The Daily Agenda: When losing is winning
Reflections on the Kari Lake problem ... Did somebody call security? ... And a 3/4ths majority ain't bad.
Kari Lake’s attempt to install herself as Arizona’s governor failed yet again last week, when the state Court of Appeals shot down her lawsuit, a loss which she attempted to spin as a victory in her many fundraising pitches as she prepares to launch into another run for office.
Lake’s lawsuit is one of her many attempts to stay in the spotlight as she keeps building her national election-denying brand. She’s going to run for something else someday, probably soon. It could be the U.S. Senate or even the vice presidency.
The appeals court ruling was not a victory for her cause. It was yet another legal rebuke of her fanatical assertion that she lost the election for any reason other than people liked her less than Gov. Katie Hobbs. Or as the court put it, Lake did not present evidence to show widespread disenfranchisement, misconduct or fraud and instead represented “sheer speculation.”
“Lake’s arguments highlight election day difficulties, but her request for relief fails because the evidence presented to the superior court ultimately supports the court’s conclusion that voters were able to cast their ballots, that votes were counted correctly, and that no other basis justifies setting aside the election results,” the ruling said.
But as the Associated Press’ Jonathan Cooper writes in a piece about Lake’s potential future in politics, “among conservatives, defeat has done little to erode Lake’s standing.”
Lake is one of several 2022 GOP candidates who lost and are now toying with running again, “causing headaches” for political operatives and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Politico reports. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, the campaign arm of Senate Republicans, said it will start intervening in GOP primaries in some cases to weed out weak General Election candidates.
Intervening in primary elections used to be something of a third rail for political parties. But these days, it’s increasingly common for MAGA-minded Republican leaders to use the party infrastructure to support their preferred candidates.
It’s not unusual for a candidate who lost, especially if they lost narrowly, to try again. Sometimes they win. But Republican leaders attribute their losses last year to particularly bad candidates, like Lake, who draw a cult-like following among a majority of GOP primary voters, but simply turn off too many moderate Republicans and independents to win in November.
Just as Republican bigwigs are struggling with what to do about Lake if she runs, we as journalists are trying to figure out how or if to cover any of her continued attempts to remain relevant until she runs again.
She holds sway not only locally, but nationally, as a rising star for the MAGA movement. You can find her at Mar-a-Lago or in other states, touting the same refrain of election fraud lies. Her friends in the Arizona Legislature still won’t recognize Hobbs as the governor. Legislative committees are airing her election grievances, which enter into her court cases. She has influence on both voters and elected officials.
The Kari Lake problem is basically the Trump problem. How much attention do you give to a sideshow? That sideshow clearly grabs the attention of Lake’s supporters and biggest detractors, but is it worth continuing to follow? The attention is the point.
It’s a complicated line to walk, both for us as journalists and you as readers. The 2022 election is well past over, so we’re largely done covering it. But it’s still playing out in our courts, in our Legislature and, of course, on the internet.
We can’t fully ignore Lake, at least not yet, though we try to cover her sparingly. The end of her legal battle should come soon, giving us a finale to her last big storyline — and her another chance to fundraise for whatever comes next.
It’s still scary out there: Arizona’s U.S. Sens. Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema are on the top 10 list of most campaign funds spent on personal security, the Republic’s Ronald J. Hansen writes. Senators and members of Congress aren’t traditionally provided a security detail like the president, but can pay for security with campaign funds thanks to a 2017 decision by the Federal Elections Commission. Generally, the top of the big security spenders list is dominated by Democrats, people of color and women, Hansen notes.
Bills, bills, bills: Bills are flying now. Lawmakers are hosting marathon voting sessions this week as they start sending bills from one chamber into the other. Here’s a smattering of the laws our elected officials are arguing about.
An independent board could oversee the state hospital, rather than the Department of Health Services.
Highway signs might be prohibited from carrying messages about anything but road safety, including pro-vaccine campaigns.
One bill would outlaw solar or wind projects on lands leased for grazing.
They want to make the trains shorter.
Giddyup: Gila County Supervisor Steve Christensen says his fellow county supervisors oppose about 90% of the bills that affect them because they’re almost always “not good.” The Payson Roundup’s Peter Aleshire writes that he’s charged with riding herd over the Legislature, but he doesn’t mind.
“For an old rancher, it’s like being charged with keeping the coyotes from getting after the chickens,” Aleshire writes.
Watch the judges, not the politicians: Abortion policy in Arizona has swung dramatically since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. While the courts are still considering several cases with potential huge implications, legislative changes aren’t likely given Arizona’s split government, Ray Stern writes in the Republic.
Rock on: The New Yorker’s Rachel Monroe has a dispatch from Tucson’s world-famous Gem and Mineral Show where she meets odd rock hounds and hangs out with “the well-heeled collectors who show up to look at the five-figure, six-figure rocks.”
