The Arizona Democratic Party goes to federal court today in a bid to overturn a ban on “ballot harvesting” and ensure that ballots cast in the wrong precinct are counted anyway.
Attorney Bruce Spiva contends that the Republican-controlled Legislature acted illegally last year in making it a felony for an individual to take anyone else’s early ballot to a polling place. Spiva said he will present evidence that the measure will cause undue harm to minorities and other groups.
But Sara Agne, attorney for the Arizona Republican Party, which is defending the law, will argue that lawmakers are entitled to put procedures in place designed to prevent fraud.
Spiva could have an uphill battle.
U.S. District Court Judge Douglas Rayes last year refused to stop the state from enforcing the law while its legal merits are being debated. He concluded there was no “quantitative evidence” to show minorities were more likely to be harmed than anyone else.
The full 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard arguments last year in San Francisco, thought otherwise and agreed to enjoin enforcement. But that decision was stayed by the U.S. Supreme Court, with the justices concluding they did not want to make such a radical change so close to last year’s election.
In the meantime, the appellate court sent the case back to Rayes to take a closer look. Rayes now has set aside 10 days to hear evidence.
The law criminalizes what had been a practice by civic and political groups of going out to see if people who had requested early ballots had remembered to return them by mail. If they had not, group members would offer to take it to the polling place themselves.
Now, such action could result in a presumptive one-year prison term and potential $150,000 fine.
There are exceptions. The law does not apply to family members, those living in the same household or certain caregivers who provide assistance to voters in various institutions.
The legislation is based on claims of fraud – or at least the potential for that.
Rep. Don Shooter (R-Yuma)
Rep. Don Shooter, R-Yuma, a member of the Senate in 2016, said there are “a lot of shenanigans… down in my neck of the woods.”
“I’ve been told the way they do it is they collect the ballots early. They put them in a microwave with a bowl of water, steam them open, [and] take the ballots,” he said during debate. “If they like the way it’’s voted they put them back in. If they don’t like the way it’s voted, they lose the ballot.”
But Shooter, who said he passed the tip on to state election officials, acknowledged nothing ever came of it.
Spiva told Capitol Media Services he intends to prove otherwise.
“There’s no evidence of fraud in the legislative record,” he said. “And there’s no evidence anywhere.”
But Republicans contend they do not need proof of actual fraud to justify the law. Agne said the statute is justified because it helps protect against election fraud.
“It’s in the state’s interest to have that chain of custody information,” she told the appellate court during last year’s hearing. “That’s one of the reasons the state has implemented this sensible election regulation.”
Agne also said a majority of other states have similar laws, though only a handful make it a felony like Arizona.
The lack of any actual evidence was not only an issue in court. It also came up when the measure was first debated in the House.
House Speaker J.D. Mesnard (R-Chandler)
Rep. J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler, who is now House speaker, said it is irrelevant whether there is fraud or not.
“What is indisputable is that many people believe it’s happening,” he said in voting for the measure. “And I think that matters.”
Spiva has one other argument. He said the evidence will show the Arizona law has a disproportionate impact on minorities, meaning it runs afoul of federal voting rights laws.
His other legal challenge is to a law that governs what happens when people show up at polling places on Election Day and their names are not on the list of those registered to vote there.
If the would-be voter is simply at the wrong place, poll workers can – but are not required to – direct them to where they need to go. Voters who insist they are registered and entitled to vote there are given a “provisional ballot.”
After other ballots are counted, county election officials go through their records to see if that person was entitled to vote at that place. If not, the ballot is not counted.
Spiva contends this law disproportionately affects minorities. So, he wants Rayes to rule that counties must count any vote that the person was entitled to make had he or she gone to the proper polling place.
So, for example, a voter who should have been in Tempe but ended up in Glendale would not have votes counted for city elections or school boards. But under Spiva’s argument, that person’s vote would be counted for statewide offices like governor and U.S. senator.
In this Nov. 4, 2020, file photo, Maricopa County elections officials count ballots in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)
An audit of the Maricopa County voting equipment came up absolutely clean according to county officials.
But it’s not going to deter the demands by Republican senators to conduct their own review and get a court order to enforce their own subpoena. In fact, the lawmakers are going back to court Feb. 25 in their bid to get access to the equipment, the software — and the actual ballots.
The county report, released Tuesday, concluded that there was no evidence that:
– Votes were switched from one candidate to another;
– Equipment was using modified software;
– Voting machines were connected to the internet;
– Malicious software or hardware had been installed on tabulators or the system.
“These audits are an affirmation for everyone’s hard work and prove what my colleagues and I have been saying all along: Our elections were run with integrity and the results we canvassed were accurate,” said Supervisor Clint Hickman, one of four Republicans on the board.
Steve Gallardo, the lone Democrat supervisor, agreed.
“The audits clearly dispel the notion that somehow the November election was rigged,” he said.
The results of the audits — three of the four areas were reviewed separately by two different companies — come just days before the supervisors face off in court again with the Senate.
Attorneys for lawmakers contend they are entitled to have their own auditors have access not only to the equipment but also the 2.1 million ballots actually cast.
Karen Fann
So far, though, their efforts have failed. And on Feb. 25, attorneys for the county will ask Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Timothy Thomasson to quash the legislative subpoenas and permanently bar Senate President Karen Fann and Sen. Warren Petersen, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, from taking any further action to enforce their subpoena.
All this is part of the leftovers from allegations that the returns reported from the Nov. 3 election were inaccurate and that Donald Trump actually won Arizona and should have received the state’s 11 electoral votes.
A series of lawsuit complaining of everything from improper procedures and the use of wrong marking pens to outright fraud all have so far been rejected by courts. And at this point the issue is legally moot as Joe Biden has been sworn in as president.
But Fann told Capitol Media Services more needs to be done.
“When there are this many questions that people are questioning our electoral system, I think we owe it to them to say ‘We’re going to get those answers for you, and we’re going to show that our system is good and secure,’ ” she said. “And if we find any irregularities, we are going to prove to you that we’re going to fix those irregularities.”
More to the point, Fann said, what the county performed doesn’t get to those questions.
Some of it, she said, is because the companies they hired are not certified forensic auditors.
