Proposition 320: Vague, part 2

Prop 320 started out as the brainchild of MAGA Sen. and grifter Jake Hoffman, starting life as SCR1032.

A debate on the topic of Prop 320 took place.  I don't know either participant personally.

The ballot language, for all props, from the Arizona Secretary of State, is here.

As written, if approved by the voters, Prop 320 would all school districts in Maricopa and Pima counties, as well as larger districts outside of those counties to spend at least 60% of their budgets on "direct instructional expenses".

The problem is that term is never defined.

The penalties for school districts that don't comply are well-defined, though, 

As is the fact that compliance or noncompliance is determined by the legislatively-controlled Auditor General's office.

I've urged people to vote against *all* of the statewide propositions, but this might be made more palatable with two minor changes -

1. List specific definitions/meanings for "direct instructional expenses".

2. Apply it to *all* schools that receive public funding in any way, shape, or form.

I'd still vote "no", as blanket, "one size fits all" solutions for nonexistent problems never work, but it might be more palatable to voters who are less discerning than me.

Ballot questions: school districts

 At the beginning of September, I wrote a post urging all voters to vote "No" on all statewide ballot questions.

However, the statewide questions won't be the only ones considered by voters.

Many counties and municipalities will also have questions on the ballot; and unless they're related to Flock cameras (and similar technology) and/or data centers, I almost certainly won't cover the ones that aren't on my particular ballot.

Also on the ballot will be many questions from school districts across the state.

Note: I generally support school district ballot questions.  The Republicans in the state legislature are well-known for woefully and maliciously underfunding public education.  It's incumbent on the residents of those districts to adequately fund their schools (and to stop giving the Rs a majority in the lege, but that may be a topic for another post).

Note2: I live in the Balsz school district and will vote "Yes" on my ballot, but not all districts are as well-run.  I recommend that all voters make their own choices.

From the website of the Maricopa County School Superintendent -

There are 27 districts in Maricopa County with questions on the ballot (some districts will have more than one question).

From the website of the Pima County School Superintendent -

From the website of the Yavapai County School Superintendent -

 

From the website of the Pinal County School Superintendent -

The website of the Mohave County School Superintendent doesn't list any school district ballot questions.

The above counties are the five most populous counties in AZ; there are 10 other counties here.  If you live in one of them, or anywhere in the state of Arizona for that matter, do your due diligence on school district elections in your area.

Arizona Ballot Measures 2026: vote no on everything

That's the short version, though most readers want more.

The not-as-short version: there are eight questions on the ballot for AZ voters to consider; all were put there by the Republicans in the Arizona Legislature.

They did so for multiple reasons, and none of them were about benefitting the average Arizonan.

Some the questions were placed on the ballot in an effort to inflict R propaganda on civil society, to raise R voter turnout, and, oh yeah, to evade the veto pen of Governor Hobbs.

Longer version, with individual analyses (though I'll try to keep them short):

Note: all pics are courtesy the Arizona Secretary of State's website.

Proposition 141 -

It's about exempting electric vehicles (EVs) from taxation as society transitions from vehicles that incur fuel taxes to EVs.

Prop 142 -

This one is about adding R bigotry to the state constitution and ending all DEI/affirmative action efforts. 

Prop 144 -

This one is an anti-vote by mail measure.  Cheeto votes by mail, but legislative Rs want to prevent the rest of society from doing so.

Prop 316 -

As there is no statewide sales tax on food, this is all about reducing and limiting the revenue received by jurisdictions that provide the most services to Arizonans.

Prop 317 -

This one would allow legislative Rs to designate anyone they don't like as a "drug cartel" and sic the Arizona Department of Homeland Security on them.

Prop 318 -

This one is bald anti-trans person bigotry.

Prop 319 -

This one is a two-fer - they get to attack photo radar (which they absolutely HATE) and defund the Citizens Clean Elections Commission (CCEC).  The CCEC receives funding from a surcharge on traffic tickets.  Legislative Rs also hate CCEC; it provides public funding for candidates who pledge to not accept money from private "donors"/special interests.   It serves to reduce bribing opportunities for the patrons of legislative Rs.

