Legislative schedule - week starting 6/23/2024

The AZ Legislature has passed a balanced budget* and adjourned sine die, and Gov. Hobbs signed the budget package into law.

* = Sort of.  They used some earmarked funds, monies that were earmarked for one purpose but taken by the legislature and used for a different purpose.  As some folks objected and sued over that, the "balanced" part will depend on the outcome of that court case.

The creative reuse of those funds has been blocked, pending that case.

From AZ Mirror, written by Jim Small -

Judge blocks use of opioid settlement money to balance Arizona’s budget deficit

A judge on Thursday blocked the transfer of $115 million from the state’s share of the national opioid settlement that legislators approved less than a week ago as a key component of balancing a nearly $1.4 billion budget deficit.

The court stepped in after Attorney General Kris Mayes, who was sharply critical of the proposed transfer when it emerged late last week and said it would violate the terms of the settlement, filed a lawsuit earlier in the day and asked for a judge to take emergency action.

[snip]

Late Thursday, Maricopa County Superior Court Commissioner Mary Cronin agreed that Mayes was likely to win her lawsuit and issued a temporary restraining order, blocking the transfer. The restraining order will stay in place until July 5. On June 27, Mayes and the Hobbs administration will have a hearing in front of Judge Scott Minder to discuss the underlying lawsuit.

The case in question is CV2024-016033

In short, depending on the ruling in the case, the legislature may have to return to the Capitol to balance the budget .

But without stealing money.

One thing I expect that they won't do:  rein in the budget busting school voucher grift.

Right now, there isn't much on tap at the Capitol.

Monday, 6/24 thru Thursday, 6/27 - Nada

Friday, 6/28 

-

Joint Legislative Ad Hoc Study Committee on Water Security meets at 1 p.m. in HHR1.  On the agenda: a raft of industry presentations saying basically the same thing - any water conservation measures will reduce their short term profits.

MI AG charges fake electors there; AZ AG is investigating the ones here

Certain people here should be afraid, very afraid.  Because the next knock they hear may not be a welcome one.

From CNN -

Michigan AG charges participants in 2020 fake elector plot

 

Sixteen fake electors who signed certificates falsely claiming President Donald Trump won Michigan in the 2020 election have been charged with multiple felonies, state Attorney General Dana Nessel announced Tuesday.

This is the first time any of the fake electors have been charged with a crime related to the scheme, versions of which took place in multiple states.

In Arizona, the fake electors scheme is being investigated by the current AG here, Kris Mayes.

From AZ Mirror, dated 3/3/2023, written by Jerod MacDonald-Evoy -

Kris Mayes is investigating Trump’s ‘fake electors,’ focusing on threats to election workers

While her predecessor used a dedicated election crimes division to investigate hundreds of bogus election fraud claims, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes says she will redirect the unit’s focus to prosecute election-related threats and protect voting rights. 

“We are almost at a crisis situation in our state, in the sense that we now have a third of our counties experiencing the loss, or should I say the resignation, of a high-level election official due to death threats and harassment. That is unacceptable,” Mayes said in an interview with the Arizona Mirror. 

Certain people here should be worried; in light current developments, they may want to make the best deal that they can.  At least, I would suggest that if I had any legal knowledge at all, but since I don't, I'll encourage them to keep whistling past the graveyard.

Those people?

From another AZ Mirror article, dated 2/1/2022, written by Kira Lerner (as the article is from 2022, some of details of their non-fraudulent activities have changed in the interim) -

[snip]

(A * indicates a person who was listed as chairperson or secretary of their state group and who was subpoenaed by the House Jan. 6 committee.)

ARIZONA (11)

Nancy Cottle*: Cottle is the first vice president of programs for the Arizona Federation of Republican Women. She has been active in Arizona politics for the past decade and holds various other positions on the Maricopa County Republican Committee and the AZGOP executive committee.

Loraine B. Pellegrino*: Pellegrino has served as president of Ahwatukee Republican Women.

Tyler Bowyer: Bowyer is the chief operating officer of Turning Point USA, a Phoenix-based nonprofit organization that advocates for conservative values in schools. He has previously worked for the Republican National Committee and the Maricopa County Republican Party.

Jake Hoffman: Hoffman is an Arizona state representative for the 12th District. Hoffman also runs a conservative digital marketing company, Rally Forge, that was banned from Facebook and suspended from Twitter for engaging in “coordinated inauthentic behavior” on behalf of Turning Point Action, an affiliate of Turning Point USA. The company was enlisting and paying teens to share comments with right-wing opinions, including that mail-in ballots would lead to fraud and that coronavirus numbers were intentionally inflated. Experts told the Washington Post in 2020 that the effort was “among the most ambitious domestic influence campaigns uncovered this election cycle.”

