The Daily Agenda: So much money, so little interest
The Daily Agenda: So much money, so little interest
Dark money is so 2010 ... Rusty's world tour continues this week ... And never double-cross a drag queen.
Does anyone care about the role of money in politics anymore?
On the campaign trail in years past, we’d hear candidates railing against the corrupting role of money in politics. Democrats would often point to their opponents, saying they were backed by spooky-sounding “dark money1.”
These days, though, we don’t hear about campaign finance from candidates or campaigns much at all. That’s probably because both sides now see many millions coming to them from donors and on their behalf from political action committees.
It costs a lot of money now to run a successful campaign in Arizona, even for legislative races in some key districts. Every candidate, on either side, needs and wants that big money. There’s no longer a moral high ground to claim on campaign finance — the people without full pockets simply don’t win.
We as journalists are in part to blame, too. We rarely write campaign finance stories — they’re dry, and they serve mostly to say who has money and who doesn’t, not necessarily where the money is coming from. It’s become so commonplace to see millions flood into our state that it doesn’t seem as noteworthy to write about. (If you have ideas for how to better cover this area, hit us up.)
Our laws don’t require disclosure of some donors, but even the laws that govern campaign finance don’t come with a huge penalty for violations. Just take a look at the candidates who didn’t file required forms and ended up with tiny settlements to waive fines.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean the general public stopped caring about the influence of money in politics. They still point out when a politician seems to be serving their donors more than their constituents.
Terry Goddard, bless his heart, is still hoping the public cares. Not deterred by the two-time failure of his anti-dark money ballot measure to get on the ballot, the former Arizona attorney general is making another go at an initiative that would require more disclosure of campaign spending.
The Voters’ Right to Know Act has paid circulators out there now trying to get signatures, the Secretary of State’s Office shows.
The third time could be the charm for Goddard’s quest. But we’ll be curious to see if voters care enough to first put it on the ballot, then carry it to victory, at a time when the influence of money in politics seems to be accepted as inevitable.
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He will only testify via allegories: Rusty Bowers, the speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives and one of the few elected Republicans in the state who chose continuing the nation’s nearly 250-year exercise in democratic self-governance over giving former President Donald Trump a second term, is heading to Washington D.C. tomorrow to testify to the January 6 committee about how the president and his henchmen pressured Arizona lawmakers to steal the election for Trump, CNN reports.
*Failed* revolution, actually: Arizona embarrassment U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar declared that he “started the revolution” on Jan. 6 during a June event in Bullhead City, a new video that the Republic tracked down shows.
Not all problems are conspiracies: Outgoing Yuma County Recorder Robyn Stallworth-Pouquette told the right-wing website Epoch Times that her office has received fraudulently completed voter registration forms from third party groups that do voter registration. Pouquette became suspicious because she knew some of the people who were fraudulently registered or re-registered to vote.
“One of them was our pediatrician. One of them was a local attorney who I had been an acquaintance of and had passed away for some time. One was a minor that I believe was around the age of 14. … So it just became very clear that there was a problem,” she said.
No Friday surprise: Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s lawsuit against Secretary of State Katie Hobbs over the Election Procedures Manual failed. In a late Friday ruling, Yavapai County Superior Court Judge John Napper said the state could rely on the 2019 manual, which was approved by both the governor and attorney general. The court didn’t have a way to intervene in creating a 2022 manual as the complaint was filed “far too late” and would have disrupted elections already underway, Napper noted.
At what point is this illegal?: Don Herrington, the interim director of the Arizona Department of Health Services, got a legislative grilling over repeated failures by the department to properly investigate serious abuse and neglect claims at long-term care facilities, including incidents of possible sexual assault and neglect that resulted in death, the Arizona Mirror’s Jerod MacDonald-Evoy reports. The department failed to correct problems even after a state audit. The conversation over ADHS should continue later this week.
Nonprofit in name only?: Democratic super PAC American Bridge 21st Century (which you may recall from our explainer on campaign tracking last week) filed a complaint against Turning Point USA, asking the Internal Revenue Service to investigate whether the conservative nonprofit is illegally supporting Republican candidates for office, including GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, the Republic’s Stacey Barchenger reports.
Clock’s ticking: A bill that would allow a Maricopa County transportation tax to get on this year’s ballot has five days before it needs to pass, with a supermajority, in order to meet deadlines to go before voters this year, the Republic’s Joshua Bowling reports. Its supporters are still optimistic that can happen and that voters will have a chance to extend Prop. 400, a half-cent sales tax used to fund transportation projects.
World’s on fire: A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlights how older people, who are most at risk for heat-related illnesses and death, might not know cooling centers exist or how to access them, the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting’s Shaena Montanari reports. And in the Washington Post, journalist Fernanda Santos writes about how extreme heat is a public health crisis, especially for those living on the streets or in mobile homes.
And there’s no water: The Republic’s Editorial Board calls on state lawmakers to spend big and spend now on water through smaller, less flashy projects and tightening water laws while exploring long-term solutions. Meanwhile, in Pinal County, where a water expert said the topic is both “emotional” and “dire,” Arizona Sen. T.J. Shope said it’s likely the Legislature will put more money toward water this year, but let future sessions hash out where exactly to spend it. (He also said he expected the budget to be completed this week.)
