An open-book test
Have you been paying attention? … All the election lawsuits fit to print … And we love Taco Bell too.
We’ve created more than 40 playing cards for the candidates in the most competitive legislative races Arizona will see this year.
And after the hours we put into combing through the contenders’ past lives, current professions and interesting factoids to help you get to know them better,1 it’s time to see if you’ve been paying attention.
Don’t worry, this is an open-book test. You can find all the candidate cards we’ve published on the “Candidate Cards” tab on our homepage.
For those who manage to ace this quiz, we have a shiny Arizona Agenda pin to send your way.
Lawsuit season begins: Secretary of State Adrian Fontes is fighting in court to keep secret the identities of the 220,000-ish people caught up in the Motor Vehicle Division glitch that means the state doesn’t know if they verified their citizenship before registering to vote, Capitol scribe Howie Fischer reports. Right-wing group Strong Communities, which is represented by Stephen Miller’s America First Legal Foundation, wants the names under Arizona’s public records laws. But Fontes says groups like Miller’s would harass the voters if he disclosed them. Meanwhile, the Arizona Republican Party is weighing a lawsuit to challenge voter registration from people registered under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) — meaning active duty military and other Americans who live overseas. Axios Phoenix’s Jeremy Duda explains that raising questions about those voters’ citizenship status is a trend Republicans are using in swing states that could be used to sow doubt in the 2024 election results. Finally, the Arizona Supreme Court issued an order telling lower courts to prioritize hearing election cases in anticipation of another flurry of post-election lawsuits, the Republic’s Stacey Barchenger explains.
Vote early and it’ll stop: President Joe Biden is coming to Arizona next Thursday and Friday, KTAR reports. Details are still scarce.
Creep alert: Democrat Nicholas Gonzales, who is running for the state House in Chandler’s competitive Legislative District 13, was convicted of lying to cops after telling them his son was missing when he showed up to a custody hand-off with his ex-wife. And that’s really just the tip of the iceberg in a story that involved years of bullying his ex, skipping child support payments and deflecting blame for his actions, as the Republic’s Ray Stern reports.
“Court records show the bogus call by Nicholas Gonzales of Chandler was part of a pattern of bullying and inappropriate behavior during a decade-long battle with his ex-partner over the parenting of their son,” Stern writes.
Mystery soon to be solved: The Arizona Supreme Court shot down Ruben and Kate Gallego’s last-ditch attempt to keep court records of their 2016 divorce sealed. Right-wing news website Washington Free Beacon sued to get the records, successfully arguing they never should have been sealed in the first place. Ruben told NBC’s Julie Tsirkin that if Lake gets ahold of the records, she’ll use them against their son. The records, which will contain redactions, should be released today and Lake has already scheduled a press conference about it.
Consistency is key: Arizona counties rejected about 3,000 votes last year because they didn’t believe the signatures on the mail-in ballot envelope matched the signature on file, and they weren’t able to contact the voter in time to verify the signature, Votebeat and Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting explain in a joint piece.2 As election officials tighten up the signature review process to counteract conspiracists, there’s a risk more Arizonans could be disenfranchised.
“Like why did I even vote? Especially when I wrote my signature very neatly, and they reject it,” Nicala Schmit, a first-time voter whose vote was rejected because of a mismatched signature, said.
Coyote pups: Attorney General Kris Mayes says the Tempe City Council didn’t use public resources to influence an election when it paid a political consultant $32,000 to track online opposition to the council’s plan to create an entertainment district for the Arizona Coyotes, which voters rejected in 2023. The council did, however, violate Arizona open meeting laws by hosting backroom meetings with the consultant while claiming they were receiving legal advice, the AG’s Office found, per the Republic’s Sam Kmack.
We track online opposition to Arizona’s political shenanigans for just $10 per month. Save $31,990 by subscribing today!
Confuse the algorithm: About 37,000 Arizona Democrats switched their voter registration to Republican in the past three years since Donald Trump left office, the Republic’s Caitlin McGlade reports, which trumps the 19,000 Republicans who became Democrats within the same time. One of the reasons Democrats switched, McGlade reported, was to vote against Trump in the presidential preference election, which only Republicans can vote in.
A reimbursement, not a bribe: The Arizona Luminaria did, in fact, pay a jail inmate as part of its investigation into the Pima County jail system, but it was more of a reimbursement situation than a paying-for-information scheme, the Tucson-based news organization explained yesterday, after initially indicating it hadn’t paid inmates. Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos had used the payments — which the Luminaria said totaled $24.99 and were reimbursements to cover the cost of jail phone calls with reporter John Washington, who has been investigating the jails — as one of several reasons to suspend his election opponent, Lt. Heather Lappin, from her job. But it’s not the first time the authoritarian Nanos has found excuses to suspend his political opponents from their positions, as the Daily Star’s Tim Steller notes.
Same shit, different nation: Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren stripped his vice president Richelle Montoya of her duties and asked her to resign after she signed a recall petition against him, the Associated Press reports. Montoya, the first female VP of the Nation, accused Nygren of bullying and sexually harassing her last year. Then earlier this year, one of Nygren’s allies accused Montoya of sexually harassing him.
There’s just something undeniably funny about reading news of the latest Taco Bell menu item in Axios format.
What they're saying: "I was like, alright, let's put our dope-ass sandwich inside of their Crunchwrap.”
The new Crunchwrap Supreme was created by a Phoenix chef, Lawrence “LT” Smith, though it disappointingly won’t be available to Phoenix taco lovers until next year, and only if New York City taste testers give it the OK first, Axios Phoenix’s Jessica Boehm reports.
Those were way harder to find than you might think, and lots of lawmakers didn’t want to tell us their ages.
In Maricopa County alone, more than 15,000 voters verified their signatures on their mail-in ballots after elections officials flagged their signatures as potentially fraudulent.
Could you please do some more in-depth analysis on Proposition 140? I like the idea a lot, but I am worried that the League of Women Voters has some well-articulated concerns that it could have unintended consequences that would negate its benefits. Thanks!
I assume the AZGOP's goal with these lawsuits--threatened and already filed--is to throw sand in the electoral gears and (if Harris wins AZ) tie up AZ’s certification in the courts past the deadline for states to certify and send to D.C. It's similar to the playbook of 2020 and its "fake electors."