Beyond that, Fann said there are other questions that the audit never addressed.
“I do know that they did not do an in-depth forensic audit enough to help us figure out how many mail-out ballots went out to people that do not live in Arizona any more,” she said. Then there are allegations about ballots that went to dead people or a large number of ballots showing up at a house where only two people live.
All that, Fann said, leads to questions about what happened to all those ballots.
But a key point in what Fann and her colleagues want is access to the actual ballots to determine if the count reported actually matches the votes counted.
A Dominion Voting ballot scanner is delivered to a polling location in Gwinnett County, Ga. outside of Atlanta on Monday, Jan. 4, 2021, in advance of the Senate runoff election. (AP Photo/Ben Gray)
The audit done for the county does look at some of that — but only indirectly.
Auditors from Pro V & V looked at the question of whether the Dominion Voting Systems equipment or software was switching votes from one candidate to another, one of the charges leveled by Trump supporters, using what a “test deck” of ballots pre-marked with known results. All totaled, they said the tally of more than 1.5 million specific ballot positions came out 100% accurate.
Only thing is, these were not the actual ballots voted in November, in keeping with the county’s position that they have to be locked up.
The audit produced other results.
Pro V & V and SLI Compliance, the other firm hired by the county, also said they looked for evidence that the tabulation system was transmitting information outside what they said was an “air-gapped system” within the county. They said they found no issues.
Both also conducted what they called a “full forensic clone” of the hard drive on the equipment which allowed them to examine not just what was there but also look for evidence of deleted files or hidden data. Here, too, they said they found no issues.
All that, however, is not good enough as far as the Senate is concerned. And Fann said the only way the questions of constituents will be answered is if there is an actual examination of the equipment and the ballots by someone chosen by the Senate.
Whether lawmakers are entitled to that is exactly what Thomasson is being asked to decide.
The county’s refusal to turn over access is based on several arguments.
“The (Arizona) Constitution commands that ballots be kept secret,” attorney Steve Tully who represents the county told Thomasson in his legal filings. And he said Arizona law spells out that after the formal canvass of votes, the ballots are put into an envelope and kept unopened for up to 24 months, after which they must be destroyed.
None of this has stopped the Senate from issuing a subpoena for access to them.
But Tully said subpoenas are permissible only when there has been a vote of the full Senate to investigate the 2020 general election. That, he said, did not occur.
Instead, he said, the subpoenas all result from “months of conspiracy theories rejected by the courts and debunked by the press.”
There are provisions for a judge to decide whether to enforce a subpoena. But he said that first requires a vote of the Senate to hold the supervisors in contempt.
But that failed when Sen. Paul Boyer, R-Glendale, refused to go along with his GOP colleagues.
The following story is the second of five to be published over the next two weeks based on voting data the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting pulled for the 2017 legislative session. The nonprofit group analyzed the number of floor votes that each lawmaker cast the same as every other lawmaker. The result is a first of its kind look at voting patterns between Arizona legislators, revealing alike votes and disparities – some known anecdotally, others not seen before – between lawmakers, at times regardless of party affiliation. Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting set a minimum threshold of 230 alike votes in the House of Representatives and 435 alike votes in the state Senate to gauge how often lawmakers vote alike with one another.
The threshold could be expanded or shrunk, but think of the analysis like a microscope: zooming in too far, or not far enough, won’t reveal anything of interest. Finding the right magnification, or in this case, the right threshold of alike votes in each chamber, produces significant results and visualizes alike votes among legislators.
Unlike their Republican counterparts, Arizona’s Democratic lawmakers are a less cohesive voting bloc. And it’s the example set by the minority party’s leadership that differs the most.
In the Senate, minority leaders don’t often vote with the GOP. In the House, it’s the top Democrat, Rebecca Rios of Phoenix, who casts the most votes with her Republican colleagues, according to an analysis by the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting.
Find the interactive data tool below. (Data by the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting; Graphic by Katie Campbell/Arizona Capitol Times)
Rios serves as the minority leader of the House Democratic Caucus, but she also voted alike with Republicans more often than any other Democrat in the chamber. Only one other House Democrat, Rep. Mark Cardenas of Phoenix, came close to casting as many alike votes with Republicans as Rios.
None of Rios’ fellow Democrats in leadership – Assistant Minority Leader Randy Friese of Tucson and Whip Charlene Fernandez of Yuma – voted alike with GOP lawmakers at a threshold of 230 alike votes, according to the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting analysis.
[Use the interactive data tool created by AZCIR to discover the alike votes between each representative HERE.]
Current lawmakers and former minority leaders were surprised to learn that a Democratic caucus leader would vote with Republicans so often. Even Rios was at first put off by the distinction.
“Ew,” she said. “I don’t want this title.”
There’s no single bill that exemplifies that discrepancy, but perhaps Rios’ background as a lawmaker best explains her bipartisan streak, some said.
Senate Minority Leader Katie Hobbs, D-Phoenix, said Rios came from a rural district that is tough to represent, and she has worked in the mining industry as a lobbyist.
[Use the interactive data tool created by AZCIR to discover the alike votes between each senator HERE.]
“. . . so those the folks that represent those areas tend to be the Democrats that don’t always vote in line,” Hobbs said.
That’s not the district Rios represents now – her Legislative District 27 is overwhelmingly blue, but that doesn’t mean she lost the characteristics of her rural background while representing parts of Pinal County, Hobbs said.
Rios’ length of service at the Capitol also may have an impact on the way she votes, said former legislator Eric Meyer, who served as House minority leader in 2015 and 2016.
House Minority Leader Rebecca Rios (D-Phoenix) (Photo by Rachel Leingang/Arizona Capitol Times)
Rios served in the House from 2005 to 2010 before returning in 2015 after a five-year hiatus. That gives her some familiarity with the legislative process, and connections with other lawmakers, that other members of the House’s Democratic leadership team don’t have.
That’s perhaps why Rios’ leadership team doesn’t have the same pattern of alike votes with Republicans, Meyer said.
“They just don’t have as much experience. And with the amount of turnover, it takes time to build relationships maybe and feel comfortable,” he said.
