Tag: Arizona

Two of Arizona’s New Election Integrity Laws Face Lawsuits

Rachel Alexander

Only three election integrity bills made it into law this past legislative year in Arizona, and at least two of them are now subject to lawsuits from progressives and Democrats. Five lawsuits have been filed against HB 2492, which requires proof of citizenship in order to register to vote — with the exception of voting in congressional elections, which is pre-empted by federal law. Two lawsuits have been filed against SB 1260, which makes it a felony to knowingly help someone to register to vote when the person is already registered in another state.

State Representative Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek), who sponsored HB 2492, told The Arizona Sun Times, “Since Jim Crow, when the courts were used by Democrats to institutionalize racism against black Americans, the Democrat Party and their operatives have a long track record of exploiting the judiciary branch of our government as a back door for enacting their anti-civil rights agenda.”

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Biggs Officially Endorses Kari Lake

Peter D'Abrosca

Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake received a major endorsement from a sitting U.S. congressman.

“The Biden Administration and radical Democrats have put our nation at risk,” Representative Andy Biggs (R-AZ-05) said in his Wednesday statement endorsing Lake. “Our southern border is being invaded, inflation is out of control, and my Democratic colleagues are spending recklessly. It’s time for States to push back on the federal government’s overreach and restore the vision of the Founding Fathers. We can only be successful by electing strong Governors. I know Kari Lake will stand up to the Biden Administration and protect the liberty we value in Arizona. I look forward to working with Governor Lake!”

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Arizona and Florida U.S. Representatives Introduce Bill to Fight Inflation, Boost Retirements

Rachel Alexander

Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.-06) is concerned that Arizona is undergoing the highest level of inflation within the continental states (urban Alaska is the only part of the country with a higher level). To combat the problem, he co-sponsored H.R. 8579, the Retirement Protection Act, with Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.-19).

In a statement, Schweikert said, “This bill would play a critical role in fighting inflation while helping Americans protect their savings.” He told The Arizona Sun Times, “It improves people’s retirement future so they stay even and don’t become a victim of inflation.” 

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Goldwater Institute Files Lawsuit to Remove ‘Misleading’ Healthcare Debt Initiative from Ballot

Rachel Alexander

Eight ballot initiatives are on the Arizona ballot this fall, with three still waiting for approval after submitting petition signatures. One of those three is the Protection from Predatory Debt Collection Act (PPDCA) which is being challenged by the Goldwater Institute over its description that will appear on the ballot, which the think tank alleges is “inaccurate and misleading.”

Filed on Aug. 8, the lawsuit states, “The Arizona Protection from Predatory Debt Collection Act would institute sweeping changes to debt collection in Arizona that extend far beyond the measure’s purported purpose of limiting the interest rate on medical debt.”

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Arizona and Texas Continue to Bus Thousands of Willing Illegal Immigrants to Washington D.C., Add NYC as a Destination

Rachel Alexander

Arizona and Texas have bused over 6,100 illegal immigrants they apprehended crossing the border since May to Washington D.C.. The migrants volunteer for the trips, motivated partly by more generous laws towards the indigent in those cities.

NPR and other new outlets interviewed the migrants, confirming that they preferred to be bused out of Texas or Arizona. One reporter said, “Ronald told me that he felt welcomed in Washington in a way he just didn’t in Texas.” The city is finding resources to deal with the migrants. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser secured a FEMA grant for an international nonprofit called SAMU to offer emergency services to migrants. The Catholic Charities umbrella organization is also assisting.

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Arizona Committee Focuses on Affordable Housing

The Center Square

Increasing affordable housing in Arizona is the focus of the bipartisan Housing Supply Study Committee, which held its first meeting Tuesday at the state capitol.

The committee was created in order to, “review data on the scope of housing supply and access in Arizona, compile an overview of ways to address Arizona’s housing shortage and to mitigate its causes, and solicit ideas and opinions of industry and subject matter experts and the community on additional recommendations.”

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Concerns Arise That Cochise County Elections Official Skeptical of Election Fraud Is Screening Election Integrity Proponents from Working at the Polls

Rachel Alexander

Arizonans applying for poll worker positions in Cochise County during this fall’s election are being asked to answer some unusual questions, including regarding their motives. Cochise County Elections Director Lisa Marra added the questions this year to the application that applicants fill out, some believe in an effort to screen out those with concerns about election fraud, which Marra speaks derisively about frequently on Twitter.

Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward tweeted in May that she heard “Election Departments around Arizona are requiring illegal ‘ideological tests’ of poll workers & that they are actively discriminating against #AmericaFirst Republican applicants.”

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Top Trump Nat Sec Aides Grenell, Patel Endorse Arizona GOP Senate Hopeful Blake Masters

Neil W. McCabe

Two members of President Donald J. Trump’s national security team endorsed Arizona GOP Senate hopeful Blake Masters in the Aug. 2 primary in a July 5 statement.