We need another stimulus: Arizona and other states that froze people from being kicked off of their Medicaid programs during the pandemic may now see a massive wave of people being disenrolled, Stephanie Innes writes in the Republic. Congress approved a spending bill allowing states to resume disenrollment. In Arizona, an estimated 650,000 people could lose their healthcare.
Quite a choice: A teacher grabbed some students and fled campus during a lockdown last week at Walden Grove High School in Sahuarita. The teacher agreed to resign, and a pair of students were arrested for making the threat that sparked the lockdown, the Green Valley News’ Mary Glen Hatcher writes.
But he never campaigns: U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva went on a full-blown media blitz to criticize House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and fellow Republicans for their border tour in his district last week, The Hill reports. He did “at least 11 separate interviews with national and local press while touring remote areas added to his recently redrawn district.” He also used Republicans’ tour in a fundraising pitch, saying McCarthy came to Arizona to “appease the far-right members of his party, who are waging a fear campaign against our immigrant communities.”
“It was a change of pace for a lawmaker who’s generally known to be media-accessible while in Washington, but much less so when Congress is in recess,” The Hill’s Rafael Bernal writes.
New caucus: Democratic Arizona Sen. Catherine Miranda formed a Black caucus for the Legislature as a way to get insight from the Black community, KTAR reports. There are no Black Democrats currently in the Legislature, and just one Black Republican. While caucuses are typically made up of lawmakers who hail from a said demographic or ideology (like the Latino caucus, freedom caucus, etc.), this caucus is designed to hear from Black community leaders because of the lack of Black representation at the statehouse.
The other Udall: Documentary filmmaker John de Graaf produced an hourlong documentary about Stewart Udall, the former secretary of the U.S. department of Interior from Arizona and brother of the more famous Udall, Mo. He’s recognized as the father of modern conservation, Cronkite News’ Alexis Waiss writes. Here’s the trailer.
We’re local: The editors of State Press Magazine, ASU’s student-led publication, are calling on the university to drop its New York Times subscriptions, joining signers of two open letters who expressed concerns with the Times’ coverage of trans and other LGBTQ+ issues. The editors instead suggest ASU could invest in subscriptions to local and LGBTQ-focused publications.
Beau wasn’t an option: Politico wrote about the unlikely bromance between Adrian Fontes and Stephen Richer, revealing that Richer voted for Fontes in 2022 but would’ve preferred Republican Beau Lane, who didn’t make it through the GOP primary.
Lawsuit probably coming soon: Glendale drew fire from the ACLU over the panhandling ban it put in place ahead of the Super Bowl, but the city still plans to enforce the ban and its penalties and hasn’t responded to the ACLU’s letter warning that the ordinance would violate the First Amendment, the Phoenix New Times’ Kayta Schwenk reports.
Welcome to the club: David Fitzsimmons, the longtime political cartoonist at the Arizona Daily Star, now has his own Substack. Check it out here and subscribe to support his work.
Correction: We mistakenly claimed Jevin Hodge had run twice for Congress; he has narrowly lost two races, but one was for Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.
Our bill to honor investigative reporter Don Bolles, who was killed by a car bomb in downtown Phoenix in 1976 for investigating the mafia and political corruption, passed the House yesterday with support from a supermajority of lawmakers.
Unfortunately, the vote for House Bill 2171, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Jennifer Longdon, wasn’t unanimous. Fifteen Republicans voted against the bill. None of them spoke up to explain why they opposed it.
HB2171 now heads to the Senate, where we’re hoping it fares better than its mirror bill, SB1039, sponsored by Republican Sen. TJ Shope. That bill died an unceremonious death in the Senate Government Committee, where chairman Jake Hoffman didn’t put it up for a vote ahead of the deadline for Senate bills to clear Senate committees.
The bill still has a lot of hurdles and potential pitfalls ahead, but for today, let’s celebrate the victory. Our bill is halfway to the governor’s desk.
Real lobbyists get paid a lot of money to do this kind of thing, but we’re doing it for free because we think it’s a worthy cause and nobody else was gonna do it. Subscribe today so we can keep working for free.
Mooove over, strip club.
You may have seen the giant cow atop the sign for Pete’s Place Adult Cabaret in Star Valley, which is known mostly for that cow and the formerly high likelihood of getting photo radar tickets while driving through.
Now, the Star Valley Town Council wants to buy Pete's Place just to eliminate the business, the Payson Roundup’s Teresa McQuerrey reports. The town council hopes to resell the business to recoup costs.
Keep the nutcase Lake cone rage to a minimum.
I'm glad you both decided to not "fully ignore" Lake and all of her shenanigans. As much as I despise her and reading about her many loses because she's an extreme nutjob, I still want to know what she's up to from time to time simply because we all know she won't go quietly into the sunset like most losing candidates for office do.