Rios agreed that her “heart is still in rural Arizona,” and that her length of service has given her a perspective that shapes the way she votes.
“You learn to vote based on issues, as opposed to the party or the bill sponsor,” she said.
Besides, she said, “the majority of the votes we take typically are not high profile, partisan issues.”
While she leads her caucus on votes that matter, particularly on core issues that Democrats identify as a caucus each year, she’s still a reliable party leader.
Hobbs credited Rios for leading efforts to keep her caucus unified in votes against certain bills, such as a university bonding package in the fiscal year 2018 budget.
Being a leader also can mean being more flexible when voting on bills.
Meyer noted that it’s natural for minority leaders to form some connections with Republicans given how frequently minority and majority leadership must interact.
There is plenty of negotiating done behind the scenes to keep the House running smoothly, and that takes steady hands and good relationships between Republican and Democratic leaders, he said.
As for the Senate, Hobbs said it makes sense that Democratic leadership would vote infrequently or not at all with Republicans, since it’s often leadership’s job to keep Democrats in unison as the opposition vote against the Republican majority.
Still, at a threshold of 435 alike votes, even two members of the Senate minority leadership team cast alike votes with one GOP senator: Assistant Minority Leader Steve Farley of Tucson and Whip Lupe Contreras of Avondale, according to the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting analysis.
Rios said relationships among GOP and Democratic leaders do impact voting, “to the extent that when you’re in leadership, you don’t have the luxury of just saying ‘no’ and being partisan for the sake of being partisan.”
And if any member of her caucus has a gripe about Rios’ bipartisan streak, she’ll be happy to hear them out.
“Show me the votes, and I would be more than willing to sit down and discuss each and every vote,” Rios said.
Find out more about your lawmakers’ voting patterns below:
President-elect Joe Biden speaks Monday, Nov. 9, 2020, at The Queen theater in Wilmington, Del. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Elected leaders in the last Arizona county to certify its results from the Nov. 3 election signed off on their tally Monday, setting the stage for state leaders to formalize Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s historic win in the Grand Canyon State.
The five-member Mohave County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the county’s election results after balking last week because of lawsuits being pursued by backers of President Donald Trump in Phoenix. Judges in Maricopa County rejected those efforts, although appeals and additional legal efforts are possible.
Supervisor Ron Gould said he had no concerns about the election tally in the staunchly Republican northwestern Arizona county, where 75% of voters backed Trump.
“I have grave concerns about the election in our own state and across the nation,” Gould said. “I think its really time that we take a hard look at ballot security and our voting process because I think that nationwide people have lost faith in this process because of this election.
“But my vote here today is not to canvass the election for the state and it’s not to canvas the election for the United States. It’s to canvass the election for Mohave County,” Gould said. He and the other board members are Republicans.
Gould had joined other supervisors in delaying the official canvass last week, saying he wanted the lawsuits to play out.
Biden won Arizona by more than 10,000 votes on the strength of the vote in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix and where nearly two-thirds of the state’s residents live. Maricopa County voters backed Biden by more than 45,000 votes.
The lawsuits targeted Maricopa County’s vote tally, alleging that some voters’ ballots weren’t counted, and there were questions about the accuracy of the count. The GOP-dominated Maricopa County Board of Supervisors approved its canvass last Friday after the final lawsuit was dismissed.
Board members heard extensive reports from Maricopa County elections officials who said the vote count was correct and noted that all tests and hand-count reviews showed the electronic ballot count was 100% accurate. Those tests and reviews are done with help from Democrats and Republicans.
Elections challenges brought by the Trump campaign or his backers in key battleground states have largely been unsuccessful as Trump continues to allege voter fraud while refusing to concede.
In fact, election officials from both political parties have stated publicly that the election went well and international observers confirmed there were no serious irregularities.
Biden won Arizona after Democrats pinned their hopes on Arizona’s changing demographics and swing voters who split their tickets two years ago to elect a Republican governor and send a Democrat to the U.S. Senate.
The state plans to do its statewide election canvass on Nov. 30.
Attorneys for state and county election officials head to federal court Tuesday to quash one of the two remaining bids to overturn the vote for Joe Biden in Arizona.
And time may be running out for a final decision.
In legal papers filed in federal court, Deputy Maricopa County Attorney Tim Liddy said the lawsuit filed by the 11 Republicans who hope to be electors for the president is “woefully deficient.” He said the claim is based on “conspiracy-theory laden, unsigned, redacted declarations making wild accusations” about Dominion Software, which provides election equipment to the county.
And Liddy told U.S. District Court Judge Diane Humetewa that claims of hundreds of thousands of illegal votes appear to have come “out of thin air,” calling the lawsuit a “fishing expedition.”
Roopali Desai, representing Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, was even more direct in saying there’s nothing to the allegations that there was a conspiracy to throw the election to Biden, one that Republican challengers contend involves Dominion and its officers to convert votes for President Trump into votes for Biden.
Roopali Desai
“Plaintiffs allege that this plan somehow originated in Venezuela more than a decade ago, over the year enlisted ‘rogue actors’ from various ‘countries such as Serbia’ and ‘foreign interference by Iran and China,’ compromised voting machines and software in states across the country in this election, and was ultimately executed with the assistance of thousands of Democratic, Republican, and non-partisan election officials despite the presence of both parties in numerous states across the country, including Arizona,” she told Humetewa. That, said Desai, is “dystopian fiction.”
The challengers hope to get an order from the judge ordering Hobbs and Gov. Doug Ducey to reverse the formal Nov. 30 certification of the election results. That would keep the 11 Democrats who were chosen as Biden electors from casing their votes for him.
But attorney Sidney Powell said if Humetewa is unwilling to do that, she should preclude the inclusion of certain early ballots in the returns, ballots she contends “do not comply with Arizona law.”
That by itself likely would upset the election results.
Biden bested Trump among early ballots by 138,476. But the president outpolled the former vice president in Election Day voting by more than 230,000.
Separately, the Arizona Supreme Court is weighing whether to hear an appeal by state GOP Chair Kelli Ward.
A judge last week tossed out her efforts to void the election returns concluding she had presented no evidence of fraud or misconduct. And he said while there were some mistakes made in creating duplicate ballots for those that were damaged or unreadable, there were not enough of them to change the fact that Biden beat Trump in Arizona by more than 10,000 votes.