Prop 320 -

This one would severely limit budget independence of large public school districts and all school districts in Maricopa and Pima counties (and, based on my research, all but five of the large school districts affected by this are in Maricopa or Pima counties).

Under this measure, public school counselors, nurses, custodians, administrators, librarians, and more would all but go away.

Private and charter schools?  Not impacted.

One lesson that both major parties seemed to learned: very few legislative seats are completely unchallenged

Don't misunderstand me - many of the districts are "safe" districts, meaning that because of a registration advantage in a particular district, a specific party is almost certain to win in that particular district.

All information from the website of the Arizona Secretary of State -

This year there are 27 contested races for 30 AZSenate seats.  Only three are uncontested

And there are 25 contested districts in the AZHouse (2 representative spots in each district),  15 of which have two candidates from one party and one candidate from the other, meaning that is ceding one of the two seats to the other party (note: many, but not all, of these are "split" districts, with each major party claiming the affiliation of on of the current members of the AZ House.

In 2024, there were 22 contested races in the AZSenate, and 27 contested districts in the AZHouse (and 14 two/one districts).

In 2022, there were 22 contested races in the Senate, and 20 contested districts in the House (and 18 two/ones)

In 2020, there were 20 contested races in the Senate, and 25 contested races in the House (with 25 two/ones.)

Ralph Heap - deeply-flawed candidate

Like all of us, I'm imperfect and don't expect others to be perfect.

However, there's a not-so-fine line between "imperfect" and "deeply-flawed."

And Heap seems to be on the wrong side of that line.

It's rare that I give free advice to an uber conservative (OK, Cheeto-supporting) group like Turning Point (TP), but I will here.

Not that I expect them to listen to it.

Stop backing deeply-flawed candidates.

TP is well-known for having a vaunted voter turnout machine.

They're also well-known for their failures, particularly in races that aren't confined to Republicans.

From The Mesa Legend, written by Gwendolyn Owen, dated 4/13 -

SRP election saw high turnout, Turning Point loses majority

The usual low-profile election that appoints leaders to govern Arizona’s largest utility company turned into a contentious race and saw record-breaking turnout after Turning Point USA campaigned for their approved candidates. 

The election on April 7 collected 36,000 votes for both the Salt River Valley Water Users’ Association (Association) and Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement and Power District (District) elections, over four times as many votes collected in the last Salt River Project election. In 2024, only 7,500 votes were collected in each race, according to SRP senior media relations manager Jennifer Schuricht.

Now, TP is backing Ralph Heap, a Republican candidate for the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC).

He was successful in the primary, deposing one of the incumbents and moving on to general.

He's got issues, though.

From the Arizona Agenda, written by Nicole Ludden -

Ralph Heap has a money problem

Arizona’s Republican primary election results delivered great news for Ralph Heap — a Turning Point-aligned lawmaker attempting to move into statewide office as one of Arizona’s top utility regulators.

He unseated incumbent Corporation Commissioner Nick Myers in a narrow victory, becoming one of two GOP nominees for a seat on one of Arizona’s most powerful but little-known elected bodies.

[snip]

He had officially qualified for roughly $370,000 in public funding for his statewide campaign from the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission.1

But the Commission was withholding his funds because he has refused to sign a sworn statement that his campaign finance reports are accurate.

Read the entire article, not just the lines that I've quoted.

In addition to his campaign cash problems, he likes to campaign as a doctor.

From the same AZ Agenda article -

Which would be fine, except that he's not, at least, not any longer.

From the website of the Arizona Medical Board -

In and of itself, that may not be a deal breaker - Paul Gosar, member of Congress, likes to refer to himself as a "doctor" but his dental license expired years ago.

However, there was something else on the med board's website that was attention grabbing.

