Cartwright chaos meets Hernandez hustle

Hernandi stick together … Beer (tax) me … And Donald, Volodymyr and the karate instructor.

Democratic Rep. Lydia Hernandez isn’t new to controversy. It’s followed her at both the state Legislature and on the local school board she heads.

But her position at the Capitol might help her get out of her latest scandal on the Cartwright Elementary School District Governing Board.

This year, a key ally joined Lydia¹ on the school board. Voters elected her daughter, 20-year-old Cassandra Hernandez, to a four-year term on the same board.

That might be illegal.

State law says immediate family members who have lived in the same residence within the past four years can’t serve on the same governing board.

A voter in the district recently filed a lawsuit seeking to oust Cassandra from the board, alleging she lived with her mother within the last four years and is ineligible to hold the office.

But the mother-daughter duo has powerful allies looking out for them at the Capitol.

Democratic Rep. Consuelo Hernandez — no relation to Lydia and Cassandra² — successfully added an amendment to one of Lydia’s bills to exempt Cassandra from that law by making it only apply to school board members who are under 20 years old when they’re first elected.

Cassandra turned 20 just after winning her election. The beauty influencer turned school board member commemorated her birthday on her TikTok and Instagram.

The amended bill, HB2883, requires school board members to complete professional development training. Consuelo’s amendment tacks on seemingly unrelated provisions that directly pertain to Lydia’s daughter.

Neither Consuelo nor Lydia responded to our requests for comment, but Lydia brought it up unprompted to us a few weeks ago.

“(Cassandra) moved in with a family,” she said. “They think she lives with me — she does not. And because I’m a board member, it’s kind of thwarting her opportunities because of her relationship with me. But we met all the requirements, and people say it’s unethical?”

She didn’t clarify if Cassandra moved out before she turned 16, which would be the only way she could qualify to run for the office. It’s also worth mentioning that there’d be no need for Lydia’s legislative ally to amend the four-year residency law if it didn’t apply to Cassandra.

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The mother-daughter duo has teamed up with longtime ally Rosa Cantu to make big moves at Cartwright. Cantu served on the board with Lydia 20 years ago and was appointed to the board by former Republican Maricopa County Schools Superintendent Steve Watson in 2023.

Together, they control a majority of the Cartwright Governing Board.

At one of the first school board meetings of the year, the trio voted to put interim Superintendent Ema Jáuregui on paid leave without explanation. She worked in the district for 23 years and was named interim superintendent in December.

Community members have taken to meetings in protest of the move, while also calling out Cassandra’s allegedly illegal election.

If the bill is signed into law, the change can’t go into effect until 90 days after the legislative session ends.

By then, Cassandra may not even be on the school board if the lawsuit seeking to invalidate her election is successful.

Retired high school teacher and longtime education advocate Cecilia Moreno filed the lawsuit against the Hernandezes on Jan. 23 citing state law that says the mother and daughter who live together can’t be on the same board. Community advocates are helping cover attorney costs, she said.

“What drove me to it actually was the fact that her daughter, the very first vote on the board, was to terminate the interim superintendent … they didn't give any reason for putting her on leave,” Moreno told us. “And I don't know that (Cassandra) would have been aware of any situation having to do with Ms. Jáuregui if she hadn't discussed it with her mother at home.”

Before taking legal action, community members crowded the school board’s Jan. 16 meeting in adamant opposition to Jáuregui’s forced leave. Speakers said the former superintendent was instrumental in helping kids get hotspots during COVID-19 and has “cultural literacy” fundamental to the district, where the majority of students are Latino.

The duo was served legal paperwork at a school board meeting. They didn’t want to accept it.

Democratic Rep. Anna Abeytia, Lydia’s seatmate at the Legislature and former president of the Cartwright school board, also showed up. The new lawmaker lost reelection to the board last year.

“Given the specific financial and legal risks these actions pose to the district, the clear abuse of power, and the resulting harm of our students, I urge Governing Board President Lydia Hernandez to immediately step down from their role as president and to resign,” she said.

Less than two weeks later, Lydia, Cassandra and Cantu hired Watson, the former county school superintendent who put Cantu on the board, to take over as the district's acting superintendent.

Jáuregui is on paid leave, meaning the district is now paying two superintendents.

Other board members, like Denice Garcia, have abstained from votes on what she called “an illegal board.”

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Lydia has served on the school board since 2004. Cassandra attended Cartwright Elementary School, and said in her candidate statement, “I deeply understand our youth’s current challenges because I am living them.” She posts frequently on social media as a beauty influencer and has a YouTube account where she’s posted vlogs ranging from her morning routine to her son’s first dentist appointment.

Cassandra took to Instagram to respond to the allegations of her illegal election to the board and called all of Jan. 16’s speakers “politically connected.”

“I’m beating against the odds on a daily basis being a single young mother … This is extremely sad,” she wrote.

The vote to oust the interim superintendent was Cassandra’s first major controversy on the board.

Her mom has a longer list of past conflicts.

Steve Gallardo, current Maricopa County supervisor and former Democratic state lawmaker, led a recall effort against Lydia in 2010. He previously served on the Cartwright board and was concerned about her involvement in the board’s push to oust Cartwright’s then-superintendent Michael Martinez, who was credited with improving test scores, per the Republic’s archives. Lydia joined two other board members to fire him in December 2010.

And just like in Jáuregui’s case, Lydia refused to divulge the reason for the firing amid public outcry.