The Arizona Supreme Court from left are James Beene, Andrew Gould, Ann Scott-Timmer, Chief Justice Robert Brutinel, Clint Bolick, John Lopez, and Bill Montgomery.
One thing the judges in both cases need to consider is how quickly they need to act.
Federal law says all election challenges are supposed to be resolved by Dec. 8. But Jack Wilenchik, who is representing Ward, told the Supreme Court on Dec. 7 to ignore the deadline as an unconstitutional infringement on the rights of states to decide their own election matters.
More problematic for challengers is that the electors chosen by voters — the ones pledged to Biden — are supposed to cast their ballots this coming Dec. 14.
Each of the pending lawsuits seeks a court order to prevent that from happening, at least until the legal issues are resolved, if not permanently, a move that could allow the Republican-controlled legislature to decide who gets Arizona’s 11 electoral votes. There is no guarantee that any judge will agree to that.
But Wilenchik also contends that the upcoming Monday deadline, too, is no more enforceable.
“The only real deadline is Jan. 6,” he said, the date set out in the U.S. Constitution when Congress counts the electoral votes from each state and declares the winner.
A third lawsuit which also sought to overturn the election returns was voluntarily dismissed on Dec. 7.
That case, filed on behalf of four plaintiffs who identified themselves as members of something called the Arizona Election Integrity Association, included charges that Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg funneled money to election officials in nine Arizona counties through the Center for Tech and Civil Life in a way designed to deliberately skew the vote here for Biden.
Mark Zuckerberg
Attorney David Spilsbury said Zuckerberg sought to create a “two-tiered treatment of the American voter,” putting funds into “progressive strongholds” to turn out more voters. Other places, Spilsbury said, did not have the same opportunity.
“The strategy worked,” he said.
Spilsbury noted that Biden got more than 300,000 votes in Maricopa County than Hillary Clinton got in 2016. By contrast, he said, President Trump gained only about 150,000 votes.
But Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes, who lost his bid for re-election, said if his county really were as liberal as Spilsbury suggests “I’d still have a job.”
It wasn’t just Maricopa County that got grants. The organization says it also provided funds to Apache, Coconino, Graham, La Paz, Navajo, Pima, Pinal and Yuma counties in Arizona, with more than 2,500 recipients across the country.
Spilsbury’s decision to drop the lawsuit came after Andy Gaona, one of the attorneys for Hobbs, threatened to pursue him and his clients for legal fees if they pursued the matter.
“This is the very definition of a groundless action brought in bad faith, and without legal justification,” Gaona wrote to Spilsbury. Aside from waiting too long, Gaona called the claims “baseless” and “the stuff of conjecture and conspiracy.”
“They belong on Internet message boards, not a court of law,” he wrote.
And Gaona reminded Spilsbury that a judge who dismissed a different case brought by Trump supporters invited Hobbs’ lawyers to seek legal fees in that case.
Four prior lawsuits about the conduct of the election already have been dismissed. Each raised different issues ranging from about oversight of the counting process to the use of Sharpies on ballots at polling places.
The following story is the third of five to be published over two weeks based on voting data the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting pulled for the 2017 legislative session. The nonprofit group analyzed the number of floor votes that each lawmaker cast the same as every other lawmaker. The result is a first of its kind look at voting patterns between Arizona legislators, revealing alike votes and disparities – some known anecdotally, others not seen before – between lawmakers, at times regardless of party affiliation. Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting set a minimum threshold of 230 alike votes in the House of Representatives and 435 alike votes in the state Senate to gauge how often lawmakers vote alike with one another.
The threshold could be expanded or shrunk, but think of the analysis like a microscope: zooming in too close, or not far enough, won’t reveal anything of interest. Finding the right magnification, or in this case, the right threshold of alike votes in each chamber, produces significant results and visualizes alike votes among legislators.
So-called “moderate” Republican state legislators in Arizona aren’t so moderate after all.
Only a handful of Republican senators and representatives vote alike with a few Democrats in their respective chambers, according to an analysis by the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting. Most of the time, they’re still reliably conservative and mostly cast votes in a similar fashion to their Republicans colleagues.
Collectively, four GOP senators voted with seven out of the chamber’s 13 Democrats at least 435 times. That’s about 52 percent of the 841 votes cast on the Senate floor in 2017.
Find the interactive data tool below. (Data by the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting; Graphic by Katie Campbell/Arizona Capitol Times)
[Use the interactive data tool created by AZCIR to discover the alike votes between each senator HERE.]
Those same four Republican senators voted just as many times with most, if not all, of their Republican colleagues.
In the House, 18 Republican representatives collectively voted with five of their chamber’s 25 Democrats at least 230 times, or 20 percent of the 1,126 floor votes cast this year.
Every Republican in the House also voted at least 230 times with the rest of the GOP caucus.
[Use the interactive data tool created by AZCIR to discover the alike votes between each representative HERE.]
Few bipartisan votes not enough
The way some Democrats see it, those few bipartisan votes aren’t enough to make these Republicans moderates. A majority of the time, they’re still loyal votes for the GOP majorities in the House and Senate, and when it comes to issues of great importance, they’re becoming less likely to break ranks.
Some Republicans say the analysis doesn’t tell the whole story. By treating all votes equally, patterns emerge that gloss over a select group of bills that divide lawmakers on ideological and partisan lines, and it’s those few votes that matter most.
Sen. Kate Brophy McGee, R-Phoenix, embraces the label. McGee represents a moderate district – she won a closely contested race last fall against a popular Democrat – so a moderate voting record is only natural.
Others, like Sen. Karen Fann, pointed to the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting analysis as a means to reject the stereotype. The Prescott Republican voted at least 230 times with only one Democratic senator, but she voted just as many times with each of her Republican colleagues, too, making her the least-likely swing vote of those considered to be moderate senators.
Whether it’s conservative or moderate, Rep. T.J. Shope, R-Coolidge, called the labels “a bunch of crap.”
“Your analysis will show that if you have an ‘R’ after your name or you have a ‘D’ after your name, you’re voting with your caucus most, if not all of the time,” Shope said.