Anthony T. Kern: From January 2015 until January 2021, Kern was an Arizona state representative for the 20th District. He is currently running for election to the Arizona state Senate to represent the 20th District. Kern participated in the January 6 riots in D.C. and has lied about breaching the U.S. Capitol building

James Lamon: Lamon is running for election to the U.S. Senate to represent Arizona. He is a veteran and was previously CEO of DEPCOM Power, a solar energy contractor, according to his LinkedIn profile. 

Robert Montgomery: In 2020, Montgomery served as the chairman of the Cochise County Republican Committee. 

Samuel I. Moorhead: Moorhead serves as the second vice chair of the Gila County Arizona Republican Party. 

Greg Safsten: Safsten is the executive director of the Republican Party of Arizona. He previously worked for Rep. Andy Biggs and Rep. Matt Salmon, both of Arizona, in their U.S. House offices, according to his LinkedIn profile. 

Dr. Kelli Ward: Ward is an osteopathic physician who has served as the chair of the Arizona Republican Party since 2019. Following the 2020 election, Ward aided Trump’s efforts to invalidate the election results and filed a number of lawsuits to nullify Arizona’s results. In 2016, she challenged the late U.S. Sen. John McCain in the Republican primary but lost with 39 percent of the vote. She previously served in the Arizona state Senate. 

Dr. Michael Ward: Ward met his wife, Kelli Ward, while he was serving in the Arizona Air National Guard. In 2019, he was accused of spitting in the eye of a former volunteer of his wife’s when she was a candidate for Senate because the volunteer went on to support her former political foe, Martha McSally. Michael Ward denied touching, pushing, threatening or spitting on the volunteer in an email to police, according to AZ Central. 

Short Attention Span Musing - Lawsuits Edition

...Here's a new saying for Fox News - "We whistle past the graveyard so you don't have to."

From CNN -

Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch dismisses $1.6 billion defamation case revelations as ‘noise’

Fox Corporation CEO Lachlan Murdoch on Thursday dismissed the revelations from Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News as “noise,” throwing his support behind the right-wing talk channel in his first comments since the case enveloped the company in major scandal.

“I think a lot of the noise that you hear about this case, is actually not about the law and it’s not about journalism,” Murdoch told the audience at Morgan Stanley’s annual Technology, Media, and Telecom Conference.

...Apparently, elected officials probably shouldn't cry "Fraud!" when someone they don't like wins an election.  That someone may take some steps to address the lies, and the actions based on them.

From AP - 

Arizona attorney general sues to stop county election switch

Arizona’s attorney general on Tuesday sued to stop a transfer of election duties in a 

rural county where the leaders have embraced voting conspiracy theories.

The Republican majority on the Cochise County Board of Supervisors voted last 

week to transfer of all election functions from the nonpartisan elections department 

to the county’s elected recorder, also a Republican. The move follows the resignation 

of the elections director, who had objected to the board’s efforts to conduct a 

full hand count of last year’s vote.

AG Mayes' statement on the matter is here.

...Not really a lawsuit, but it involves lawyers and courts.

Apparently, even lawyers can't be liars.  OK, they can't be "seen" as being liars. :)

From Politico via Yahoo! -

Trump 2020 lawyer admits misrepresenting stolen election claims

Jenna Ellis, an attorney for Donald Trump who helped drive his false claims about the 2020 election results, has admitted in a Colorado disciplinary proceeding that she misrepresented evidence at least 10 times during Trump’s frantic bid to subvert his defeat.

“Respondent made these misrepresentations on Twitter and on various television programs, including Fox Business, MSNBC, Fox News, and Newsmax,” Colorado’s top disciplinary judge Bryon Large wrote in a six-page opinion. “The parties agree that by making these misrepresentations, Respondent violated [a state attorney rule of conduct], which provides that it is professional misconduct for a lawyer to engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation.”

Maybe the GQP can't multitask

It seems that they're not coordinated enough to both dance in joy over the anti-choice ruling to crow about it.

From AP via Yahoo! -

GOP quiet as Arizona Democrats condemn abortion ruling

Arizona Democrats vowed Saturday to fight for women's rights after a court reinstated a law first enacted during the Civil War that bans abortion in nearly all circumstances, looking to capitalize on an issue they hope will have a major impact on the midterm elections.

Republican candidates were silent a day after the ruling, which said the state can prosecute doctors and others who assist with an abortion unless it's necessary to save the mother's life. Kari Lake, the GOP candidate for governor, and Blake Masters, the Senate candidate, did not comment.

Don't worry - the GQP crowing will soon ensue.

David Gordon at Blog for Arizona has a summary of AZ Dem reaction to this abominable ruling by a Ducey-appointed judge here.