Newly-elected chair of the Arizona Republican Party (AZGOP), Gina Swoboda, joined Thursday’s edition of The Afternoon Addiction with Garret Lewis on KFYI to discuss how her extensive knowledge of election laws will benefit her in her new position as the party’s chair, in particular her strategy of litigating to protect the party against lawfare this election cycle before it’s “too late.”
Swoboda was elected at the annual AZGOP Mandatory Meeting of the State Committee last week following the resignation of former chair Jeff DeWit.
During Thursday’s interview, Swoboda acknowledged the fact that the party hasn’t had much luck in regards to winning lawsuits challenging wrongdoing in the state’s elections; however, she said she believes the reason behind the losses was because litigation didn’t happen sooner.
“I know people are sick of hearing about litigation because we’ve gone down fighting before and lost but I believe that’s because we weren’t there early enough and I believe we are going to win some of these cases. And it has to happen,” Swoboda said.
Swoboda analyzed how exactly the party has lost in its litigation strategy, explaining how fundraising and timing play a role in challenging elections.
“You know what we’ve learned in all of this litigation – 2020, 2022 – is that you have to sue before the election starts because the judges will say its laches, and laches to me, once explained to me by the lawyers, means it’s too late. Everything started and you didn’t get here in time. So I’ve been working on litigation with all kinds of various entities and some of those cases are already underway and I think we’ll get the results, but that’s why we have to do it now,” Swoboda explained. “But historically, people don’t want to fund it now because campaigns and their funding come in in the election year. They’re really only starting to gear up now, they’re really going to hit the ground hard in June, but it’s too late by then. Especially this cycle.”
“Once they start doing things in this election, the judges are going to say, “If you wanted to argue about how they are doing this, you should have come ahead of time.” And that’s just a fact, it’s happened in every single case that we bring – it’s laches,” Swoboda added.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Gina Swoboda” by The Kari Lake. Background Photo “Arizona GOP Meeting” by aubrey savela.
