School board soap opera
Previously, on Cartwright ... Saying the racist part out loud ... And him?!?
Last year, when Cassandra Hernandez, the daughter of Democratic state lawmaker and Cartwright School Board member Lydia Hernandez, ran to join her mom on the West Valley school board, everyone knew they were mother and daughter.
And many people suspected that the then 19-year-old had lived with her mother during the preceding four years.
That would be a direct violation of Arizona law, which prohibits members of the same family who have cohabitated in recent years from serving on the same school board in an attempt to reduce nepotism and favoritism.
Earlier this year, a Maryvale resident filed a lawsuit to invalidate the term Cassandra won on the board.
On Monday, the Superior Court ruled that Cassandra can stay on the board.
The court agreed that the Hernandez duo had broken the law — that much was in the agreed-upon facts of the case.1
Yet, the court sided with them anyway, ruling that the challenge to Cassandra’s legitimacy came far too late to count.2
It was yet another victory for the controversial Democratic political family that has been on a winning streak lately.
Cassandra joined the board in January after beating out Democrat Anna Abeytia, who also serves in the state Legislature from the same district as Lydia. Her victory flipped the majority voting bloc on the school board, handing control to her mother and longtime on-again-off-again board member Rosa Cantu.
Since then, Cartwright has become what we’ve called “Arizona’s most dysfunctional school board.”
Here’s a short clip that’s emblematic of every Cartwright board meeting we’ve ever seen.
Almost every board meeting is a showdown, every consent agenda is an opportunity to scream at each other and bang the gavel on the dais. The new voting majority has hired, fired and put top staffers on leave with little to no explanation — including investigating and putting on leave the former interim superintendent and hiring former Republican Maricopa County School Superintendent Steve Watson as the district’s new acting superintendent, despite numerous accusations of financial mismanagement during his time in office and him not having the formal qualifications usually expected of superintendents.
Meanwhile, the board members and their allies have launched attacks and dug up dirt on each other that has spilled far beyond the Cartwright boundaries into other school districts and even the state Legislature. The attacks have included everything from Cassandra working at a Hooters-like restaurant, to charges of campaign finance violations, to allegations that school board members misused school resources by utilizing the district’s child care, and accusations that the Hernandez family brought a box cutter into a neighboring school district to test that school district’s security system.
And as the case against Cassandra’s qualifications to serve on the board comes to a close, two other big fights surrounding Cartwright are coming to a head.
Let’s recap.
Campaign finances
After the 2024 election, Abeytia — the Democratic state lawmaker and former Cartwright school board president who Cassandra dethroned — was audited by the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission for her 2024 campaign spending.
It did not go well for her.
In April, Clean Elections hauled her in front of its governing body, saying there’s “reason to believe she has violated multiple provisions of the Clean Elections Act and Rules.”
The first problem is that she couldn’t document her spending and hadn’t even filed the campaign finance reports required of all candidates.
An equally troubling detail is that she spent most of that money to hire her fiancé, Ricardo Serna, a political consultant who owns Gumption Consulting.
“I just want to make clear that all of us feel this is a very serious matter,“ Clean Elections Chairman Mark Kimble told her. “It's not a minor oversight – a minor financial misunderstanding. It's a very serious situation, and I hope you understand that.”
As we previously noted, Abeytia also voted to hire Serna as a landscaper for the Cartwright Elementary School District during her final days on the district’s governing board.
Meanwhile, Abeytia’s unsuccessful runningmate for the West Valley legislative district, Hector Jaramillo, also got audited. Clean Elections originally ordered him to repay the more than $31,000 in public money he had misused on his campaign.
The commission postponed its attempt to force Abeytia to repay the $54,000 she received in public money to run her campaign — but that delay is coming to an end.
At last month’s Clean Elections meeting, the commission was set to introduce a settlement agreement with Abeytia. But the meeting got canceled due to technical difficulties, thanks to a storm. The deal has been moved to the upcoming meeting on September 25.
Under the terms of that proposed agreement, which has not been signed yet, Abeytia will have to repay a little more than $2,000 and pay a $5,000 fine. That’s a far cry from the $54,000 the Commission was threatening to recoup.
But perhaps more importantly, Abeytia will be barred from ever running as a Clean Elections candidate with public funding.3
On top of that, the Commission is considering two rule changes that it hopes will help protect against this kind of event in the future. One would require candidates to submit a sworn statement that they filed campaign finance reports before they receive Clean Elections funding. The other repeals the presumption that any Clean Elections funds a candidate spends is legitimate until proven otherwise.
The box cutter incident
Most recently, the Hernandez family made headlines when Phoenix Union High School District officials accused them of staging a security check after a student was fatally stabbed in the district.
Phoenix Union sent out a press release last month accusing Cassandra of attempting to smuggle a box cutter into a district meeting while Lydia filmed the attempt, saying the whole episode was captured on security cameras.
Phoenix Police are investigating.
