The Daily Agenda: Lawmakers start stopping the steal
Sharpiegate returns … What words could he have possibly changed? … And let’s flatten the curve for Rachel’s birthday.
An all-star lineup of election-denying state senators held their first meeting of the Senate Government Committee yesterday, passing election legislation inspired by conspiracies while insisting yesterday’s efforts were only a start to stopping the steal.
The committee was cheered on by an audience of election dead-enders and Cyber Ninja volunteers who rehashed everything from ballot fibers to Dominion voting machine anomalies. GOP gubernatorial frontrunner Kari Lake even made an appearance, insisting her vote was stolen because she used a Sharpie marker.
The fact that some members of the audience used names as fake as the facts they were spewing didn’t seem to bother the Republican senators, who promised future action on a host of issues to appease the crowd.
Still, the hearing was a relatively tame affair considering that Chair Kelly (#IWantIndictments) Townsend and vice chair Sonny (if I have a suicide) Borrelli were joined by Wendy (#Decertify) Rogers (who is technically not on the committee but was subbing in for Sen. J.D. Mesnard).
With the usual suspects in the voting rights groups deciding to boycott the committee in favor of lobbying the persuadable Republicans, the hearing was decidedly friendly (except when Democratic Rep. Sally Ann Gonzales accused the conservative activists of looking at her wrong).
And many of the bills the committee passed were benign enough — increasing the margin of victory that qualifies for an automatic recount, for example, was the first bill on the agenda. A bill to post ballot images online has bipartisan support, despite the hassles it creates for election workers.
Other bills, like beefing up security on ballot paper to more easily ferret out the nonexistent South Korean bamboo ballots, are unnecessary drains on state resources predicated on racist lies, but still relatively harmless in terms of their actual effect.
But Republican senators made clear that these bills are only the opening salvo in their war on imagined voter fraud ahead of the 2022 election. Believe them when they say there’s much more to come.
Democratic state Rep. César Chávez stepped in it with liberal Twitter when he wrote that allowing the severely mentally ill and drug addicts “to roam public places unsupervised is inhumane” — but he has no regrets.
With more than 300 quote-tweets and 350 replies as of our writing, the tweet received one of the more impressive ratios we’ve seen of a local politician lately. Here’s a sampling of some of the printable responses to give you an idea.
Republic columnist Elvia Diaz also joined the pile-on and dragged Chávez with a headline asking if he really wants to lock up the homeless (she didn’t answer the question or bother to ask him).
When we called, the moderate Democratic lawmaker argued his tweet was misconstrued, either deliberately or accidentally, by progressives who don’t like him.
He said he’s not talking about locking up addicts or the homeless. But in his neighborhood, kids can’t walk to school and workers can’t catch an early bus without feeling threatened by people in a stupor, he said.
“To be very honest with you, I did look at it and I read it over and over and over and over again. And I asked myself, ‘What words could I have changed?’” he said.
He concluded no change of word would have satisfied the Twittersphere.
And while he doesn’t seem to grasp why the wording of the tweet would anger people, Chávez said he’s sure people will like the legislation he’s drafting, which will be a bipartisan attempt to address the root causes of homelessness, including zoning’s impact on the lack of affordable housing, and funding for mental health and affordable housing options. (This is something he could have tweeted, to be sure.)
“What I meant is it’s inhumane that we do nothing about it, that we don't provide these individuals with the same resources to be able to remedy the problems and to be able to get them the help that they need. That's what the tweet was about,” he said.
Not thrilled, tbh: Arizona’s peak hospitalizations for this omicron wave might not happen until mid-February, likely ruining Rachel’s birthday and Arizona’s birthday and Valentine’s Day all in one swoop. And in the meantime, Arizona’s hospitals say they’re still overwhelmed by cases, and their staffers keep getting sick. But on the bright side, at least, some testing sites that got knocked out by storms over the weekend are back up and running. But then again, President Joe Biden’s free COVID-19 test plans overlooked address difficulties in rural and tribal communities.
Today in Conspiracyland: Rolling Stone got its hands on some emails that show Trump advisers involved in a scheme to turn Arizona’s electoral votes from Biden to Trump (more of the same in this story, just some new documents to parse). And while attorneys general in other states call for investigations into the fake electors gambit, don’t expect Attorney General Mark Brnovich to get involved, liberal Republic columnist EJ Montini writes.
Heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend: Gov. Doug Ducey said in his State of the State that some women were being charged $800 for rape kit processing, but the Arizona Mirror couldn’t find any evidence backing up his claim — and UA Don Bolles Fellow Gloria Gomez put in the legwork.