Under most circumstances, a letter of reprimand might not be a big deal (other than highlighting the [lack of] professionalism he brings to a position of trust), but the Arizona Medical Board, like such boards in most states, is notorious for not disciplining any of its licensees unless two conditions are met:

1.The licensee is caught doing something bad in a way that can't be ignored; and

2.The licensee is caught doing something that brings disrepute to the rest of the profession.

From page 3 of the letter -

Not exactly a glowing character reference.

Primary results are in and general election contests are set*

* = mostly

Curiously, the biggest beneficiaries of the Republican primary may be the Democratic candidates.

The victors in the R primary races were the most extreme candidates in those races.

Will that make it easy for the Ds?  Nope, not even close.

Will that make is easIER?  I think so, but that comes with a big caveat.  Weird things can happen in a general election, even without the cheating the Cheeto and his acolytes plan to bring to bear (I'm still trying to wrap my head around Tom Horne defeating Kathy Hoffman in 2022.  He may be the worst human being in Arizona politics.)

From the website of the Arizona Secretary of State (AZSOS), the unofficial results -

For AZGovernor - Democratic incumbent Katie Hobbs will face Republican Andy Biggs, who defeated David Schweikert.

For AZSOS - Democratic incumbent Adrian Fontes will face Republican Alexander Kolodin, who defeated Gina Swoboda.

For AZAG - Democratic incumbent Kris Mayes will face Republican Warren Petersen, who defeated Rodney Glassman.

For AZTreasurer - Democrat Nick Mansour will face Republican Elijah Norton, who defeated Katherine Haley.

For AZSuperintendent of Public Instruction - Democrat Teresa Leyba Ruiz, who defeated Brett Newby, will face Republican Kimberly Yee, who defeated the aforementioned Tom Horne.  Yee v. Horne is still close enough to flip; I don't believe that it will, though.

For AZCorporation Commission - Democrats Clara Pratte and Jonathon Hill will face two of the three Republicans who ran, Kevin Thompson, Ralph Heap, and Nick Myers.  The two current frontrunners are Thompson and Heap. However, while Thompson's spot atop the R ticket seems solid, Heap and Myers could switch spots as they are separated by less than 12,000 votes.

For the CD1 seat in Congress, Democrat Amish Shah, who defeated Marlene Galan-Woods, will face Jay Feely, who defeated Joe Chaplik.

For the CD5 seat in Congress, Democrat Elizabeth Lee, who defeated Chris James, will face Mark Lamb, who defeated Daniel Keenan.

The biggest upset of the night possibly was a down ballot/Maricopa County-only race.  

From the unofficial Maricopa County results -

"JP" = Justice of the Peace.

Former legislator Cheuvront was an incumbent JP in a downtown Phoenix justice precinct.

Justice precincts are crafted to meet two standards -

1. Workload balance.

2. Single party districts.

As such, there are two basic ways for a JP slot to change.- retirement or a primary challenge.

Cheuvront ran into the second one.

Q2 2026 Reports Are In! Statewide

This will cover certain state-level candidates

Some commentary:

Norton is still trying to buy the R nomination for state treasurer - 

R candidate for Arizona treasurer Elijah Norton has just over $300K in cash on hand (COH), which gives him a big advantage in that area over R rival Katherine Haley, who has just over $81K in COH.

Problem?

He's loaned his own campaign...wait for it...$2.75.million over the election cycle (he's repaid $50K).

And that may be undercounting his loans as that is based on his own reporting, and there is some conflict there -

To put his loan amount into some perspective, while he's loaned his own committee over $2.7 million, he's raised under $300 thousand from donors other than himself.

With friends like these...

It's not unheard-of for various industrial concerns to try to influence primary elections in AZ, often through PACs and/or membership organizations.

Usually, though, they're not this brazen or sloppy about it.

Note: While my ballot has already been returned and I did NOT vote for either, I do not blame either candidates for the things that will be called out.

