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Every candidate on an Arizona primary election ballot in 2022
The deadline for candidates to qualify for the 2022 Arizona ballot was April 4, and a total of 292 candidates filed enough signatures from voters to earn a chance to win over voters in the Aug. 2 primary election. The 30 legislative districts attracted 208 candidates — 109 Republicans, 98 Democrats and a single Libertarian […]
Brnovich discloses ‘interim’ findings of civil election probe, angering some Republicans
True believers in the baseless conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump were left disappointed by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich on Wednesday after he released an “interim report” that made clear his investigators are conducting a civil — and not a criminal — probe, and that they had uncovered little […]
If Republicans want to send a message that racism isn’t tolerated, censuring Wendy Rogers won’t cut it
***UPDATE: Several hours after this piece was published the Arizona Senate censured Wendy Rogers on a 24-3 vote. The censure was originally drafted to include reprimands for her antisemitic comments and for “inciting general racial and religious discrimination,” but the language was removed, apparently to win support from Republican senators. Republicans chose to punish Rogers […]
Wendy Rogers said white nationalists are ‘patriots’ and called for hanging political enemies
A Republican state senator fawned over the leader of a white nationalist movement on Friday and told his followers that she fantasizes about hanging her perceived enemies from gallows. “I’ve said we need to build more gallows. If we try some of these high-level criminals, convict them and use a newly built set of gallows, […]
Brnovich’s radical and lawless border war opinion normalizes extremism and sets the stage for violence
It’s impossible to overstate just how lawless and dangerous Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich showed himself to be this month when he issued a flagrantly political legal opinion that all but dares Gov. Doug Ducey to declare a literal war and send troops to the border to engage in firefights with drug cartels, human smugglers […]
Brnovich: Ducey could send troops to the border to defend the state from an ‘invasion’ of cartels, smugglers
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich says Gov. Doug Ducey would be on solid constitutional ground if he invoked war powers and sent the Arizona National Guard to the U.S-Mexico border to stop what he says is an “invasion” of drug cartels and criminal gangs. In a legal opinion published Monday, Brnovich wrote that the state […]
Bipartisanship failed on expanding voting rights. Kyrsten Sinema and her backers ignore that.
The corporate establishment wing of the Republican Party that supports U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is aghast that liberals are angry and might hold her accountable for supporting the filibuster, fearful that an electoral defeat would usher in a senator who wouldn’t carry the water for big business. And that’s why the top advocate for big […]
Unable to cope with 70 years of progress, Republicans want to return Arizona to the 1950s
Arizona Republicans are wistful for days gone past, and they’re determined to do everything they can to catapult the state backwards in pursuit of winding back the clock. All the way back to the 1950s. “We need to get back to 1958-style voting,” said Rep. John Fillmore, a Republican from Apache Junction. He was speaking […]
Arizona Democratic Party censures Kyrsten Sinema over filibuster support
The Arizona Democratic Party on Saturday formally censured U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema for her vote to preserve the filibuster and refusal to join her Democratic colleagues in carving out an exception to the 60-vote threshold to allow a voting rights bill to pass. Sinema, who in 2018 became the first Democrat elected to win an […]
Kyrsten Sinema is gambling that her filibuster vote will help her win again in 2024
The furious Democrats who revile Kyrsten Sinema don’t know her very well. She may not have single-handedly derailed President Joe Biden’s presidency by ensuring that none of his ambitious legislative agenda ever reaches his desk, but Arizona’s senior senator certainly has become the face of the Democrats’ circular firing squad. And her highly choreographed speech […]
Arizona Legislature does away with COVID-19 restrictions in 2022, even as omicron surges
With near-record COVID-19 caseloads and hospitalizations driven by the highly infectious omicron variant sweeping Arizona, the state legislature will convene Jan. 10 with almost no restrictions in place aimed at limiting spread of the virus at the Capitol. Neither the House of Representatives nor the Senate will require masks. Plastic shields that had been constructed […]
Arizona adults spent $58 million on recreational marijuana in October
Marijuana sales in Arizona hit record highs in October, with nearly $58 million in estimated sales of recreational cannabis for the month, according to state tax officials. For the month, the Arizona Department of Revenue reported that nearly $4.9 million in sales taxes — known officially as transaction privilege taxes — were collected in October […]