The Daily Agenda: The price of independence

Is it really a voting bloc if it can't vote? ... The legislative primary we want and deserve ... And Ditat Deus was a lame state motto anyway.

For decades, Arizona’s number of independent voters has been growing, and as of last week, independents officially make up the largest bloc of voters in the state. 

Sure, independents have been on the rise basically everywhere because nobody really likes the political parties. But Arizona is among only a handful of states where they make up the largest plurality of registered voters¹ in part because the state makes it very easy to be an independent and remain involved — independent voters can cast a ballot in either party’s primary election that they choose. 

But that’s not true for every primary election. 

Every four years, Arizona hosts a March “Presidential Preference Election” — our version of a presidential primary, or caucus system. And every four years, independent voters are surprised and outraged to discover that they can’t vote. 

It doesn’t have to be this way, though. 

Following the 2016 PPE, when Bernie Bros and newly MAGAfied independents were united in their outrage over not being allowed to vote in Arizona’s PPE, former Gov. Doug Ducey was among those to condemn the long voting lines and challenge the idea that political parties should be allowed to run taxpayer-funded closed presidential primaries that bar roughly a third of Arizona voters from having a voice in their presidential primary. 

Four years later, then Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes took up the mantle, calling on his party to open its PPE to independents. 

“If the Democrats – and Republicans, for that matter – want a private election, they should pay for it. It is wrong for Arizona to exclude one-third of taxpaying voters, essentially forcing independents to change their party affiliation to participate.”

But a presidential cycle later, the largest bloc of Arizona voters still won’t be able to have a say in one of the most consequential decisions of the next few years: Who will be the Republican nominee for president of the United States. (Democrats will likely cancel their PPE next year, as both parties have done when their party’s president is running for re-election.) 

Either political party could challenge the state law barring independents from voting in the PPE, and they’d probably win. Legal precedent is on the side of independent voters. But so far, neither party has attempted to let the third of voters who don’t want to join their ranks weigh in on the next presidential candidates.  

As the ranks of Arizona independents continue to swell, independents should remember that the price of independence from political parties is losing out on your chance to shape the presidential election line-up. And independents should use their newfound power as the largest voting bloc to demand that their elected representatives — both Republicans and Democrats — allow them a voice in the PPE. 

Adios, David: After Republican Sen. Wendy Rogers retweeted some alleged revenge porn of the president’s son to her 300,000 followers that include children, Republican Rep. David Cook said he’ll challenge her in a Republican primary next year, AZFamily’s Dennis Welch reports. Rogers sponsored legislation to limit porn online this year, Welch reports, and the original tweet came from an account called “@IlluminatiBot,” so you know it’s legit.

There are easier ways to make a living: At least 17 elections officials have quit their job since 2020, the Republic’s Mary Jo Pitzl reports, and several counties still have “critical vacancies.” Secretary of State Adrian Fontes blames “MAGA fascists,” while election experts say this is a really bad time to be training new folks for such an important job. 

"You don't want to learn how to run elections in a presidential election year," David Becker, founder and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, said during a recent stop in Phoenix.

Lawsuits abound: County attorneys are still considering a lawsuit against Gov. Katie Hobbs’ executive order banning them from prosecuting abortion-related crimes and declaring the Arizona Attorney General’s Office has sole authority to prosecute (Which AG Kris Mayes has no plans to do). The Arizona Mirror’s Gloria Rebecca Gomez reports that Hobbs sent a letter to the dozen county attorneys who asked her to rescind the order saying she won’t rescind it. In other court news, former AG Mark Brnovich’s former election integrity head, Jennifer Wright, is threatening to sue Mayes for $2 million for saying she “fired” Wright, who maintains she quit, KTAR reports. 

After the lawsuits come the trials: The Zone is going on trial today, the Republic’s Juliette Rihl reports, noting that the three-day trial has two possible outcomes: The judge will side with the business owners and residents who filed the suit and set another date to require Phoenix to permanently clear out the entire area, or he could reverse his previous ruling requiring the city to clear out the encampment.

Broke and broken: The state GOP is broke, but its bigger problem is that the two-party system is broken and a whole new generation is leaving both parties because of the toxic hot takes they represent, conservative columnist Jon Gabriel writes in the Republic.

“Republican leaders only like me when I vote for them or write checks. Democrat bosses are much the same. But neither view me as an equal, just a pawn from which they extract money and power. That model lost its appeal long ago,” Gabriel writes.

Save us a seat: With the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company pumping upwards of $40 billion of investment into its North Phoenix facility, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego is taking a two-week trip to Asia to boost trade relations and talk about opening direct flights from Sky Harbor to Asia somewhere, the Republic’s Taylor Seely reports.

If you’re not from here, stay inside: The Washington Post notes that the extreme heatwave sweeping the Southwest could be the “worst ever” with record highs for record lengths of time. 

“While it’s already excessively hot in the region, it will get significantly worse next week, and it’s unclear when the heat will ease,” the Post writes.

Tucson’s Arcadia: The well-off Sam Hughes neighborhood in Tucson is full of roof rats, the Daily Star’s Nicole Ludden reports, and pest control experts worry they’ll spread if the city doesn’t do something to stop them now. 

Politics should be local: The initiative to end Tucson’s “hybrid” election system filed more than the number of signatures needed to qualify for the ballot, though those signatures will still have to withstand scrutiny before the initiative officially makes the ballot, Jim Nintzel writes for the Tucson Sentinel. 

They recommend us: The Arizona Agenda is clearly the best Substack² in the Valley, according to Phoenix Magazine, which told its readers in its annual “Best of the Valley” awards that “journalism isn’t dead — it’s just assuming different forms.” The Phoenix New Times agreed we’re the Best (™) newsletter in Phoenix last year, so it must be true.

“AA keeps you up on all the news that’s fit to Substack,” Phoenix Magazine writes. 

Building Arizona’s best newsletter is hard work. But you can be a part of this project by just clicking a button. That’s super easy!

Kari Lake fanboy and all-around creepy dude Jordan Conradson chased Gov. Katie Hobbs around her gym this weekend, provoking one of the most honest and heartfelt responses from a politician that we’ve ever witnessed — and inspiring several fantastic memes.

1. It’s not the first time independents have led the state’s voter registration, as ABC15’s Garrett Archer notes. They also claimed the most voters from 2014 to May 2016, just after the 2016 PPE. 

2. Unless you include the separate category of “Best Substack by Just One Guy,” in which case it’s Bob Robb’s newsletter.