Is being utterly venal a prerequisite for being elected to the lege from N. Scottsdale/Fountain Hills?

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.

"Ethics" and "Supreme Court" are two terms that shouldn't be used in the same sentence

From The Hill (emphasis added by me) -

Nadler questions Supreme Court ethics after Alito flag debacle: ‘None of them have clean hands’

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) brought the question of Supreme Court ethics back to light after Justice Samuel Alito was criticized earlier this week for an upside-down American flag allegedly flying outside of his Virginia home in 2021.

“None of them have clean hands, none of them have clean hands,” Nadler said during an appearance Saturday on MSNBC’s “The Weekend.” “And again, I would say we need two things. We need to enforce a code of ethics. And we need term limits on the Supreme Court.” 

I'll disagree with Nadler on one major thing - when it comes to Supreme Court ethics, there's nothing there to question.

While I do agree with him about needing to enforce a code of ethics for justices on the Supreme Court, but I believe doing so will obviate any need for term limits.

The American people deserve something from the Court we not getting from this Court - more of the members of the Court have to be honorable people.

Maybe Wendy Rogers can bring her time machine to her ethics hearing

Of course, if she actually had one, she could go back and prevent the white supremacist from murdering lots of people at the supermarket in Buffalo.

Oh, who am I kidding?

If she had one, she would probably give the shooter bigger ammo clips.

First, the "ethics" part.

From Dillon Rosenblatt and Jerod MacDonald-Evoy at the Arizona Mirror -

Wendy Rogers will face an investigation after claiming the Buffalo mass shooting was done by the ‘feds,’ not a heavily armed racist

The Arizona Senate is launching an ethics investigation into Republican Sen. Wendy Rogers for her comments on social media blaming the mass shooting in Buffalo on Saturday on federal law enforcement instead of the white supremacist accused of carrying out the attack. 

While the Senate moved to investigate Rogers, a Flagstaff Republican who has a history of outlandish and racist comments online, GOP legislators rejected an attempt by Democrats to immediately expel Rogers. 

Only minutes after a white teenager armed with an assault rifle and outfitted with body armor shot and killed 10 people — most of them Black — in a Buffalo grocery store on May 14, Rogers posted on several social media platforms that “fed boy summer has started in Buffalo.” She has previously used the term “feds” to describe white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups, seeking to blame federal law enforcement for the actions of racists. 

Rogers’ use of the phrase “fed boy summer” appears to be a nod to “white boy summer,” a viral meme used by neo-Nazis and white nationalists in 2021. White nationalist leader Nick Fuentes adopted the phrase for his summer road trip last year, including an alleged event with Prescott Republican Congressman Paul Gosar, who later denied it. 

As of right now, no ethics committee meeting has been scheduled.

Second, the "time machine" part.

From Twitter -

She can call Kari Lake "Governor Elect" all she wants, but it's May 17th.

The primary election will be held on August 2nd, and Karrin Taylor Robson may have something say about Lake winning the R nomination.

And the general election will be held on November 8th, and the Democratic nominee (who I presume at this point will be Katie Hobbs) may have something say about the R nominee winning the governorship.