But whatever was going on — Lydia was definitely there, and it seems clear someone attempted to bring a weapon — there appears to be a big problem with that allegation: Cassandra says she wasn’t there, she was at work at the time.
The younger Hernandez has provided receipts showing she was clocked in for a shift at a gym where she works, and now she’s threatening to sue Phoenix Union for defamation.
Phoenix Union hasn’t released the security camera footage to reporters who have filed public records requests (including us), saying it doesn’t want to compromise the police investigation.
But there were signs that the district’s press release was based on incomplete information, including that it said Lydia was accompanied by Cassandra, “who is believed to be her daughter.”
After the news broke, a throng of school board members and a bipartisan cast of politicians called for Lydia and Cassandra to resign, and the duo has been facing threats and online harassment ever since.
Now, the Hernandezes are turning the tables, threatening to sue the district for defamation and calling on the superintendent of Phoenix Union to resign.
Phoenix Police are still investigating the incident.
Racism, on the record: Republican Rep. John Gillette went on a racist social media tirade, and when the Arizona Mirror’s Jerod MacDonald-Evoy called him to ask about it, Gillette called Muslims “fucking savages.” On Monday, the state lawmaker criticized Gov. Katie Hobbs for meeting with Islamic leaders two years ago and wrote: “We absolutely do not need a Muslim advisory anything in government.” And before he hung up on MacDonald-Evoy, Gillette said Muslims don’t properly “assimilate” into American culture.
A message from Michigan: A Michigan judge dismissed criminal charges against 15 Republicans accused of trying to overturn the 2020 election results, per the Associated Press. That decision could be a bad omen for Arizona’s fake electors case. In May, a Superior Court judge sent Arizona’s case back to a grand jury to reassess probable cause for charges against 18 Republicans.
You can send us good omens with this button.
Fraud and five murders: Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes’ office announced Paul Eppinger, “the current leader of the Arizona Mexican Mafia,” not only pled guilty to pandemic-era unemployment benefit fraud, but confessed he was involved in five cold case homicides in the ‘90s. Mayes’ office said the detailed confession of gang-related murders came out during the fraud investigation.
Birthday cards and backpedals: Although Republican U.S. Rep. Eli Crane once backed an effort to force the Trump administration to release the Epstein files, he hasn’t joined the latest push — a bill four other congressional Republicans have already signed onto, the Republic’s Laura Gersony reports. Arizona’s U.S. Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar also haven’t supported the effort, and Crane reposted a statement from Republican leaders that called Trump’s creepy birthday card to Epstein a case of "cherry-picking documents and politicizing information."
Water rights, pending: Three tribal leaders recently met with federal officials to hash out a landmark Arizona water settlement that would finally secure access to water for thousands, but the deal still has to make it through Congress, the Republic’s Arlyssa D. Becenti reports. It includes $5 billion for water infrastructure and the framework of a deal with other Colorado River water users.
In other, other news
The Arizona Democratic Party will pick a new chair on Saturday, and six candidates want to take over for ousted former chair Robert Branscomb (Camryn Sanchez / KJZZ) … Early voting for Prop 409 starts next month, when Maricopa County voters will decide a $900 million bond for Valleywise Health to build a behavioral health hospital (Zach Prelutsky / AZFamily) … Maricopa County Environmental Services seized more than 7,000 pounds of tainted meat from unlicensed taco vendors this summer (Mitchell Koch / AZFamily) … The Arizona Legislature has spent more than $5 million on outside lawyers since 2022 (Dillon Rosenblatt / Fourth Estate 48) … Gilbert’s town council is trying to come up with e-bike regulations after bike crashes among teens increased by 50% last year (Jen Wahl / 12News).
Progress Arizona’s annual scorecard tallies lawmakers’ votes to find out who are the most progressive lawmakers at the Capitol.
The results are mostly predictable — at least, until you get to the Republican side.
Arizona’s most progressive Republican isn’t some RINO-loving, deep-state-supporting Never Trumper.
It’s Republican Sen. Jake Hoffman.
Yes, that’s the indicted fake elector who is hand-picking far-right candidates to challenge more moderate Republicans in the midterms.
Democratic Sen. Analise Ortiz, whom Hoffman just hit with an ethics complaint for sharing a post warning about ICE activity near an elementary school, got the top score of 95.8 out of 100.
Hoffman came in with a failing grade of 17.4%.
But he was at the top of his Republican class because his freedom-maximalist views sometimes aligned with progressives’ focus on civil liberties.
He earned points for supporting bills like banning photo enforcement systems and opposing bills like mandating 9/11 instruction in public schools.
Ultimately, Lydia’s failed attempt to rewrite that law banning her daughter from serving alongside her was unnecessary.
The court sidestepped the larger question of whether those rules are even constitutional, or if they violate the First Amendment and other rights.
Same goes for the deal inked for Jaramillo, though he’ll pay lesser fines.
The Hernandez’s are a joke and one thing is for sure, they are running Cartwright into the ground because it is clear that no one there is centering students only their egos.