Defining vote
Sen. Kate Brophy McGee (R-Phoenix)
Brophy McGee has worn the moderate label since at least 2013, when she voted for what’s still considered to be the most volatile piece of legislation among Republican circles in years: Medicaid expansion.
Most of the lawmakers identified by the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting analysis as moderate voted for the Medicaid expansion during former Gov. Jan Brewer’s final term in office.
Brophy McGee pointed to the bill, which expanded access to health care, as one that makes her proud to be a legislator. Legislative District 28, with its roughly 43,000 independent voters, doesn’t want legislators who will treat the Arizona Capitol like a “do nothing Congress,” Brophy McGee said.
“The moderate label, the way I apply it, is the way I think my constituents think of it. They elect people to go down to the Legislature and get things done, and they expect us to come up with solutions,” she said.
For certain votes, that means bucking the majority of the Republican caucus, like her decision to vote this spring against a bill to dramatically expand access to private school vouchers. Brophy McGee was the only Republican senator to vote against the voucher bill, and she called her failure to defeat the bill “my greatest disappointment” of the 2017 legislative session.
That sentiment isn’t popular among some of her 16 Republican colleagues, but the vote shows the difficult waters Brophy McGee navigates as a Republican. While she votes with her caucus a majority of the time, she’s held to a different standard based on an issue or two.
“I am constantly working with my colleagues in less competitive districts and in leadership so that they understand there are going to be issues where I will not be a yes, and they need to be prepared for that and they need to count their votes,” she said.
Red meat
It’s those kind of votes that result in moderate Republicans having their party loyalty questioned, something that irks Shope, the speaker pro tem in the Arizona House.
“I think it’s crap,” Shope said of criticism Brophy McGee took on the voucher bill vote. “I think that Kate does a good job representing her district. I’m happy that she’s there. She’s a million times better than the alternative in my opinion. I wish the folks who criticize her or others for a vote here or there would just take the time to take a deep breath and realize that we’re all, for the most part, 95 percent of the time working towards the same goals.”
Shope was one of those “moderates” who voted for Medicaid expansion in 2013, and despite figurative calls for his head, he has been able to carve out a productive legislative career. To Shope, there aren’t really moderates at the Arizona Legislature on either side of the aisle, just varying degrees of liberalism and conservatism.
Find the interactive data tool above. (Data by the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting; Graphic by Katie Campbell/Arizona Capitol Times)
Now that he serves in a GOP leadership role in the House, Shope said he has grown even more appreciative of his fellow Republicans, be they far right or right of center, and how they represent their constituents. The perspective has made him protective of his fellow Republicans, and lawmakers in general, of labels such as moderate, Shope said.
“I think the labeling of those kind of words often, and I think your analysis will bear this out, often highlights more style differences than voting differences,” he said. “The fact that I don’t use red meat type of language, whether at the Legislature or at home in the district, or I’m not confrontational, I think probably lends more to that idea that I am not as conservative as someone else.”
Local ties
Moderate is an unfair label to Republicans like Fann, who has a better record of voting with the Senate Republican Caucus than other senators perceived as more conservative than she. She voted alike with all of her 16 GOP colleagues at least 435 times. The same cannot be said for four Republicans who have a penchant for butting heads with their own caucus.
Sen. Karen Fann (R-Prescott)
Fann said it’s important to identify the issues on which she crosses party lines, noting that she, unlike her more “moderate” colleagues, voted against Medicaid expansion in 2013.
“When we talk about a plethora of things, generally I am more conservative than the ‘moderates,’” she said. “But now let’s look at the categories for what I do vote against some of my more conservative people, and those would be the city and town things.”
Fann said her previous election to a local office gives her and other Republicans a unique perspective, one she shares with Shope and Brophy McGee.
Fann served as a councilwoman and mayor pro tem in Prescott. Brophy McGee served on the Washington Elementary School District Governing Board until 2007, while Shope still serves as president of the Coolidge Unified School District Governing Board.
Except in cases of extremely egregious behavior by local governments, “90 percent of the time, I support my cities and towns,” which explains her so-called moderate streak, Fann said.
Battle lines
A few bipartisan votes here or there doesn’t make a moderate anyway, according to Sen. Katie Hobbs, D-Phoenix.
Like Shope, the Senate minority leader said there aren’t truly any moderates left among legislative Republicans since the Medicaid expansion vote in 2013. That bloc fell apart the following year, she said, since it was only held together by the Republican leadership of Brewer.
It was Brewer who truly stuck her neck out for Medicaid expansion, giving legislative Republicans a leader to follow, Hobbs said. Now the voting bloc once considered moderate has shrunk, Hobbs said. In the Senate, that’s Brophy McGee and Fann, Sens. Bob Worsley, R-Mesa, and Frank Pratt, R-Casa Grande.
“They kind of divided on what they would vote with us on, and it was never enough to stop something,” Hobbs said.
Even if the moderates aren’t as influential as they were years ago, it’s still fair that they be judged not by their collective votes, but by the votes that truly matter to the Republican Party, according to Constantin Querard, a GOP political consultant.
Querard said it’s a flaw to give equal weight to every vote taken on the House and Senate floor when so many are simply housekeeping bills – nonpartisan measures that are approved with nearly unanimous consent that don’t inspire any sort of ideological battles. Republicans should be judged on bills that create fault lines within the party, he added.
“If you’re trying to demonstrate graphically the degree to which someone crosses some sort of battle line, you should only consider bills where there’s some sort of battle,” Querard said.
Such a method would only highlight the different value sets some in the Republican Party have over others, according to GOP lobbyist Gibson McKay. Whether its health care or abortion, it’s all a value judgement to individual lawmakers and Republicans, and such clearly drawn lines don’t allow for the nuance of lawmakers who aren’t representing the Republican Party, but are instead representing their constituents.
“That doesn’t serve the black and white purposes of those in the chattering class who like to interpret these things,” McKay said.
For instance, Brophy McGee’s vote against the voucher bill may not win her the approval of some Republican legislators, but it was likely appreciated by her district’s moderate electorate, said McKay, who lives in LD28.
