The Daily Agenda: Don't lock us up
If you're somehow undecided, it's a debate worth watching ... Mark hates Marxists ... And these push polls are getting ridiculous.
If you watched the debate for Arizona attorney general last night between Republican candidate Abe Hamadeh and Democratic candidate Kris Mayes, you may have actually learned something.
The debate focused in on the role of the attorney general, abortion prosecution, the 2020 election, democracy itself and the border — all issues that affect Arizonans directly, and that the next AG will play a big role in.
The candidates stayed relatively productive and collegial, if not pointed in their differences, except for one brief interlude where Hamadeh predictably attacked the moderators (while avoiding directly answering a question about filling out his mom’s ballot as a teenager), particularly the Republic’s Stacey Barchenger, for not disclosing that Mayes once worked at the Republic (well before Barchenger did).
Hamadeh, a former employee of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office and U.S. Army Reservist, repeatedly attacked Mayes over her unwillingness to prosecute people on abortion, saying she clearly didn’t understand the role of the AG and would instead operate like a quasi-lawmaker.
“We have to understand the role of attorney general’s not to set policy. I currently agree with General Brnovich’s position that the law is the law. I don't want to make the law. That's the job of the Legislature,” Hamadeh said.
Mayes, a former Arizona Corporation Commissioner, pointed out Hamadeh’s far-right views on elections and inexperience.
“You have said that you would have decertified the 2020 election, and that you would not have certified the 2020 election. I mean, for you to sit here and say that I am picking and choosing laws is ridiculous,” Mayes said.
Current AG Mark Brnovich has struggled to figure out how to manage the rabid right-wing interest in voter fraud prosecution, especially when he was running for higher office himself. But it’s one thing to make bombastic claims online about what you’ll do as top prosecutor, as Hamadeh has done, and quite another to actually file charges that could hold up in court.
Brno has made himself a frequent foe of Democratic President Joe Biden, filing lawsuits over countless Biden policies. Hamadeh would almost certainly continue that tradition, while Mayes more than likely would not.
Hamadeh is trying to soften the election fraud/decertify messages he regularly blasted during the primary. When asked who he’d prosecute for voter fraud, he mentioned the ballot collection charges in San Luis, which happened in the August 2020 primary. His rhetoric online and in heavily red forums called for locking people up — but, Mayes pointed out, who he wants to lock up and for what is never clear.
This race will be a close one: Mayes has a money advantage because Hamadeh had to spend to make it through the primary. Hamadeh’s reputation in politics is basically nonexistent, so he’s tied mostly to Trump’s in a state that rejected Trump in 2020. Abortion is clearly a much bigger issue now than it was a year ago, likely helping Mayes. The last two AGs have been Republicans, but the two before that were Democrats.
With so many high-profile races this November, the AG’s race hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. And it’s trite at this point to say the choices between the two candidates are stark — in this year’s races, almost all of them are.
But the difference between the two candidates could mean the difference between trumped-up charges for voter fraud and prosecutions over a pre-statehood abortion law. We should pay much more attention to the people who could make us criminals if they get elected.
Stop the count! Count the votes!: Gov. Doug Ducey and universal voucher advocates rallied yesterday to pressure Secretary of State Katie Hobbs’ office to hurry up on counting signatures for the Empowerment Scholarship Account referendum. Hobbs responded in a Twitter thread, saying her office has to follow the law and will complete its review “on or before” the 20 days the law requires. The referendum campaign has publicly stated it does not have enough signatures to make the ballot, despite its initial estimate.
The makeover didn’t help: Independents don’t like Blake Masters even though he’s toned down his weird ads and staunch positions, because they see him as a flip-flopper, the New York Times reports. (And the Washington Post already has a think piece based on the NYT piece that says Masters’ struggles suggest that his benefactor Peter Thiel is discovering it’s hard to craft a right-wing populist nationalistic message that appeals to independents.) But Masters just thinks all the pollsters are against him, as he explained in an interview with KTAR yesterday.
More abortion fallout: More than two dozen advocacy groups and reproductive health providers wrote a letter to Gov. Doug Ducey calling on him to start a special session and repeal the 1864 abortion ban. As we noted yesterday, Ducey likely won’t — unless Republicans start angling for one, too. Interestingly, though, advocates and Democrats now have an unlikely ally in their call for a special session: Attorney General Mark Brnovich, whose office wrote a letter to Ducey saying clarity was needed, Capitol Media Services’ Howie Fischer reports. And, in the Arizona Mirror, Caitlin Sievers creates a timeline of how pregnancy and birthing have changed since that 1864 law passed.
The county attorneys weigh in: After Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell on Monday declared she needed more clarity on what is legal or not when it comes to performing abortions to save the life of a mother, her Democratic counterpart in Pima County, Laura Conover spoke with KJZZ’s “The Show” about the importance of providing hospitals with guidance about what qualifies as saving the life of the mother.