On Wednesday, we received some political literature in the mail.  Not an unusual thing in an even-numbered year this close to an election.

At first glance, the lit wasn't unusual - it expressed support for a couple of candidates in LD8 legislative races by saying some nice things about them.

However, upon closer examination, there were a few problems with the lit.

Ummm....some basic copy editing could have found and fixed this.

Then...

Misspelling a candidate's name?

Bush league, at best.  Actually, here in AZ, we might refer to it as "tumbleweed league." 😀

Could have been resolved by reading the candidates' W-2s (or 1099s) or if that's too much work, I don't know, reading THE OTHER FREAKIN' SIDE OF THE LIT!

But neither of those is worse the outright lie on the piece.

"Not For Sale."

Sounds good...except that it's utterly contradicted by the "Paid for by..." statement on the other side.

R LD27 Senate primary debate

On 6/22, the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission (AZCCEC) held a "debate" between the two Republican candidates for the R nomination for the State Senate seat in LD27, incumbent Kevin Payne and his challenger, Anthony Kern.

All of AZCCEC's debates are here.

From the website of the AZSOS -

Quotes were used around "debate" because Payne declined to participate and turned it into a Q and A session with Kern.

With either outcome, the R nominee will be a lousy human being.

Payne is already known for his dismissive demeanor toward his Democratic colleagues, often not even acknowledging their existence when encountering one.

Kern can best be described as "fact-dismissive."

At the 40:14 mark of the video, Kern claimed the accused killer of Charlie Kirk, Tyler Robinson, was a trans Democrat.

At the 41:02 mark of the video, moderator/interviewer T.J. L'Heureux of the Arizona Agenda advised him that wasn't so.

Kern shrugged off reality.

Earlier, he also called Robinson "deranged."  He may be that, I'm not a psychiatrist or psychologist who is qualified to make such a diagnosis.  Kern may want to think twice about categorizing anyone, though.

From AZMirror, written by Jerod Macdonald-Evoy, dated 5/5/2021 -

Where was Anthony Kern on Jan. 6?

Newly reviewed footage by Arizona Mirror raises new questions about former Republican lawmaker Anthony Kern’s activities around the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 as the lawmaker continues to participate in a recount of Maricopa County’s ballots from the 2020 general election. 

Kern has continually insisted that he did not breach the Capitol and no footage or other evidence suggested otherwise. Photos show Kern on the front steps. 

However, footage reviewed by the Mirror shows that Kern was present at other parts of the Capitol breached by protesters. 

Kern, who was an election denier in 2021, doubles down on that today - 

At the 17:40 mark, Kern stated "...What we saw in 2020 was absolutely ridiculous...I still believe that election was absolutely stolen and I will never sway from that because there's enough out there so we do need to get our election and President Trump..."

He never bothered to provide any evidence.

At 18:08, he stated "Elections have been stolen for the past 40 years."

Ummmm about that...

From Ballotpedia -

It's been over 34 years since Democrats controlled the State Senate and over 60 years since the Ds controlled the State House (control of the Senate was split in 2001/2002).

Should someone bother to inform Kern that if "elections have been stolen", it hasn't been by Ds?

Or will he just shrug that off, too?

While this isn't my district and none of these folks will be on my ballot, in an interesting way, watching this did help me with my choice in the CD1 Democratic primary.

Early on, at the 9:29 mark, Kern was asked if there was a Democratic member of the legislature he could/had worked with.

He named one, and that person is one of the candidates running in the CD1 Democratic primary.

If Kern likes a person, I won't vote for that person.

 

The GOP's Dirty Tricks Brigade has a multifaceted game

Rs like to claim they're in favor of free markets, but in the marketplace of ideas, they know their ideas are morally and ethically bankrupt, so they've resorted to deception.

Got a couple of pieces of campaign lit in the mail on Saturday (the mail was delivered very late Saturday, so I didn't pick it up until Sunday).