“We had the honor of working in President Trump’s administration. We know what America First looks like and what kind of person is needed in Washington, D.C., to fight against the swamp,” said Ric Grenell, who served as Trump’s ambassador to Germany and later the acting director of national intelligence, and Kash Patel, the former chief of staff to the defense secretary.

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California Adds Arizona, Other States, to No-Travel List

The Center Square

California is restricting state-funded travel to several states because its politicians disagree with political policies enacted by those states over the past several months.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that the state is restricting state-funded travel to Arizona, Indiana, Louisiana and Utah because of what it refers to as “anti-LGBTQ+ legislation recently enacted in each state.” Most states were added because they passed laws preventing biological males from competing in women’s sports.

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Sheriff Lamb and True the Vote Launch ‘ProtectAmerica.Vote’ for Sheriffs to Combat Election Fraud

Rachel Alexander

Arizona’s Sheriff Mark Lamb of Pinal County has been outspoken about taking action on the local level when the Biden administration will not, recently starting Protect America Now (PAN) to bring sheriffs together with patriotic Americans on important issues like border security. This past month, he formed a coalition with the election integrity organization True the Vote to ensure secure elections, ProtectAmerica.Vote.

“Sheriffs’ primary duty is to protect the rights of their constituents, which includes their rights as voters,” he said on the website. “ProtectAmerica.vote aims to solve this problem and bridge the gap between voters and local law enforcement. Our work will ensure we have secure elections in this country.”

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Commentary: Arizona’s New School Choice Bill Moves Us Closer to Milton Friedman’s Vision

Admin

“Our goal is to have a system in which every family in the U.S. will be able to choose for itself the school to which its children go,” the Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman stated in 2003. “We are far from that ultimate result. If we had that, a system of free choice, we would also have a system of competition, innovation, which would change the character of education.”

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Kari Lake Challenges Fox News Host Bret Baier for Not Covering Election Fraud: ‘Mama Bear Takes Down a Fake News Baier’

Rachel Alexander

Leading Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake came from the media, where she was a local anchorwoman for KSAZ-TV, so has considerable knowledge of how the media works. Since she started running for governor over a year ago, she frequently turns interviews around and puts the interviewer in the hot seat. During an interview with Fox News host Bret Baier on June 27, she turned the focus to Fox News’ lack of coverage of fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Baier has consistently expressed skepticism of former President Donald Trump’s belief that there was significant election fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

Baier already interviewed the other main candidate in the race, Karrin Taylor Robson, who is polling much lower than Lake, a week previously, and he failed to mention that Lake was endorsed by Trump when he introduced her.

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Defiant Kari Lake Says Arizona Won’t Enforce Unconstitutional Gun Laws After Controversial Vote

Peter D'Abrosca

Gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake struck a defiant tone Wednesday after 14 Senate Republicans crossed party lines and voted with Democrats on a gun control bill. 

“Arizona is a Second Amendment sanctuary state, and Kari Lake will ensure it stays that way. Republicans in Washington repeatedly fail to understand that, on every single issue, any deal we make with Democrats is just the first step on a slippery slope,” a spokesman for Lake’s campaign told The Arizona Sun Times. “They don’t make deals, they just take whatever ground Republicans are willing to cede and then keep marching forward with their leftist agenda.”

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New Arizona Law Expands Eligible Bus Driver Pool

The Center Square

After years of struggling to hire and retain school bus drivers, Arizona lawmakers and Gov. Doug Ducey hope to have enacted a solution.

“Drivers with a CDL are in high demand, and we’re losing them to big companies like Amazon and FedEx. A mixture of outdated federal and state laws are only exacerbating the problem,” said Sen. Sine Kerr, R-Maricopa, “Children are experiencing big delays in their pick-ups, field trips and athletic events are being canceled, parents are forced to drive inordinate distances to get their children to class, drivers are working sometimes 15-hour days to combat the shortage, and administrators are being forced to pick up some of the workload themselves.”

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Former President Donald Trump Endorses Abraham Hamadeh for Arizona Attorney General

Kaitlin Housler

Former President Donald Trump endorsed Republican candidate Abraham Hamadeh for Arizona Attorney General on Wednesday through his Save America PAC. Hamadeh is an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army Reserve and a former prosecutor of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. He is running for current-AG Mark Brnovich’s position, who is now running for U.S. Senate.

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Maricopa County Spokesperson Admits 20,000 ‘Late’ Ballots Were Scanned Before Verification; Expert Says Likely a Crime

Rachel Alexander

In an email exchange with The Arizona Sun Times this week, a Maricopa County Recorder’s office spokesperson may have unwittingly admitted that the county mishandled thousands of ballots from the 2020 general election that one watchdog groups says were accepted after the legal deadline.

