat a member that would show up and put kids first.”
And at her first meeting after Boggs appointed her, Tapia supplied the third vote needed to approve the long-stalled agenda of unresolved items.
Come November, Cartwright voters will decide whether Lydia and Tapia stay on the board.
They face former board president Marissa Hernandez and Pedro Paredes, both backed by the Cartwright Education Association — the same union that called out Lydia’s Petersen endorsement.
The challengers have also earned an endorsement from Democratic Sen. Analise Ortiz, who led the progressive movement that ousted Lydia from her House seat.
“I am disgusted that the School Board President Lydia Hernandez would endorse an Attorney General candidate who has a record of hurting our immigrant and Latino community, including DACA-protected Dreamers,” Ortiz wrote on Facebook. “Lydia is up for reelection to the Cartwright School Board this November. We sent her packing from the State House. Let’s do it again.”
Art lovers: Former U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s ex — the bodyguard she hired and slept with and is facing a “home wrecker” lawsuit over after breaking up his 14-year marriage — broke into her house and threw 22 paintings valued at more than $120,000 into her swimming pool. He did a total of $200,000 in damage, including by smashing her mirror and expensive booze bottles, AZFamily’s Alexis Cortez and Micaela Marshall report. As he was wrecking her home, he demanded that she post a video to Twitter in order to stop. (No, we don’t know what the video was about.) Sinema didn’t post it, and she didn’t call the police for several days. The bodyguard, Matthew Ammel, was arrested as he left a mental health treatment facility.
He’s got big plans: Two weeks before early ballots hit mailboxes, gubernatorial hopeful and Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs held a press conference to tell reporters he’d end tax incentives for data centers, allow raw milk in restaurants and limit short-term rentals, among many other steps he’d take if voters pick him, per Capitol scribe Howie Fischer.
“But while providing a laundry list of what he will do in the future, the current Republican congressman would not answer questions about his own record,” Fischer notes.
In Kirk they trust: After the assassination of Charlie Kirk last year, political observers across the country wondered whether his fusion of Christianity and politics would survive. The Republic’s Taylor Seely tells an engrossing tale of two young people who decided after Kirk’s death to start their own political proselytizing outfit in Phoenix.
“For some of his young admirers, that influence has altered not just their politics but their life trajectories — from who and how they date, to when they start a family, how they get educated and what kind of career to pursue, or, if they’re women, whether they should pursue one at all,” Seely writes.
Bipartisan weirdness: If you want another interesting read, the New York Times dives into the strange world of content creators — including in Arizona — who get hired by progressives and conservatives alike to push political messages on social media while portraying themselves as ordinary people. It doesn’t matter if they have large followings or not. The point is to game the algorithm into thinking it’s organic content. It’s a sophisticated operation that uses designated marketplaces to get a message out without relying on high-profile — and expensive — influencers.
Elections have consequences: Too many Arizona lawmakers have the authority to issue legislative subpoenas, conservative Substacker Robert Robb writes as he examines Republican Sen. Jake Hoffman’s recent use of legislative subpoenas to further his probe into Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’ “pay-to-play” scandal. The fact that Hoffman announced his supposedly impartial investigation behind a podium with a sign that read “Katie Hobbs’ corruption hurts Arizonans” was just one of many things that stuck in Robb’s craw.
“Hoffman professed great indignation that the impartiality and integrity of his investigation would be doubted just because he was personally and professionally involved in the effort to defeat Hobbs and that his announcement featured a sign already expressing a conclusion and an echo of Biggs’s main campaign message,” Robb writes. “It’s hard to fathom how a chap could be so clueless.”
Congressman Andy Biggs, the Republicans’ nominee for governor, is active on book review site Goodreads.
Axios’ Zach Buchanan discovered the trove of 45 reviews and hundreds of ratings for books that Biggs logged, which is a hilarious portal into the mind of the GOP nominee.
Notably, Buchanan reports that Biggs left rave reviews for a number of far-right books that argue growing Muslim and Latin American populations spell doom for white people and Western societies, such as Ann Coulter’s “¡Adios, America! The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country Into a Third World Hellhole.”
But our favorite part of reviewing Biggs’ account was seeing the classics of literature and philosophy that he left one- or two-star reviews on, including:
“One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel García Márquez (one star), about which he said, “I can’t believe it is a representation of real people,” apparently not understanding it’s a work of fiction.
“Utopia” by Sir Thomas More (one star)
“Catch-22” by Joseph Heller (one star), which he only managed to get halfway through and called “too ribald” for him
“In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote (two stars)
“The Republic” by Plato and “Nicomachean Ethics” by Aristotle — two of the foundational texts of Western philosophy and thought (two stars each)
So much for defending Western civilization.