That legislative district (LD3), like all LDs, elects three people to the state legislature, one state senator and two state representatives.
LD3 has sent Reps. Alexander Kolodin and Joe Chaplik and Sen. John Kavanagh to the state legislature.
Kolodin is an attorney, with an attorney's regard for the truth.
Kavanagh is a retired police officer with a PO's regard for the Constitution.
Chaplik was a rather unremarkable ideologue.
Until this week.
Not he's catapulted right past Kolodin and into Kavanagh territory. Kavanagh may still be the most craven member of the lege, but now part of his competition for that title is from his own LD.
From AZMirror, written by Jerod MacDonald-Evoy -
House Ethics Committee drops complaint against GOP Rep accused of signature fraud
An ethics complaint filed against Republican state Rep. Austin Smith, after he was accused of petition signature fraud, was dropped by the House Ethics Committee Friday.
Smith dropped his reelection bid last month after he was accused of personally forging more than 100 petition signatures to get on the 2024 ballot. Now the lawmaker is facing a possible criminal investigation after state election officials forwarded his petition signatures to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.
Chaplik is the chair of the House Ethics Committee and while they have dropped consideration of the complaint against Smith for his (alleged) crime, he and they are continuing to look into the complaint lodged against Democratic State Representatives Analise Ortiz and Oscar De Los Santos, who are accused of, wait for it, making Rs feel bad about themselves for their support of Arizona's pre-statehood near-total ban on abortion.
The House Ethics Committee is known for giving a free pass to Republican members, no matter how heinous their words or (alleged) crimes.
Note: The now-former member of the lege mentioned in the article, David Stringer, is running for County Attorney in Yavapai County. Apparently, his campaign is utterly self-financed -
It seems that Chaplik (and the other R members) feel that bringing disrepute to the body is acceptable...if the one behaving badly is a Republican.
He/they also believe that the bad behavior by a Republican shouldn't be criticized...if the one doing the criticizing is a Democrat.