Megan Gilbertson, the communications director for the Maricopa County Elections Department (MCED) – a department of the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office – said that the department processed ballots by scanning them into the tabulating machines at MCED before transferring their custody the next day to Runbeck Election Services, which verifies their legitimacy with signature verification.

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Universal Licensing Netted Arizona Several Thousand Jobs, Study Finds

The Center Square

Arizona took a nation-leading step into universal occupational licensing. A new study says it’s resulted in significant job growth. 

In 2019, Arizona became the first state in the country with universal license recognition; if someone has a work license in another state, they can use that license in Arizona. Since then, 4,723 new work licenses have been issued under the law, according to a study conducted by the Common Sense Institute and the Goldwater Institute.

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Arizona Senate Plan to Address Water Concerns Would Scale Back Governor’s Proposed Arizona Water Authority

Rachel Alexander

Concerns are growing in Arizona that a water shortage may be looming down the road. Gov. Doug Ducey proposed creating an Arizona Water Authority (AWA) earlier this year in his 2022 State of the State address, but now the Arizona Senate majority caucus is suggesting a simpler plan that would use the existing Water Infrastructure Finance Authority of Arizona (WIFA). 

Ducey’s plan to augment water resources, which he forged in partnership with Arizona Senate President Karen Fann (R-Prescott) and Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R-Mesa), would cost $1 billion and include integrating new technologies such as desalination, start large scale water augmentation projects, and encourage reuse and efficiency with current supplies.

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Americans Flocked to Arizona Cities amid COVID-19 Pandemic

The Center Square

Whether it was following new opportunities or taking advantage of the untethering of remote work, Arizona’s cities saw significant population growth in 15 months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The U.S. Census released its annual population estimates for cities and counties Thursday, reflecting changes in municipal populations as of July 1, 2021. Four Arizona cities – Queen Creek, Buckeye, Casa Grande and Maricopa – were among the top 10 in terms of largest percentage of growth in the 12 months ending July 2021.

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Arizona Charter Schools Rank First in the Nation: Report

Rachel Alexander

Arizona is frequently criticized for funding its schools less than most of the other states, usually tied for last with a handful of other states. But what doesn’t get covered as much is that it is ranked number one among the states for academic growth and charter schools.

Matthew Ladner, director of the Arizona Center for Educational Opportunity, a researcher with the Arizona Charter Schools Association, and former vice president of research for the Goldwater Institute, told The Arizona Sun Times, “If you had to choose between states with the most funding or states with the most academic growth, which one would you choose?”

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Utility Says Arizona Denial of Plant Expansion Could Jeopardize Power Supply

The Center Square

The utility company Salt River Project filed a request with the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) on Monday this week, asking the ACC to reconsider its decision to deny SRP a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility (CEC) to expand its peak-demand natural gas facility in Coolidge.

SRP argues that ACC’s vote will jeopardize its system’s reliability unless it is evaluated and reversed, posing a major risk of insufficient resources to satisfy customer demand in 2024. SRP’s ability to incorporate additional renewable resources would also be harmed, as the utility will lack essential quick-start, flexible generation during peak demand periods, according to a press release from SRP.

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Arizona Gets a Win in Court Challenge to Biden COVID Funds Tax Restriction

The Center Square

A federal appellate court dealt President Joe Biden a loss Thursday, ruling that Arizona can challenge the administration’s rule prohibiting states from using COVID-19 funds to lower taxes.

Biden rallied support and passed the American Rescue Plan Act in March of last year. That law provided funding for states to fight COVID-19 and rebound from the economic consequences, among other things. However, the law included a “tax mandate” preventing states from lowering taxes if they accepted the federal funds.

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Report: Yavapai County Has Unmonitored Ballot Drop Box Despite Arizona Attorney General Brnovich Stating Drop Boxes Violate Felony Law

Rachel Alexander

State Rep. Shawnna Bolick (R-Phoenix) was driving through Skull Valley in Yavapai County, Arizona, two weeks ago when she noticed an unmonitored ballot drop box in the parking lot of the U.S. Postal Service. Unmonitored ballot drop boxes have become a big concern lately due to the new Dinesh D’Souza documentary 2,000 Mules, which traced GPS cell phone locations to show that around 2,000 people may have illegally transferred handfuls of ballots repeatedly from left-leaning nonprofits to these drop boxes in swing states including Arizona.

Bolick tweeted, “Why does the Skull Valley, AZ US Post Office have an unmanned drop box for mail-in ballots in its parking lot when it has a blue mailbox in front of the post office that can already receive mail-in ballots?” She told The Arizona Sun Times she has a call scheduled with the Yavapai County Recorder Leslie Hoffman to discuss them.