“Medical marijuana” is just marijuana: Lawmakers are working on a bill to allow recreational dispensaries to sell medical marijuana, which is the same product but taxed less, because new “social equity” dispensary licenses are being zoned out of cities since they can’t sell medical marijuana, the Republic’s Ryan Randazzo reports. The bill also contains a host of other marijuana law changes, including random weed testing for pesticides and other harmful contaminants.
Remember the Robert Redford of the Forest Service?: Twenty years after one of the largest fires in Arizona history, the Rodeo-Chediski Fire, the Republic’s Lane Sainty looks back at the human and environmental toll in an ongoing series.
Majority doesn’t rule: Before the Arizona Supreme Court struck it down, a majority of voters passed Prop. 208 to raise taxes on high earners to pay for education. But don’t expect the majority party at the Legislature to take up a similar proposal because the “majority of the majority” rules at the Capitol, the Arizona Daily Star’s Tim Steller explains.
Tucson is bad at jobs: While the Phoenix Metro area has more than regained its jobs lost in the pandemic, Tucson has not. The sluggish growth probably has a lot of factors, including the slow return of Mexican shoppers to southern Arizona, Russ Wiles and Sarah Lapidus write in the Republic.
That’s a long wait: Nearly 20 years after an Arizona Yaqui woman spotted Yaqui art at a Swedish museum, the art is heading back to the Yaqui Nation. The United Nations helped put pressure on Sweden to return the artifacts to their owners, Isabella Grullón Paz writes in the New York Times.
Katie está en Cochise County: Democratic gubernatorial contender Katie Hobbs showed up for a campaign event in Cochise County alongside her longshot Democratic rival Marco Lopez, Hector Acuna reports for the Herald Review.
As the Legislature runs out the clock until the new fiscal year, we’re refocusing our energies on the upcoming primary election that’s a mere six weeks out.
Lawmakers may not be ready to hit the campaign trail just yet, but we are.
So we’re dropping our Bill of the Day section for a District of the Day — and we’ll start with the one-party dominated districts where the primary will almost certainly decide who represents that slice of Arizona in the House and Senate.
We can think of no better place to start than the Prescott area, which is home to Legislative District 1. It’s always LD1 in Prescott, as political mapmakers have a longstanding tradition of renumbering the maps to ensure the former territorial Capitol and one-time home of Doc Holliday and Virgil Earp (the lesser known brother of Wyatt) keeps its status as Arizona’s fighting first. It’s also home to what was once believed to be the tallest home in the world, a ridiculously shaped “Falcon’s Nest” that looks like it could be a super villain’s lair.
More than 85% of the voting age population in LD1 is white, and the district is so overwhelmingly Republican that Democrats don’t stand a chance.
LD1 straddles Interstate 17 between Black Canyon City in the South to Sedona in the north and takes in the cities and towns west of the interstate, including Paulden and Jerome. Ash Fork serves as its most northern outpost, while Bagdad holds down the west flank.
The Senate seat is wide open, as Senate President and “audit queen” Karen Fann is heading into retirement. Former Senate President and audit liaison Ken Bennett is trying to regain his old title as a senator from the district, though he faces competition from Republican Steve Zipperman, who is leaning on his bonafides of not being Bennett.
Luckily for all of us, disgraced former lawmaker Noel Campbell2, after allegedly abusing and running over his wife.
In the House, the two incumbents — Judy Burges and Quang Nguyen — are attempting to hold onto their seats against political newcomers Selina Bliss and Ryan Cadigan attempt to bring new blood to the Capitol.
GOP gubernatorial contender Kari Lake should learn a new lesson after this weekend: Never start a war with a drag queen.
After Lake joined the War on Drag on Friday, her former friend Richard Stevens — who has performed as Barbra Seville for the last 25 years and was a TV guest of Lake’s back when she was a reporter on Fox10 — dumped a bunch of photos of them together, including one in which Lake dresses as a gender-bending Elvis Presley.
Stevens said that Lake was not only a good friend and frequent guest at drag shows, but that he had performed at Lake’s house and in front of her daughter back when her daughter was 9 or 10 years old. Lake didn't quite deny that, but instead tried to split hairs by claiming Stevens was dressed as a Marilyn Monroe impersonator, not a drag queen, at the baby shower where Lake’s daughter was present.
Lake’s spokesman told the Republic’s Stacey Barchenger that anyone who prints those lies should be prepared for a lawsuit. She then shared another statement replete with misused capital letters, a la Trump, again threatening to sue.
Stevens doesn’t seem worried, telling the Republic that if Lake were to sue and win, she would stand to gain “66 pairs of high heels, 112 wigs, a rescue dog and my mom’s ashes.”
Perhaps the funniest part of this is Cindy McCain’s response to the news: She simply tweeted, “Boop.”
“Dark money” does not simply refer to nefarious money you don’t like, despite the common use of the term. It refers to money used to sway voters whose origins can’t be traced back to the original source because they are organized as 501c4 groups.
Correction: An earlier version of this article mixed up Noel Campbell with another disgraced former lawmaker from the district.
There is a circular pattern that pervades the money in politics issue. The funds candidates get are often described in the press as if they are a score indicating likelihood of victory; people hear about this and tend to vote for the candidate with the larger number; and that then makes the score more of the indicator that it was assumed to be. Money is certainly necessary for a campaign to be successful ; but over what is actually required just means that a campaign does wasteful and ineffective things, like floods of annoying attack ads. Grassroots activity is less expensive and far more effective.