“Do I agree with her 100 percent of the time? No, but I don’t agree with my wife 100 percent of the time,” McKay said. “Sometimes we have to consider that Kate has represented her constituency pretty well for the decade or so she’s been around.”
Find out more about your lawmakers’ voting patterns below:
The sun sets at a local polling station Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020 in Tucson, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
With the tally of votes now showing Joe Biden winning Arizona, the state Republican Party and its allies are trying last-minute legal tactics to keep that from happening.
Two new lawsuits come as the former vice president on Friday had a lead of 10,998 votes over Donald Trump. More to the point, the Secretary of State’s Office says there are just 6,670 ballots yet to be counted.
Meanwhile, the president’s reelection campaign agreed Friday to drop its demand for a hand count of certain ballots cast at polling places on Election Day to see if they were properly recorded. Attorney Kory Langhofer told Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Daniel Kiley that with just 191 ballots at issue, the latest vote tallies makes the outcome of that claim moot.
Despite that decision — and despite the vote tallies that show there just aren’t enough uncounted ballots for Trump to catch up — state GOP Chair Kelli Ward insists this isn’t the end.
“We are getting close to recount territory here,” she said Friday in a video message.
Kelli Ward (Photo by Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
That is debatable given that state law would appear to require Trump to be within 200 votes of Biden to trigger a new count.
But the two new lawsuits are the best — and perhaps only — chance that the president has to getting close to that margin and taking the state’s 11 electoral votes.
One contends that Maricopa County is not complying with state laws which require there be a hand-count audit after each election to ensure that what was recorded by the voting machines matches the ballots that went into them.
That was done with no irregularities found.
But attorney Jack Wilenchik, representing the Arizona Republican Party, says state law requires that the sample has to be done of at least 2% of all the precincts. In Maricopa County, he said, with 748 precincts, that would require checks at 15 separate precincts.
Only thing is, Maricopa County uses “voting centers” rather than requiring residents to cast a ballot at the specific precinct in which they live. This year, Wilenchik said, there were about 175 of these.
And what that means, he said, is that an audit of 2% of 175 voting centers is not sufficient, regardless of how many people voted at each one.
While the GOP is suing only Maricopa County, the lawsuit also could affect Yuma, Yavapai, Santa Cruz, La Paz and Cochise counties. which also use vote centers.
In a separate lawsuit, attorney Alexander Kolodin charges that Maricopa County — and presumably all others — have no specific way to determine whether a given voter’s choices were properly counted.
That goes to the question of what happens when a ballot is not automatically accepted and read by tabulating machines at polling places, whether because of problems with the equipment or other issues. These instead are set aside for hand review at county offices.
Alex Kolodin
Attorney Alexander Kolodin charges that one of the women he represents — the same who brought the never-proven claim about how the use of Sharpies and bleed-through on ballots was affecting the count — never had her vote counted at all. And he said his other client, whose ballot had to go through separate review was denied the right to have her vote “counted via a fully automated and perfect process,” as were others in a similar situation.
There was no immediate response from attorneys for the county to either lawsuit.
Time is running out.
The state is supposed to certify the election results on Nov. 30. And the electors who will cast their ballots for who won the majority in the state are supposed to be appointed by Dec. 8.
Hearings in both cases are set for Monday.
The legal maneuverings fit into what has been the position of Trump and his supporters that there has been something amiss about the voting process this year.
“Arizona voters deserve complete assurance that the law will be followed and that only legal ballots will be counted in the 2020 election,” Ward said.
That mirrors repeated comments of the president himself who has insisted he will win if only the “legal votes” are counted, not just in Arizona but elsewhere.
But none of this will matter unless any of the lawsuits result in orders that get more votes tallied and bring Trump within recount territory.
State law does require a recount when the difference between candidates is less than 0.1% of the votes cast for the office. At this point, that would be about 3,400.
Arizona elections officials carry ballots in trays to be counted inside the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, Friday, Nov. 6, 2020, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York)
But there is a separate provision governing any race for “state electors,” which is technically what people who were voting for Trump, Biden and Libertarian Jo Jorgensen was choosing. That figure is just 200.
Despite that, state GOP spokesman Zach Henry said the outstanding votes plus “ongoing litigation in the courts” should be enough to force that recount.
Wilenchik’s contention that audits done by voting centers is illegal already is getting some legal pushback.
In letters to legislative leaders, Joe Kanefield, the chief deputy state attorney general, pointed out that lawmakers specifically allowed counties to operate centers. And Kanefield, himself a former state elections director, said the statutes left it up to the secretary of state to come up with specific rules for how to conduct these audits.
That, he said, was codified in the Election Procedures Manual which specifically allows audits of 2% of vote centers. And since that manual was approved by both Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who is Kanefield’s boss, as well as Gov. Doug Ducey, both of whom are Republicans, it could mean that the state party is now picking a fight with its top elected officials.
Wilenchik does not dispute that the hand counts already done by the county of the vote centers, which are chosen jointly by Democrat and Republican party officials, have showed no discrepancies between the recorded tally and the hand count. But he said what’s needed to truly check the veracity of the vote is that precinct-by-precinct breakdown.
“It makes it easier to sort the data that comes out of the sampling, to compare it with the voter registration database data,” he told Capitol Media Services, figures that are broken down by precinct. That, Wilenchik said, ensures that there aren’t more ballots being counted than people who actually are supposed to have voted at that location.
“If instead they do the sampling based on the vote centers, that’s sort of worthless to us because we can’t sort that data,” he said. “The voter registration data is not based on vote centers.”
Wilenchik conceded that state law does specifically allow for vote centers. And he said he did not know how a county would then organize the already cast ballots by precincts — as he contends is required for the post-election audit.
He said it’s possible that the ballots are in some way encoded to show to which precinct a voter was assigned.
And if not?
“Then count all of them,” he said. Wilenchik said it can’t be that hard, pointing out that’s exactly what’s taking place in Georgia for the presidential race.
Even if Trump can’t be aided by the litigation, any adjustment of votes could make the difference in some down-ballot races like the one for state Senate in LD 28 where incumbent Republican Kate Brophy McGee is 495 votes behind Democrat challenger Christine Marsh.
