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Just another Trumpless weekend in AZ ... The debates will go on ... And don't believe the stories Andrei is pointing your attention to.
We were super excited for this weekend’s mega MAGA meetup — the planned two-day freedomathon featuring former President Donald Trump at a fundraising rally for the AZGOP Friday, followed by the AZGOP’s annual meeting Saturday.
It was set to be the main event launching AZGOP’s election-year efforts, a big show produced by the biggest names in Republican politics.
Unfortunately, after last week’s mess between U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake and now former AZGOP chair Jeff DeWit, Trump canceled his rally and the AZGOP locked down its meeting to elect a new chair, leaving us with nothing to do all weekend except catch up with the fallout online and the gossip in the text threads.
Here’s what you need to know:
Who’s the new AZGOP chair?: Gina Swoboda won the GOP chairmanship, beating out the self-proclaimed “ultra-grassroots” candidate in a single round of voting. She secured the endorsement of former President Donald Trump and the thought leaders of his wing of the party like U.S. Reps. Andy Biggs and Eli Crane, State Sen. Wendy Rogers and pillow salesman Mike Lindell.
Who is Gina Swoboda?: She’s an interesting, complicated character. Swobada leads a nonprofit that dabbles in election conspiracies1 but she used to work for Katie Hobbs in the Secretary of State’s Office, and she’s an actual certified election officer. She served as Trump’s Arizona election day operations manager in 2020, works for Rogers’ Senate Elections Committee and was big on the whole “Sharpiegate” conspiracy. Her knowledge and background in elections administration have made her a star among the election-denying right, but critics note she lacks any practical experience in fundraising or leading an organization the size of a state party.
Who was on the Ultra MAGA grassroots team?: Corporation Commissioner Jim O'Connor led the effort. While a few of his slate members won lower-level positions, O’Connor got crushed, winning about a quarter of the vote, which must have been a big disappointment to God, who had reportedly endorsed O’Connor for AZGOP chair.
"I'm God's guy," O'Connor told The Republic before the meeting. "He's got this. Case closed."
Was there drama at the meeting?: Not as much as you might expect. Former AZGOP Chair Kelli Ward allegedly got into a scuffle while trying to January 6th her way onto the stage. And Lake received a smattering of boos.
How did they count the votes?: They hand-counted them after they couldn’t figure out how to work the tabulation machines they borrowed.
Can Swoboda even be chair?: There’s some question about that, considering she’s not an elected precinct committeeman, which is a requirement for the chair. But nobody seems to care too much about that rule.
Were there accusations of fraud?: Of course there were. For a really weird take on it all, check out this Twitter Space featuring expelled lawmaker Liz Harris, who claims that last summer, she was told by “someone who had lunch with an establishment player” that DeWit would resign in January and Swoboda would be the new chair.
“I realized, I too had been played. That entire release of the Jeff DeWit audio, Kari Lake’s reaction, the entire thing … this was all pre-orchestrated,” Harris said.
What does this all mean for the future of the AZGOP: It’s too early to tell, but the party has been a dumpster fire for years. Its Infighting and squabbles have led to low fundraising numbers and low trust among the donor base. And while some of the MAGA wing hope Swoboda will be a “stabilizing” force, most of the old-school Republicans have long written off the party apparatus. While Swoboda received some praise from failed gubernatorial hopeful Karrin Taylor Robson, the reaction among the business insider class was mostly muted bemusement — few among them believe she can turn the party around. They’d settle for just stemming the crazy for a while, but given Swoboda’s background in election integrity and ties to the most MAGA wing of her party, that might be asking too much.
How bad are AZGOP’s finances?: Pretty bad, but the situation is not as dire as the local news industry, which desperately needs your support.
Did you notice how we cleverly snuck that in there?
How are Democrats taking the news?: Well, this tweet from the Arizona Democratic Party Chair about sums it up.
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Adios, ASU: The Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission won’t be partnering with ASU and Arizona PBS to host debates for the first time in 20 years this year after the great debate debacle of 2022 strained the relationship and sent Clean Elections looking for a new partner. Instead, the newly formed Arizona Media Association will coordinate Clean Elections’ debates and make the video available to any media organization that wants them, the group announced at its conference Friday, per the Republic’s Mary Jo Pitzl. Meanwhile, Gov. Katie Hobbs, not state Treasurer Kim Yee, will pick the next Clean Elections board member, and ultimately determine control of the Commission’s majority, after Attorney General Kris Mayes stepped in to settle their disagreement about whose turn it is to pick one, the Arizona Mirror’s Jim Small reports. Who controls the commission especially matters right now, since it’s tasked with enforcing the state’s new dark money rules.