“The Mirror contacted the 29 forensic exam facilities spread across Arizona. All 17 that responded said that forensic exams were offered free of cost, and that sexual assault victims are not charged consultation fees.”
Desperate times: The Arizona State Board of Education will consider new rules for substitute teachers as schools face staffing issues and more reliance on subs. KTAR’s Griselda Zetino previewed the vote on Monday, which would get rid of a time limit on how many days a substitute can teach per year.
The expulsion was almost four years ago: The U.S. Supreme Court won’t hear ousted lawmaker Don Shooter’s appeal from the Ninth Circuit ruling, where he tried to argue that his expulsion from the Arizona House of Representatives over multiple sexual harassment claims violated his rights. That puts an end to his lawsuits in federal court, though a state court matter continues.
It used to be a mall: Phoenix could add resources to the area around Metrocenter, where crime has increased in the past year, the Republic’s Chelsea Curtis reports. The proposal calls for increased enforcement, added police technology, more surveillance of the area and more attention from non-police city departments.
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Affordable housing it ain’t: Kevin Easterly bought a senior apartment complex in Tucson and jacked up the rent by more than 50%, which would’ve been illegal in California, where he’s from, but isn’t in Arizona, the Arizona Daily Star’s Carol Ann Alaimo writes. The landlord shared his real estate flipping ideas on his social media, where he said the philosophy was to “rehab, kick the tenants out and raise the rents.”
“Worker shortage”: While U.S. businesses struggle to find workers, people from other counties endure longer-than-average waits for work visas, permits and green cards, the Republic’s Rafael Carranza reports. The backlog got worse during COVID-19.
Disturbing details: We mentioned the allegations against former Maricopa County Democratic Party second vice-chair and former legislative candidate Alejandro Larios a few months ago. Republic reporters Priscilla Totiyapungprasert and Ray Stern lay out the background: A former employee claims Larios undressed her without consent, and he separately was served a restraining order for stalking and touching a different woman.
No more beef, literally and metaphorically: A food truck park that drew the ire of its neighbors in east Mesa will shut down in March, the Republic’s Joshua Bowling reports. The land wasn’t zoned for holding a bunch of food trucks, and the process to appease the food truck owners, city and residents just wasn’t working out.
Non-Arizonans don’t vote here: GOP Sen. Wendy Rogers outraised all other legislative candidates in the latest campaign finance reports, though most of her donors don’t live in Arizona, the Republic’s Ray Stern writes. Several other legislative hopefuls pulled in big money for their down-ticket races, with Republicans outdoing Democrats overall.
New dome, same goddess: KJZZ’s Vaughan Jones tells us the origins of Winged Victory, the statue atop the copper dome of the Old Capitol. She’s older than the state, not made of copper and was purchased for cheap.
Better than running a newsletter: If you dream of owning a Southwestern bookstore and ranch, we’ve got great news.
Just click the link: We don’t really know what to say about this David Fitzsimmons column, but it’s, uhhhh, something, isn’t it?
A wonky environmental bill that received some critical press from the Republic, and a subsequent response op-ed from the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality shooting back after the story, heads to the House Natural Resources, Energy and Water Committee today at 2 p.m.
House Bill 2411, sponsored by Republican Rep. Gail Griffin, would allow ADEQ to create its own program to regulate the disposal of coal ash, a pollutant, instead of having the federal Environmental Protection Agency regulate it.
The bill’s fact sheet notes that the state program needs to be as protective as the federal standard in order to gain the EPA’s approval, but can’t be more stringent than that.
While combing through campaign finance reports, we found our favorite lil line item: Kari Lake spent $347.85 at the Boot Barn in Scottsdale in November.
We have a special place in our hearts for Western wear on the campaign trail — the fresh cowboy hats and perfectly clean boots designed to make a candidate appeal to a rural voter. We still want to follow a candidate as they outfit themselves for the job someday.
Alas, Lake’s finance report says the expenses were for prizes for an event. But you can get yourselves some pretty fancy cowboy boots for that price at the ol’ Boot Barn.
Amazing that in a column featuring the demented prevarication of Rogers, Townsend, Lake, and Ducey, plus the terrible Chavez tweet, the Fitz "piece" outcringes them all by a country mile.
The Chavez tweet would have been perfect describing the circus at yesterday’s Senate Gov’t Committee hearing featuring election conspiracists Rogers, Townsend, Borrelli, Lake and myriad Cyber Ninjas.