In this Oct. 23, 2019, file photo, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before a House Financial Services Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
How many Arizonans like the idea of one billionaire family manipulating the way Arizona county election offices operate? That’s an unpopular idea for people across the political spectrum, especially when the billionaire is Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whose controversial actions make him distrusted by Left and Right.
Yet that’s what happened last November in Arizona and dozens of other states. Zuckerberg and his wife gave $350 million to a supposedly “nonpartisan” nonprofit, the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), which in turn re-granted the money to thousands of local government election offices across America, including nine of Arizona’s 15 counties.
Scott Walter
Details aren’t easy to come by, because CTCL has refused to answer questions from TheNew York Times, the Associated Press, National Public Radio, and others. Despite CTCL declaring grants were meant to offset unforeseen expenses due to Covid, reports show that only a tiny fraction of the monies typically went to things like Personal Protective Equipment. CTCL cared much more about financing liberally placed drop boxes around each county and how many foreign language ads would appear in.
That’s because CTCL’s leaders are experts in every trick in the Left’s handbook of juicing turnout in the locales and demographics that help their preferred political party. CTCL’s founders all came from another group, now defunct – the New Organizing Institute. Unlike CTCL, which is a so-called 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit that’s legally required to be nonpartisan, the New Organizing Institute was a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, which allowed it more flexibility to meddle in politics. And meddle it did. TheWashington Post bluntly called it, “the Democratic Party’s Hogwarts for digital wizardry,” because it spread that party’s state-of-the-art voter turnout techniques.
How similar are CTCL and the New Organizing Institute? They’re so similar that the Capital Research Center posted a quiz with texts from both groups’ websites, to see if readers could tell one from the other. It’s a hard test, because the groups’ missions are essentially the same – turn out voters that will favor their preferred candidates.
Aimee Yentes
Did that happen in November? Yes. The Capital Research Center analyzed state after battleground state to see if there were partisan patterns in CTCL’s funding and the election returns. Again, CTCL’s failure to reveal its funding makes data incomplete, but most states, though apparently not Arizona, saw CTCL’s cash go disproportionately to big cities rich with Democratic votes, like Philadelphia.
The near-universal effect of CTCL’s grants was disproportionately greater turnout for one political party. Here’s how it broke down in Arizona, comparing the votes for president in 2020 versus 2016. All 15 counties increased their votes for both parties, but not at all equally. And both parties saw their votes increase even more in the nine counties CTCL funded than the six counties it did not. Here especially the results were unequal.
For the Republicans, the funded counties’ votes increased by 46% more than the rate at which unfunded counties increased. For Democrats, funded counties’ votes skyrocketed upwards 81% more quickly than they rose in unfunded counties.
That inequality in turnout translated into a lot of votes. Again, both parties had more 2020 votes in those nine CTCL-funded counties. But the additional votes Democrats received there gave them a margin over their opponents of 129,000 votes, or more than ten times the Democrats’ statewide margin of victory.
The Arizona Legislature is considering a bill that would ban private funding of county election offices, and we both testified on it. We understand why counties always like possible extra funds, but CTCL’s 2020 scheme raises the question of whether Arizona’s elections will be fair if they’re controlled by billionaires instead of the people’s elected representatives.
The following story is the fourth of five to be published over two weeks based on voting data the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting pulled for the 2017 legislative session. The nonprofit group analyzed the number of floor votes that each lawmaker cast the same as every other lawmaker. The result is a first of its kind look at voting patterns between Arizona legislators, revealing alike votes and disparities – some known anecdotally, others not seen before – between lawmakers, at times regardless of party affiliation. Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting set a minimum threshold of 230 alike votes in the House of Representatives and 435 alike votes in the state Senate to gauge how often lawmakers vote alike with one another.
The threshold could be expanded or shrunk, but think of the analysis like a microscope: zooming in too close, or not far enough, won’t reveal anything of interest. Finding the right magnification, or in this case, the right threshold of alike votes in each chamber, produces significant results and visualizes alike votes among legislators.
No man is an island, they say.
Tell that to Sen. Warren Petersen and Reps. Eddie Farnsworth and Rusty Bowers.
These Republicans certainly don’t vote alike with Democrats, according to an Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting analysis. They also have the distinction of being the most likely to buck their own party.
The three East Valley Republicans have an independent streak, the analysis shows, a tendency to vote no on bills that the rest of their Republican colleagues approve. In some cases, they’re the lone no vote on a bill, period, even when all Democrat and Republican lawmakers in both the Senate and House of Representatives approve of a bill.
Rep. Rusty Bowers (R-Mesa)
That was the case with Bowers, who was the only lawmaker in either chamber to vote against HB2192, a bill that placed restrictions on the driver’s licenses of parents who aren’t making child support payments.
[Use the interactive data tool created by AZCIR to discover the alike votes between each representative HERE.]
Bowers, who represents Mesa, said he’s not trying to make a distinction as an outlier, or abide by some “strict code.” He’s just casting votes based on the knowledge at hand, like when he was the lone vote against HB2192 in the House – he heard from court officials how detrimental losing one’s license can be.
“To restrict a driver’s license, except in a case where somebody’s a danger to other people’s lives, how’s he going to fulfill obligations if he doesn’t have a car in order to get to work. Or, how’s he going to fulfill obligations if he can’t get to a court date or meet a probation officer,” Bowers said.
Bowers will sometimes get a few “eyeballs” – curious stares or glares, he said, when he’s the lone dissenting vote. The same could be said of Petersen and Farnsworth, who both hail from the same legislative district in Gilbert.
Sen. Warren Petersen (R-Gilbert)
Petersen was one of only three lawmakers in the Senate to vote against a bill to lower the minimum age at which restaurant workers could serve alcohol from 19 to 18 years old, and was one of just two senators to vote against a measure to extend a window for Native American military veterans to recover income taxes withheld from their paychecks while they were on active duty. Farnsworth and Bowers voted against that bill, too.
[Use the interactive data tool created by AZCIR to discover the alike votes between each senator HERE.]
Sen. David Farnsworth (R-Mesa)
Farnsworth was the only representative to vote against a bill to make wulfenite Arizona’s official state mineral. He even voted against one bill in the budget – a package of bills that Republicans routinely approve.