“We have providers who are confused … as to what behavior is legal and what is not after Friday’s ruling,” Conover said.
Enjoy the job while it lasts: The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors appointed Devin Del Palacio, to fill out the remaining three months of Rep. Diego Espinoza’s term after he dropped out of the Legislative District 22 Senate race to take a lobbying gig after winning the primary. Del Palacio is not running in the chaotic write-in race to replace Espinoza, and Democrats have coalesced behind write-in candidate Eva Diaz.
Speaking of things that won’t last — the Arizona Agenda will go out of business if more of you don’t pay to subscribe. Keep us around. Click the button.
You’re telling me Finchem makes stuff up?: Politifact explains the accusations of ballot harvesting in Yuma County that secretary of state Republican nominee Mark Finchem brought up in his debate against Democrat Adrian Fontes last week. There was some ballot harvesting, but it was in the 2020 primary election and was nowhere near enough to sway any races, let alone invalidate the county’s entire election. Meanwhile, Finchem told the Republic that his failure to list income on his financial disclosure forms is a minor issue compared to Fontes “bungling” two elections.
"And any media hack who tries to imply they are the same is a Marxist-fringe lunatic," Finchem said.
The kids are organizing: High school students at multiple Arizona high schools plan to walk out of school today in protest of new laws that affect LGBTQ youth, the Republic’s Yana Kunichoff reports. One of the laws restricts school library materials with LGBTQ representation, and another could lead to administrators giving confidential information to students’ parents.
The Yuma GOP is so hot right now: The Republican Governors Association is funneling money through the Republican Party of Yuma County, rather than the state GOP, because it doesn’t trust AZGOP Chair Kelli Ward and it gets better rates on airtime by coordinating its campaign with parties, Axios’ Jeremy Duda explains. As a fun aside, Lake must have signed off on snubbing the AZGOP, since you can’t run a coordinated campaign without1 the candidate’s approval.
So much innovation: Substacker Robert Robb notes that ASU is moving to offer associates degrees and argues that should trigger lawmakers to lift all restrictions on offering bachelors’ degrees after they allowed community colleges to offer four-year degrees on a limited basis in 2021.
Just like schools, it’s underfunded: After lawmakers and Ducey created the Arizona Teachers Academy — a program to offer scholarships to people who want to become teachers in Arizona — the program took off. And now universities are asking for more money to meet demand. Ducey’s spokesman told the Republic’s Alison Steinbach that he’s supportive of additional money, though with only three months left in office, he’ll have to find a way to move it quickly.
Too little, way late: Lawmakers this year allowed cities to impose additional, but minor, regulations on short-term rentals, and Scottsdale is trying, but the law is still hamstringing city leaders and their proposed policy won’t do much to quell the Airbnb problem, critics and even some short-term rental owners agree, the Republic’s Sam Kmack writes.
New court decision just dropped: The Arizona Court of Appeals said Ducey was legally able to stop giving Arizonans $300 more from the federal government for unemployment in the height of the pandemic, after workers filed a lawsuit saying Congress intended the extra money to go to people who were unemployed, Fischer writes.
It’s like free land: The Phoenix City Council expanded a pilot program to install gates in alleys and allocated $500,000 to it — or enough for about 45 alleys, though residents can pay for their own alleys if they want at a cost of about 11,000 per two gates, KJZZ’s Christina Estes reports. Alleys can only get gates if a majority of the neighborhood supports it.
Today in candidate op-eds: The Republic gives Arizona House candidate Matt Gress space to promote and explain his proposed $10,000 raise for teachers. And the Arizona Daily Star gives state Rep. Alma Hernandez space to attack Republicans on abortion and Corporation Commissioner Lea Márquez Peterson (who isn’t up for re-election until 2024) an op-ed to promote nuclear energy and drag the liberals who don’t like it.
If you’re an Arizona voter, you’re probably getting a lot of texts from campaigns and outside groups these days. And some of them are push polls, phrased in a way to mislead the recipient about an opponent, followed usually by a request to donate to a campaign.
These texts truly get weirder — and more plentiful — every cycle, but this one against Democratic candidate for Maricopa County Attorney Julie Gunnigle is perhaps the wildest we’ve seen. (It seems to stem from allegations starting a decade ago against a local abortion clinic.)
Correction: Our fingers and brain failed to connect and a previous version of this piece said you can’t run a coordinated campaign “with” the candidate’s approval. We meant without.
Re: alley gates. Our neighborhood (Woodland Park) gated our alleys recently as participants in the pilot program.Totally shut down the dumping of bricks, concrete, and other construction trash, as well as stopped people from dumpster diving and leaving the trash all over the place. We will be keeping track to see if there's any impact on other crime.