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Senate announces election audit agreement, but Maricopa County says there isn’t one
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday agreed to drop its legal fight challenging sweeping subpoenas for voting machines, ballots and other election materials that the Arizona Senate issued and will instead turn over the requested items so lawmakers can conduct an audit of Joe Biden’s win in the November election.
Editor’s Thought Bubble: The path forward begins today
Today is Inauguration Day, and it will be one like none other in American history. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be sworn in two weeks to the day after a violent mob supporting Donald Trump swarmed the Capitol, in a failed coup attempt that sought to stop Congress from doing its constitutional duty to […]
Biggs and Gosar sought pardons for Capitol riot, but didn’t get them
Arizona Republican Congressmen Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar have asked President Donald Trump to preemptively pardon them for their roles in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, but the president has no plans to do so, CNN reported Tuesday.
Editor’s Thought Bubble: Voters raised taxes, so Ducey must undermine them
Voters in November approved a marginal income tax increase on the wealthiest Arizonans to fund public schools that have been in desperate need of more resources for decades. So, it should come as no surprise that Gov. Ducey and GOP legislators — who all opposed the Invest in Education Act, known as Proposition 208 — […]
Editor’s Thought Bubble: The Capitol COVID outbreak is coming
What happens when the inevitable COVID outbreak happens at the Capitol during this year’s legislative session? Both the state House and Senate have protocols in place to reduce the spread of the illness, though the House’s requirements are laughably weak, chiefly because they are mere suggestions to the legislators. As we saw on Monday, when […]
Editor’s Thought Bubble: Ducey will see Biden sworn in
Donald Trump won’t be attending Joe Biden’s inauguration next week — a first in modern American politics — but we learned Thursday morning that Doug Ducey will. The governor told Arizona Public Media, the Tucson PBS affiliate, that he was invited and plans to attend. Ducey was slow to acknowledge Biden’s win in Arizona (it took […]
Ducey’s attempt to hand-wave away our COVID crisis only highlights his failure
Maybe if Doug Ducey had donned a brown hooded robe or grown a trim white beard, his Obi Wan Kenobi impression would have worked and the Jedi mind trick he tried to pull off Monday would have been successful.
Editor’s Thought Bubble: Of course Arizonans helped plan the Jan. 6 coup attempt
After a year in which it seemed like we saw everything imaginable, the mantra so far of 2021 seems to be, “Hey 2020, hold my beer!” The president is set to be impeached for a second time (a first in American history), the joint chiefs of the military have concerns of a coup and so […]
Editor’s Thought Bubble: The shameful mask-less House of Representatives
I saw something shameful yesterday that I’ve never seen in my 16 years covering Arizona’s government: two swearing-in ceremonies in the state House of Representatives. Why? Well, a large number of Republican legislators refuse to abide by the chamber’s rule that everyone in the building wear masks. Their masked colleagues apparently didn’t want to be […]
Editor’s Thought Bubble: The legislature returns, more dangerous than ever
Today marks the first day that Arizona’s 55th Legislature will meet. It will be the first time that state lawmakers have gathered to do the people’s business since late May, when they briefly convened after a nearly two-month hiatus due to fears of the coronavirus. Now, of course, our situation is much more dire, but […]
Editor’s Thought Bubble: Literal death panels are in our future
While the nation’s attention this week has understandably been on the violence in the nation’s capital incited by the president and his sycophants in the Republican Party, the pandemic has continued to rage virtually out of control in Arizona. Today, there were 11,658 new COVID-19 cases reported. How bad is it? Today is the seventh […]
Some Arizona Republicans defended, excused the violent pro-Trump mob
Several Arizona Republican officials defended Wednesday’s violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, sought to blame political enemies for the pro-Trump mob’s criminal activity or spread conspiracy theories deflecting responsibility away from the president’s supporters.