Give ABOR the Arizona-Mexico Commission treatment: Hobbs fired off a scathing letter late Thursday calling out the Arizona Board of Regents and the University of Arizona for its surprise budget shortfall while vaguely threatening “changes to leadership” if the entities don’t enact reforms quickly. (The governor appoints the members of ABOR, which oversees the university system.) She stopped short of calling for the ouster of UA President Bobby Robbins, though everyone’s wondering if he’ll keep his job, as the Daily Star’s Tim Steller notes. Faculty and staff want another no-confidence vote against Robbins, but Tucson megadonor Jim Click is still a big fan, hosting a get-together of “Bobby boosters” and inviting the local paper to hear from his fans.
“This is no longer about finances, this is about a lack of accountability, transparency, and at the end of the day, leadership,” Hobbs wrote.
There are nuts on both sides: A Tucson man was sentenced to one-year probation after threatening to walk up behind former state lawmaker Mark Finchem and slit his throat, the KOLD reports.
Keep Cochise County in Denial: Election officials are trying to change people’s minds about tabulation machines in Cochise County ahead of the 2024 election, and Democrats are attempting to oust the county’s two election-denying supervisors, but change is slow to catch on in a county that’s home to some of Arizona’s most ardent election conspiracists, Votebeat’s Jen Fifield reports in a feature from the field.
“I was going around and talking to people, and they were like, ‘Who is Tom Crosby? What is a supervisor?’” Theresa Walsh, a Democrat challenging Republican Supervisor Tom Crosby, told Fifield.
Moving on: Gilbert Mayor Brigette Peterson announced this weekend that she’s not seeking another term, KTAR’s Serena O’Sullivan reports. The announcement comes after Petersen faced intense criticism for implying she didn’t know anything about the “goons” terrorizing her town until the council discussed it this month.
Hot races: A handful of races in competitive legislative districts will determine if Republicans can hold on to their slim majorities in the House and Senate and January’s campaign fundraising numbers offer a glimpse into who’s hot in battleground districts, KJZZ’s Wayne Schutsky reports.
Legislative committees have only three weeks left to consider the 1,200 (and climbing!) bills that have been introduced so far at the Capitol.
Any bill that doesn’t make it out of its committees in the House or Senate by mid-February will be effectively dead.
Today, we’re keeping an eye on the Senate Committee on Transportation, Technology and Missing Children at 2 p.m. which will hear a few interesting bills:
SCR1001 would ask voters to outlaw photo radar. Considering the bill already failed and is coming back for a “reconsideration” vote, we’ll be watching to see if Republican Sen. Frank Carroll switches his vote and supports it.
SB1125 would allow parents to blacklist their IP addresses from porn sites in an attempt to keep their kids off them.
And SB1180 would create a licensing process for “roadable aircraft” like the flying sportscar we mentioned last week.
Congressional District 1 Democratic hopeful and former Democratic Party Chair Andrei Cherny sent his supporters some talking points to defend him after news broke that the feds were investigating his company, Aspiration, for its carbon offset claims.
Unfortunately for him, we also got ahold of the talking points!
As you might guess, a lot is going on in team Cherny’s explainer of the situation, but some of our favorite parts include:
Downplaying the significance of a federal investigation of his company.
“An inquiry doesn’t mean the government is alleging that anything at Aspiration was done wrong. They have not,” the talking points read.
Repeating the suspect claim that Aspiration “planted” over 100 million trees, saying, “No one has disputed this.”
ProPublica very much disputed the company’s previous claim of having planted 35 million trees, noting the vast majority were still just promised, not actually planted.
Finally, the campaign pointed the finger at Republic columnist Laurie Roberts, one of many who covered the federal probe, using two headlines from her more-than 40-year career at the Republic to highlight her “track record.”
Pro-tip to the Cherny team: If you’re gonna send out talking points to your supporters, make sure the circle is small enough they don’t wind up in our hands. In fact, maybe don’t amplify the knocks against you at all.
But if you’re gonna blast out criticism to your whole listserv, please send them today’s edition.
One current headline on its site: “Will Illegal Aliens Choose the 2024 Republican Nominee in Arizona?”
"SB1125 would allow parents to blacklist their IP addresses from porn sites in an attempt to keep their kids off them." I hate it when people who know nothing about how the Internet works try to legislate like this. Filtering by IP address is neither scalable nor effective when most people have IP addresses that are dynamically assigned, easy to change, and VPNs are easy to use. If parents want to filter porn, it's much, much easier for parents to do it on their side using a firewall or web proxy and DNS filter, which persists over dynamic IP changes. There are still ways to get around it (e.g., VPN or use of a mobile device!), so there's no substitute for having conversations with kids and managing their device use.
Who had "Kari Lake gets booed off stage" on their Bingo card? Yeah, I know -- not nearly as bad as MU-R's moment in '22, but If I'd known that might happen, I would have snuck in to watch.
Just wait for Hair-always-on-fire-KWard to start a disturbance. Then slide by the security guy while he's wondering if he should tackle her to get his mic back.