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National Border Patrol Council-Endorsed Arizona Candidate for U.S. Senate Jim Lamon Running Barrage of Gutsy Ads, Some Censored by Big Tech

Rachel Alexander

U.S. Senate candidate Jim Lamon, who is running as a Republican for office in Arizona to defeat incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, is making waves with his provocative, bold TV campaign spots. The left-leaning big tech companies don’t like them, however, and so both Yahoo and Facebook have pushed back, with Yahoo actually censoring them. While broadcast TV is generally required by law to run political ads (FCC rules state that if a station allows state and local political candidates to run ads, they must accept them from all candidates), big tech is not. Yahoo refused to run an ad of his because it merely said “Let’s Go Brandon.” 

Stephen Puetz, one of Lamon’s campaign staffers, told The Arizona Sun Times the ads are making a difference in getting Lamon’s name known, since polls show his support is increasing. Lamon is running against Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich in the Republican primary, who has considerable name recognition, and another candidate, Blake Masters, is making significant ground due to funding from his boss, Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel. 

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2,000 Mules Revealed Alleged Massive Ballot Harvesting in Arizona, AG Brnovich Already Prosecuting

Rachel Alexander

Conservative commentator and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza recently released a documentary, 2,000 Mules, which features the work of True the Vote tracking GPS cell phone locations from around the 2020 election period to track what they have named “mules,” people purportedly illegally transporting hundreds of thousands of ballots from left-leaning nonprofits and depositing them in unmonitored drop boxes in several key swing states, including Arizona. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich may have already prosecuted one of the mules discussed in the documentary, a Democratic former official in San Luis, and he is currently litigating in court with Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs over her attempts to allow unmonitored drop boxes in the state Elections Procedures Manual (EPM). 

In the documentary, a whistleblower whose identity is disguised discusses a prominent Democratic official in San Luis — which is a small town of about 25,500 located in Yuma County — who engaged in ballot harvesting and even enlisted her to assist. Last year, Brnovich’s office prosecuted Guillermina Fuentes, who was a previous mayor of San Luis, a Democratic precinct committee person, and a member of the Gadsden Elementary School Board. A grand jury indicted her in December on one count of ballot abuse, also known as ballot harvesting, for collecting four ballots from people and turning them in. She has a change of plea hearing scheduled for June 2.

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Gubernatorial Candidate Kari Lake Vows to Shoot Mexican Drug Cartel Drones, Blow Up Drug Tunnels with ‘Defend Arizona’ Plan

Addison Basurto

Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake told The Georgia Star News she plans to secure the southern border of the United States with her “Defend Arizona” policy, which includes the destruction of drug tunnels and surveillance drones used by Mexican drug cartels. The Republican frontrunner traveled to Georgia on Thursday to support David Perdue in his bid to upset incumbent governor Brian Kemp.

“When we discover drug tunnels, we’re going to blow them up. We’re not just going to pour a little bit of cement in where they can easily jackhammer that out and start running drugs again,” Lake said.

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Arizona Attorney General Brnovich Could Pull Out of Leftward-Drifting National Association of Attorneys General

Rachel Alexander

The attorneys general of Texas, Missouri, and Montana are withdrawing from the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) over its “leftward shift over the last decade,” and so many expect Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich will be the next to exit. Since NAAG’s activities fall along partisan Democrat lines, and Brnovich has sued the Biden administration numerous times over its policies, he may find there are too many conflicts to remain a member.

Brnovich told The Arizona Sun Times he had no comment at this time, but would be looking into it next week. 

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Arizona Senate President Karen Fann: Decertification Is an Option If AG ‘Finds Huge Differences in the Vote Count’

Rachel Alexander

Many Arizonans are concerned that if there is clear evidence of massive voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election race in Arizona, the election will need to be decertified. Senate President Karen Fann (R-Prescott) reaffirmed this during an interview with the progressive organization Under Current. Fann appeared to be under the perception the reporter was a conservative.

Under Current reporter Laura Windsor asked Fann about the investigation into the independent Maricopa County ballot audit by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who has produced a preliminary interim report. “Is Brnovich taking this seriously, is he going to certify?” Windsor asked. Fann responded,

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Arizona Lawmaker Calls for Federal Action on Telegraph, Woodbury, and Tunnel Fires

The Center Square

Arizona state Rep. David Cook, R-Globe, sent a letter to Michiko Martin, Southwestern Regional Forester for the U.S. Forest Service, on Monday asking for an official Facilitated Learning Analysis (FLA) to be conducted on three fires that have burned in Arizona in recent years.

The three fires in question; Woodbury (2019), Telegraph (2021), and Tunnel (2022), charred more than 300,000 acres. The Woodbury fire covered 123,875 acres, the Telegraph fire covered 180,757 acres, and the Tunnel fire burned 20,924 acres.

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