The Daily Agenda: "Election" "integrity"
TFW you don't even know anyone in Mesa ... All the cool Republicans get censures ... And he's super not worried about it.
With a few phone calls to alleged funders of two PACs supporting Kari Lake and a few “America First” legislative candidates, the Republic’s Richard Ruelas broke what may turn out to be one of the biggest stories in Arizona politics this year.
You should go read it, but the gist is that two PACs reported their money coming from two California companies whose owners say they’ve never heard of the PACs, didn’t contribute to them, and don’t know or care about Arizona politics. The PACs lied in order to boost election integrity candidates while hiding the real source of their funding, which remains a mystery.
We would say there’s a great irony in the “election integrity” candidates being boosted by millions in laundered campaign spending. But clearly irony is dead.
One of the PACs, Put Arizona First, spent more than $2 million backing Lake and attacking Karrin Taylor Robson in the GOP primary for governor. It reported that its funding came from a California-based company called SPH Medical, whose owner told Ruelas “Oh my gosh, no,” he didn’t spend $2 million on the Arizona governor’s race.
“I wouldn’t even spend that on the California governor’s race,” SPH Medical owner Tony Coleman said.
Every penny of the mysterious $2 million was spent at one firm: Rep. Jake Hoffman’s 1Ten.
Hoffman, you may recall, is a Queen Creek Republican who was banned from the major social media outlets for using one of his other companies, Rally Forge, to spread 2020 election and COVID disinformation online through a sophisticated domestic troll farm. He was one of Arizona’s “fake electors” who attempted to claim that the state voted for Donald Trump in 2020.
The other PAC, Securing Arizona, spent more than $220,000 to attack House Speaker Rusty Bowers and Sen. Tyler Pace and boost their Republican opponents in the primary. Secure Arizona reported its funding coming from the California-based Yellow Dog Estate Sales, whose owners also don’t follow Arizona politics or care who is elected to the Arizona Legislature from the East Valley.
“We don’t even know anybody in Mesa,” confused business owner Jennifer Heffner told Ruelas.
So, what do these two PACs have in common, other than lying about where they get their money? Well, Securing Arizona spent most of its money on The Resolute Group, a consulting and polling firm run by local far-right Republican George Khalaf. His father, Youssef Khalaf is the treasurer of the other PAC, Put Arizona First, and — here’s the fun part — he’s also the treasurer of Lake’s campaign. (The Khalafs didn’t talk to the Republic.)
Arizona politics is a very small world. Everyone involved in this scandal runs in the same crowd. It isn’t a coincidence that two PACs supporting the “election integrity” candidates both chose fake California donors to hide the real source of their funding. Whoever is really paying the bill is likely behind both organizations.
We expect someone will file a complaint with the Secretary of State’s Office over the bold and ridiculous strategy of lying about who’s funding these PACs.
Don’t hold your breath, however, for Attorney General Mark Brnovich to launch a speedy investigation to unmask the source of these campaign funds. Besides the fact that Brnovich has shown zero interest in investigating real threats to our elections, like the conspiracy to send fake presidential electors like Hoffman to Washington DC to attempt to steal the 2020 election for Trump, George Khalaf is Brnovich’s campaign consultant. Did we mention Arizona politics is a small world?
The real threat to election integrity in Arizona doesn’t come from Dominion voting machines, mail-in ballots or drop boxes. It comes from our weak campaign finance laws and the politicians and deep-pocketed donors, on both sides of the aisle, who exploit and break the laws while those tasked with enforcing the laws look the other way.
All sessions are special: Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Kathy Hoffman wants Gov. Doug Ducey to call a special session to increase the aggregate expenditure limit so that schools can approve their budgets with certainty that they won’t exceed the cap this school year and not worry about the AEL issue getting tied into a voucher expansion referendum. Schools are putting their budgets together now — and in Mesa, at least, the amount of money from the new state budget far exceeded their expectations.
Border wars head east: New York City Mayor Eric Adams said the city’s shelters are seeing a “sharp increase” in asylum seekers who need a place to stay and other services, which he attributed in part to the migrant buses Arizona and Texas are sending to the nation’s capital. Adams wants resources from the federal government to help the new arrivals. Ducey said Adams “needs to get his facts straight” because Arizona is busing people to DC, not New York. From there, though, people are heading to other destinations on the East Coast.
Someone teach this man to use capital letters properly: Former President Donald Trump yesterday fired off a couple more statements in favor of Arizona candidates that he already endorsed. He reiterated his endorsement of Mark Finchem for secretary of state (who also made it into the New York Times’ “On Politics” newsletter yesterday), saying Finchem “is tough, strong and he loves his State,” while taking swipes at Michelle Ugenti-Rita, but none of the other GOP primary candidates for the office. (For more on SOS candidates and election-denying, check out KJZZ’s rundown.) Trump also put out a statement about David Farnsworth, who’s running against House Speaker Rusty Bowers for the state Senate. He called Farnsworth a “wonderful man who will not rest until our Borders are Strong, and our Elections are totally Free and Fair Again” in a statement that mostly just bags on Bowers. Bowers, meanwhile, says “it’s going to be a miracle” if he beats Farnsworth in the primary, given the MAGA opposition.
