Racially-charged comments lead to Stringer’s removal as criminal justice reform committee chairman

Rep. David Stringer on Friday was stripped of his chairmanship of the House Sentencing and Recidivism Reform Committee after again making inflammatory comments about race and immigration.

However, the Republican from Prescott currently remains vice chair on the House Judiciary Committee. House GOP spokesman Matt Specht said in an email that no changes have been made to that committee at this time.

House Speaker-elect Rusty Bowers, R-Mesa, said Stringer’s comments caught on tape were “vile” and would not be tolerated. Bowers said he asked Stringer to resign from the reform committee, and he agreed.

“Given the diversity of my own family, I take personal offense to these disgusting comments,” Bowers said. “These comments render him incapable of performing his duties as chair.”

The remarks were recorded and shared with the Phoenix New Times, which published them in their entirety on Friday morning. Stringer could be heard telling several Arizona State University students that African Americans “don’t blend in” among other things. The students challenged Stringer’s beliefs, questioning him about his own views on whether people looking different matters.

“I don’t know,” Stringer is heard responding. “Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it doesn’t to a lot of people. It seems to matter to a lot of people who move out of Detroit, who move out of Baltimore. You know we have white flight in this country.”

Stringer is also heard lamenting the “burden” of immigrants and non-native English speakers on taxpayers, comments similar to those that sparked outrage earlier this year. He did not return a call for comment.

In June, he was met with repeated calls for his resignation after he said there aren’t “enough white kids to go around” in the state’s public schools and warned that immigration posed an “existential threat” to the country.

Gov. Doug Ducey was among those who expressed disgust at Stringer’s comments then, arguing such sentiments effectively disqualified anyone from serving at the state level. And today, the governor supported Bowers’ decision to take action.

Ducey spokesman Daniel Ruiz told the Arizona Capitol Times, “As the governor has previously stated, this type of rhetoric should disqualify someone from serving in the Legislature.”

But as of Friday afternoon, Stringer still held his Legislative District 1 seat. He ignored calls for him to step down in June and ran successfully for re-election in this month’s General Election.

AZGOP Chairman Jonathan Lines had also called on Stringer to resign in June and said this latest episode of controversy was another event in “an unfortunate pattern of him putting his foot in his mouth with racist commentary.”

Yet Stringer is still assigned to serve as vice chair of the House Judiciary Committee, which could be just as likely to vote on bills dealing with matters of sentencing and recidivism.

Rep. Reginald Bolding, D-Laveen, called on Stringer to be removed from that committee as well.

“I find it hard to believe that a Representative who is so insensitive to race relations in our country be tasked to create reform in our criminal justice system that disproportionately impacts communities of color,” Bolding said in a statement shared on Twitter. “He has become an untenable distraction from issues that matter to our state.”

This is not the first time Stringer has been removed from a position of influence around talks of criminal justice reform.

Stringer was serving as chairman of an ad hoc committee to study criminal justice reforms when his comments were made public in June. He had positioned himself to take on a leading role in those endeavors at the House – as he would have as chairman of the reform committee. But he met a similar fate then as now when House Speaker J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler, disbanded the ad hoc committee.

Mesnard feared Stringer’s comments would overshadow the committee’s work, even though its members continued their talks in a less public setting.

Whether Stringer’s statements this time around will lead to a similar outcome is yet to be seen.

House spokesman Matt Specht said there are no plans at this time to completely dissolve the Sentencing and Recidivism Reform Committee.