Not only is Republican operative Risa Lombardo running as a Green Party candidate in an apparent effort to siphon votes from Democratic incumbent Governor Katie Hobbs, she's fronting an effort to reduce the number of voters registered as Democrats.  From the mail -

The website she's urging people to go to. vote.gov, is a federal website controlled by Cheeto (or more probably, one of his sub-grifters).

The Arizona Green Party has disavowed her.

From their website -

Lombardo is the only candidate for Governor on the ballot for the Green Party primary, but the Green Party has thrown its support behind a write-in candidate, Carlos Melendez.  It's a pattern that repeats itself in the contest for Secretary of State, except there, the write-in that they're supporting is Jon Ralston.

From the website of the AZ SOS -

It's already starting: The Koch network is targeting AZ

Found this hanging on my door on Tuesday -

The "Paid For By" line was on both sides -

The Libre Initiative, from SourceWatch -

The Libre Initiative

The Libre Initiative is a latino front group organized as a project of Charles Koch's Americans for Prosperity. According to the group's website, "LIBRE's mission is to increase economic freedom and prosperity by promoting free enterprise, responsibility and a more constitutionally limited government." 

Neither Americans for Prosperity (AFP) nor The Libre Initiative have filed reports with the Arizona Secretary of State (AZ SOS) for 2026, but that's not a surprise - this activity won't appear on a report until Q2 reports are filed in July.

AZ is consider to be a "swing" state, so we'll see a lot of outside poured into the state in 2026, and not just from the Koch network - any R-favoring group with even a cent to spend will use it here in an effort to elect Rs and keep the grift going.

Election challenges are (mostly) resolved but some are still ongoing

I do have one question (though I believe I already know the answer).

First, the challenges:

From the Arizona Secretary of State (AZSOS) (emphasis added by me) -

The "biggest" name to withdraw from a race after the candidate's nominating petitions were challenged was Eric Descheenie, former state legislator, who withdrew from the CD2 Democratic primary.

That sets up a general election contest of Jonathan Nez (now unopposed in the Democratic primary) and incumbent Eli Crane (unopposed in the Republican primary).

On a totally unrelated note, Arizona's "Sore Loser" law seems to preclude a candidate whose petitions were challenged from jumping races and running as a write-in candidate in another race. 

From ARS 16-312 -

F. Except as provided in section 16-343, subsection E, a candidate may not file pursuant to this section if any of the following applies:

1. For a candidate in the general election, the candidate ran in the immediately preceding primary election and failed to be nominated to the office sought in the current election.

2. For a candidate in the general election, the candidate filed a nomination petition for the immediately preceding primary election for the office sought and failed to provide a sufficient number of valid petition signatures as prescribed by section 16-322.

3. For a candidate in the primary election, the candidate filed a nomination petition for the current primary election for the office sought and failed to provide a sufficient number of valid petition signatures as prescribed by section 16-322, withdrew from the primary election after a challenge was filed or was removed from or otherwise determined by court order to be ineligible for the primary election ballot.

4. For a candidate in the general election, the candidate filed a nomination petition for nomination other than by primary election for the office sought and failed to provide a sufficient number of valid petition signatures as prescribed by section 16-341.

G. A person who files a nomination paper pursuant to this section for the office of president of the United States shall designate in writing to the secretary of state at the time of filing the name of the candidate's vice presidential running mate, the names of presidential electors who will represent that candidate and a statement signed by the vice presidential running mate and designated presidential electors that indicates their consent to be designated.  A nomination paper for each presidential elector designated shall be filed with the candidate's nomination paper. The number of presidential electors shall equal the number of United States senators and representatives in Congress from this state.

My question is this: Does this section of Arizona law apply to candidates for Congress?

I ask because someone was a Green Party candidate in CD1 whose petitions were challenged and withdrew from the race is now running as a write-in candidate in CD3.

From the AZ SOS (again, emphasis added by me)

I'm guessing that the "Sore Loser" law doesn't apply to candidates for federal office, but as I'm not an attorney, I don't really know.