Joining the club: The Arizona Republican Party executive committee censured Bowers yesterday, adding him to the list of Republicans like John McCain, Jeff Flake and Ducey who have the distinction of being censured by their party in recent years. The AZGOP “encourage(d) all registered Republicans to expel (Bowers) permanently from office” in the upcoming primary.
Another one: Attorney General Mark Brnovich told the Arizona Supreme Court that he intends to seek an execution warrant for another death-row inmate, Murray Hooper. Hooper, along with two others, was convicted of murdering two people and injuring another during a robbery in 1980. If executed, it would be the third execution in Arizona this year.
Questions about questions: Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin wants reporters to ask Ducey tougher questions about whether he would support Trump in 2024 and his thoughts on other questions related to Jan. 6, fake electors and Trump’s culpability in both.
About that red alert: While the state GOP put out an alert about destroyed ballots, elections officials say they aren’t finding any proof of the claims, the Republic reports. A Mohave County elections worker said she heard from some voters who accidentally cut their ballots while opening their envelopes, but no claims of deliberate ballot destruction. But AZGOP said they’ve gotten reports from people about missing or destroyed ballots. And despite the AZGOP telling voters in their alert to use drop boxes because they’re “always safer,” GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake is telling voters to use the mail instead of drop boxes or dropping off in person on Election Day because it is the safest method. (All of these options are safe.)
“I just went around and looked at every one of my staff in the eyeballs and said, ‘Have you gotten any calls of people complaining that their ballots have been destroyed, damaged or stolen from their mailbox,’” Yavapai County Registrar of Voters Laurin Custis told the Republic. '“And all of them said no. And I have not spoken to anybody from the GOP. So this is news to us.”
We’re always on the license plate beat: Arizona drivers can choose from another four new license plates, adding to the dozens of options that support all kinds of nonprofits in the Legislature’s quest to have the most special license plates of any state.
Heat is deadly: Heat deaths in Maricopa County have broken a half-year record, with 17 confirmed heat-associated deaths so far this year and 126 under investigation, the Associated Press’ Anita Snow reports. Most of those who have died of heat lived outdoors, a sign of both growing heat and homelessness.
Who’s afraid of the news?: Kari Lake met with Green Valley News’ Dan Shearer for a wide-ranging interview that lacked the camera-ready bombast of many of her other appearances. He summed it up by saying this version of Lake was “kind of boring” but more likable. These kind of sit-downs with local papers used to be a regular circuit for candidates for offices from mayor up to U.S. Senate. In our time, we’ve sat in on tons of them. But they’re becoming more rare as candidates use their own channels, bypassing local press.
How close is close enough?: The chair of the Santa Cruz County Republican Party filed suit over the county’s observation policies, which Steve McEwen claims don’t give observers a close enough view of signature verification processes, the Nogales International’s Angela Gervasi reports. The county says it does not have physical space to allow observers to get close to computer screens for the signature verification process, so they can watch through a glass window.
Today in chatty elected officials: An often-meandering county supervisor in Cochise County could be breaking open meeting laws, and the mayor of Scottsdale is apparently talking too much at city council meetings.
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Tucson Republicans finally have a district favorable to them in Legislative District 17, which splits 54-46 in favor of the GOP. This new district takes a lot of LD11 in Pinal and Pima counties and was crafted with help from the only incumbent running in the race: Sen. Vince Leach.
The district includes Republican strongholds Marana and Oro Valley and heads further southeast, but skirts around the Pima County fairgrounds and Vail, leaving them both to the neighboring Democrat-heavy LD19.
Leach, a longtime lawmaker and current Senate President Pro Tempore, faces two primary challengers in the Senate race. Justine Wadsack, who attempted a challenge of former Democratic Sen. Kirsten Engel in LD10 in 2020, comes with support from the far-right. Joining them is Robert Barr, a father of eight who works in finance. (His About page features photos of him and his family with no additional information).
In the House, five candidates are vying for two seats. Kirk Fiehler, a grassroots Republican; Rachel Jones, a former teacher and “Border Patrol wife”; Cory McGarr, a millennial New Jersey transplant who works for a pest control company; Anna Orth, who acted as a “witness” at the Nov. 30, 2020 hearing at the Hyatt and is supported by Kari Lake and Mark Finchem; and Sherrylyn Young, a retired OB/GYN.
In an “important campaign update,” Democratic Secretary of State candidate Adrian Fontes announced yesterday that he’s expecting his primary opponent, state Rep. Reginald Bolding, to drop a bunch of opposition research on him.
Fontes said that Bolding is mad at him about the media coverage of Bolding’s potentially illegal relationship with dark money organizations, and that the rumor on the street is he’s going to hit Fontes with “personal attacks on things that have nothing to do with the office.”
“I’m not worried about it,” he said, looking like a dude who is definitely worried about it.
The response from Democrats and Republicans alike ranged from 👀 to 🍿.
license plate beat !!!!