The Free Agenda: Just Follow the Law
Finchem “wasn’t aware” it was illegal … Kyrsten is already missed … And Nextdoor brings constituents and politicians together.
Mark Finchem, the election denier who campaigned to become Arizona’s chief election official, had a slogan during his failed bid for the Secretary of State’s Office: “Just follow the law.”
But perhaps the slogan for his 2024 election, in which he’s trying to make a comeback to the Legislature after carpetbagging from Pima County to Yavapai County, should be: “I wasn’t aware it’s illegal.”
That’s what he told us when we asked about a Tweet he posted showing his bubbled-in vote for Donald Trump on his presidential preference election ballot with a signed affidavit underneath showing he voted in person.
In Arizona, it’s a class 2 misdemeanor to take a photo inside a polling place.
Mark Finchem has been called out for his history of casting early ballots while trying to limit the mail-in voting system. 🗳️
But it appears the election denier's hypocrisy has now extended into illegal activity. 👀
Click the button to read more.
Join the partisans: With independent U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s exit from the 2024 Senate race, some Arizona independents feel like they lost their moderate champion in Arizona, the New York Times’ Jack Healy reports. Both Democrat U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego and Republican 2022 gubernatorial campaign loser Kari Lake are vying for her voters, mostly by trying to paint the other as too extreme.
“We needed her,” independent BJ Brooks, a former Republican who backed John McCain, told the Times. “They bashed her and bashed her from both sides. She had nobody fighting the fight with her.”
That’s a lot of dropped pins: Gallego wants the Federal Trade Commission to investigate RealPage, the rental software company that Attorney General Kris Mayes says helped landlords engage in price fixing, ABC15 reports. Meanwhile, the Copper Courier’s Camaron Stevenson mapped out all the properties owned by the companies named in Mayes’ lawsuit, which own about 400 complexes that house about 10% of apartment renters in Arizona.
It pays to be rural: Lawmakers face a giant pay gap – with some earning nearly three times as much as others – since they voted in 2021 to significantly jack up per diem pay rates for members who live outside Maricopa County, the Arizona Mirror’s Jim Small reports. Some lawmakers are almost cracking six figures in total compensation for a part-time job with a $24,000 per year salary, while others are living on about $30,000, including per diem.
“It has to be addressed,” strategist and lobbyist Chuck Coughlin told Small. “You can’t have two classes of lawmakers.”
Bigger biggest scandal: The Medicaid billing fraud that Mayes called the biggest scandal in state history is getting bigger, as the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting’s Hannah Bassett reports. The scams went beyond behavioral health providers after AHCCCS waived key provider screening requirements and other safeguards during the pandemic, opening the door to scammers.
Visibly upset: A transgender, nonbinary teacher is suing the Peoria Unified School District for discrimination, free speech violations and creating a hostile workplace, among other things, Axios Phoenix’s Jeremy Duda reports. The teacher sent an email in 2022 announcing it was International Transgender Day of Visibility and advising how to support participating students. The district put the teacher on administrative leave for about a month after the email and the governing board attempted to cancel her contract, but couldn’t garner the votes.
Everyone shares the pain: The University of Arizona fired the opinion page editors of its student newspaper, the Arizona Daily Wildcat, claiming budget cuts, our sister ‘sletter, the Tucson Agenda, writes. But the university refuses to release data about which positions it’s cutting to deal with its multi-million dollar accounting error, the Daily Star’s Ellie Wolfe reports. And the Arizona Board of Regents approved a 10% pay cut for the school’s president, Robert Robbins, who will now have to somehow survive on around $725,000 per year.
“It’s not like we were getting paid a significant amount. It’s like $120 every other week. No one is doing this for the money, clearly,” opinion page editor Olivia Krupp told the newsletter.
No one is doing this for the money, but actually, we really do need money to keep doing this. Subscribe today to ensure we earn more than Daily Wildcat opinion editors.
Probably not a bluff: Gov. Katie Hobbs vowed to veto a rural groundwater regulation bill that Republicans are pushing, telling the University of Arizona’s Water Resources Research Center conference attendees that the bill would still allow “out-of-state corporate farmers (to) come from around the world to take advantage of our aquifers,” per the Daily Star’s Tony Davis.
Republican Rep. Lupe Diaz is very concerned that cities are going to start offering people a universal basic income, so he’s got a bill to ban them from doing that.
House Bill 2375 passed the Senate Government Committee1 yesterday on a party-line vote.
Democrats argued the bill isn’t really necessary since no cities in Arizona offer a universal basic income – or seemingly have any plans to do so.
But the committee chair, Republican Sen. Jake Hoffman, argued that feeding humans is a lot like feeding bears at national parks: If you do it, they’ll become dependent on it.
Today marks the end of Sunshine Week – an annual collaboration among do-gooders and open government nerds to highlight the importance of open government and public records.
But the story we’re talking about today may be the pettiest form of transparency we’ve ever heard of.
Like all the pettiest beefs, this one involves Nextdoor. But don’t worry, you don’t have to log on to that hellscape – just click the button below.
“You are now my primary news source for all things about state government and even a little more. The old mainstream abandoned this years ago and you’re filling a gap I have have long wanted filled. Thank you!”
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Unlike the Don Bolles monument bill, which the committee’s chair, Republican Sen. Jake Hoffman, refuses to put up for a vote.