Moreno, who filed the lawsuit, said the issues with Lydia’s tenure on the school board have been “constant.”

“Her and another board member, whenever they got their feathers ruffled, they would just get up and walk out, then you no longer have a quorum to vote on things,” Moreno said.

The school board member and state legislator is a moderate Democrat who hasn’t always made friends on her side of the aisle at the Capitol. Last year, for example, Lydia accused several of her fellow Democrats of harassment, intimidation and “false imprisonment” and tried to lodge a criminal complaint against them, saying they wouldn’t let her leave her office unless she supported their legislation.

But letting a Republican with a rocky past in financial management take the reins of the school district is one of Lydia’s more questionable actions.

The Republican lost his reelection campaign in the primary to current Maricopa County Superintendent Shelli Boggs. The Board of Supervisors found Watson mismanaged the office’s finances and had to cover $2 million worth of debt from an unauthorized line of credit.

Lydia gaveled down Moreno for bringing up that financial mismanagement as a speaker at the meeting after his appointment.

Lydia called it a “public attack.”

Still, Moreno got in the last word: “Did you know that (Watson) had allegedly misused funds before you voted for him? And if you did, why would you put this district in jeopardy?”

Don’t tax my Modelo: President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Mexican, Canadian and Chinese imports kicked in yesterday, slamming the stock markets and sparking a trade war, though the Trump administration hinted that it will be a short-lived war, as he plans to come to some sort of a deal with Canada and Mexico today, per the New York Times. The Republic’s Reia Li has the local angle, noting that the price of your fruits, veggies, nuts, cooking oil and Modelo beer will spike if the tariffs remain in place with Mexico, not to mention the price of lots of raw materials from Canada and basically everything on Amazon that comes from China.

“The American president referred to the Canadian prime minister as ‘Governor Trudeau,’ repeating his assertion that Canada should be subsumed into the United States,” the Times writes.

It’s only March: After coming in third place in a Democratic primary to challenge Republican U.S. Rep. David Schweikert in their Central Phoenix district last year, Marlene Galán Woods, is getting back in the saddle, KTAR reports. The former TV news reporter and wife of late Arizona Republican Attorney General Grant Woods, announced yesterday that she’s running again in 2026. Meanwhile, the New York Times visited Schweikert’s swing district and found that voters are “cautiously optimistic” about Trump.

Anyone recall Steven Seagal?: The Trump administration is inviting local law enforcement offices to join immigration enforcement partnerships with ICE, but none have yet signed up, the Republic’s Ray Stern reports. The task force model they’re pushing is the same concept that former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio ran wild with during the days of his “crime suppression sweeps” terrorizing Latino neighborhoods. Those “287(g) agreements” were shut down more than a decade ago because of their propensity to lead to racial profiling, but Trump is restarting them. Maricopa County, however, still has a court order prohibiting it from participating thanks to the Arpaio legacy. And in Southern Arizona, some border sheriffs are not impressed with the border security task force Gov. Katie Hobbs created via executive order last week, KGUN9’s Alexis Ramanjulu reports.

"I don't need another task force," Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said.

Plant some grass: The New York Times covers the 12-car crash on I-10 that killed four people over the weekend, noting that investigators are looking at whether airborne dust limiting visibility was to blame. More than a decade ago, former state lawmaker Steve Farley was caught in a dust storm on a different stretch of I-10 that caused a 19-car pileup and killed three people, and he spent years pushing policies to tamp down on the dust, but they never really went anywhere.

“People are going to die (in dust storm crashes) in the future as well,” Farley said in 2017.

Weapons of war: Republican lawmakers want you to vote on a measure to legalize gun silencers, sawed-off shotguns and guns that shoot more than one shot at a time, Capitol scribe Howie Fischer reports. But that’s a watered-down version of Republican Rep. Alexander Kolodin’s original bill, which would have allowed you to own grenades, rockets and pipe bombs too.

“Our framers (of the Constitution) intended us to have those weapons of war to keep the government, which is our servant, in check,’’ Kolodin told the committee.

We also keep the government in check. But we don’t need grenades. Just your subscriptions.

Hágoónee': The recall petition against Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren collected more than 11,000 signatures, according to organizers, but fell far short of the nearly 30,000 signatures required to spark a recall. The Navajo Times’ Nicholas House and Krista Allen explain the origins of the recall — including allegations of sexual harassment from Navajo Vice President Richelle Montoya.

Hot in here: Spring is getting warmer for most of the United States, including Arizona, Axios reports in a piece that included one of our favorite Axiosisms of late.

“Between the lines: The Spring warming in the U.S. is taking place in tandem with increasing temperatures around the world due to human emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas.”

The weirdest story you will have the pleasure of reading today is about how an Arizona wedding DJ and karate instructor, who only casually follows news about Ukraine, posted some armchair commentary about President Donald Trump’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a local Facebook group for finding local handymen.

The post went viral and got spotted and reposted by Trump, who was either thinking the same thing and liked what he was reading or adopted the man’s suggestions as actual American foreign policy, per the Washington Post’s Yvonne Wingett Sanchez.

“Instead of looking at me like, ‘Hey, this guy’s a nobody,’ or whatever, he took it for what it was and said, ‘Hey, I like the words here.’ Maybe he felt like it captured the strategy,” Benson resident Michael McCune told Wingett Sanchez.

1. There are three Hernandezes in this story, so we’re switching to first names for clarity.

2. However, Consuelo is the sister of Democratic Rep. Alma Hernandez and former Democratic Rep. Daniel Hernandez.