Petersen and Farnsworth did not respond to multiple calls for comment.
Rep. T.J. Shope, R-Coolidge, wasn’t surprised. He said those lawmakers are part of a caucus of “no,” a cluster of Republicans who regularly don’t vote yes with their colleagues. But they’re not necessarily voting no for the sake of it – they’re just voting their conscience, according to GOP political consultant Constantin Querard.
There’s something of a luxury to being in the majority with votes to spare that makes it easier to vote against legislation knowing full well that a colleague’s bill will still get approved. Still, the lawmakers with independent streaks are also ones with strongly held beliefs and values that inform most of their votes.
“Those guys, that’s not artificial independence,” Querard said. “They take their oath very seriously, they have very critical eyes when it comes to legislation, and they do what they believe to be right.”
Find out more about your lawmakers’ voting patterns below:
The following story is the fifth of five to be published over two weeks based on voting data the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting pulled for the 2017 legislative session. The nonprofit group analyzed the number of floor votes that each lawmaker cast the same as every other lawmaker. The result is a first of its kind look at voting patterns between Arizona legislators, revealing alike votes and disparities – some known anecdotally, others not seen before – between lawmakers, at times regardless of party affiliation. Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting set a minimum threshold of 230 alike votes in the House of Representatives and 435 alike votes in the state Senate to gauge how often lawmakers vote alike with one another.
The threshold could be expanded or shrunk, but think of the analysis like a microscope: zooming in too close, or not far enough, won’t reveal anything of interest. Finding the right magnification, or in this case, the right threshold of alike votes in each chamber, produces significant results and visualizes alike votes among legislators.
It’s a numbers game at the Arizona Capitol. Lawmakers need 31 yes votes in the House of Representatives and 16 votes in the Senate to get bills approved.
Nothing makes that task easier for GOP-sponsored bills than a reliable Republican.
Representatives like Vince Leach, R-Tucson, and Don Shooter, R-Yuma, and Sens. Nancy Barto, R-Phoenix and John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, are among the Republicans most faithful to their own caucus when it comes to voting, according to an analysis by the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting.
In graphs depicting the voting patterns of the 2017 legislative session, their deep red dots indicate a propensity for voting alike with members of their own GOP caucus, and a distaste for bipartisan voting. That’s a contrast to some Republican lawmakers, and Democrats, who are lighter shades of red and blue, indicating they don’t always agree with legislators in their own party.
Their party loyalty can be ascribed to a variety of reasons: their seniority at the Capitol, and their positions as committee chairs. In the House, Leach and Shooter are “kind of in another layer of the leadership team,” said Rep. T.J. Shope, a Coolidge Republican who serves as speaker pro tem.
[Use the interactive data tool created by AZCIR to discover the alike votes between each representative HERE.]
In the case of Kavanagh and Shooter, heading the powerful Appropriations committees gives them a de facto leadership role since they control the committee that gets a first say on annual budget proposals, Shope said.
Sen. Don Shooter (R-Yuma) (Photo by Rachel Leingang, Arizona Capitol Times)
For Shooter, it’s simply a matter of being a “team player” in the Republican Party.
“It’s a team, and that’s the reason I traded (seats) with (Sen. Steve) Montenegro,” said Shooter, who swapped chambers with Montenegro in the 2016 elections – the two represent the same Legislative District 13. “It wasn’t particularly good for me, but it was good for the team so I took one for the team,” he added.
While Shooter also said he casts votes on behalf of the team, that doesn’t mean he’s not voting his conscience or is taking orders from leadership.
“I don’t do a damn thing I don’t want to do,” Shooter said.
It’s actually the caucus that drives leadership, and not the other way around, Kavanagh said.
[Use the interactive data tool created by AZCIR to discover the alike votes between each senator HERE.]
Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, smiles as he addresses the legislature in the Arizona House of Representatives at the Arizona Capitol Monday, Jan. 13, 2014, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
“There is no party line. Leadership does a lot of things, but they don’t sit down and decide what we vote for and we all fall in line,” he said. “Leadership has to agree with the caucus, not vice versa.”
With that in mind, Kavanagh attributes his reliably-red voting pattern to a simple truth in Arizona politics.
“We’re a red state, and we’re a conservative, red chamber, and I’m a conservative member,” Kavanagh said. “So it makes sense that I would be solidly conservative and vote with the caucus.”
Find out more about your lawmakers’ voting patterns below:
The following story is the first of five to be published over the next two weeks based on voting data the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting pulled for the 2017 legislative session. The nonprofit group analyzed the number of floor votes that each lawmaker cast the same as every other lawmaker. The result is a first of its kind look at voting patterns between Arizona legislators, revealing alike votes and disparities – some known anecdotally, others not seen before – between lawmakers, at times regardless of party affiliation. Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting set a minimum threshold of 230 alike votes in the House of Representatives and 435 alike votes in the state Senate to gauge how often lawmakers vote alike with one another.
The threshold could be expanded or shrunk, but think of the analysis like a microscope: zooming in too far, or not far enough, won’t reveal anything of interest. Finding the right magnification, or in this case, the right threshold of alike votes in each chamber, produces significant results and visualizes alike votes among legislators.
No legislative votes are picked apart come election season quite like those of lawmakers from Arizona’s swing districts.
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle must consider the repercussions at the ballot box on controversial votes when they serve a district with roughly even splits among Democrats and Republicans, or a strong base of independents.
In a state as conservative as Arizona, it’s still rare for Democrats to hold those seats. Conventional wisdom is for such a lawmaker to vote in a pattern slightly left of center – reliably with Democrats on most issues, but they will sometimes vote with lawmakers across the aisle when it comes to policies that divide the electorate in a given district.
First-term Sen. Sean Bowie is a perfect example of that wisdom. The Phoenix Democrat won a competitive race in Legislative District 18, where GOP voter registration outpaces Democrats by nearly 5,000 voters.
[Use the interactive data tool created by AZCIR to discover the alike votes between each senator HERE.]
So it comes as no surprise that Bowie voted alike with Republican senators more than any other Democratic lawmaker, according to the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting’s analysis of votes during the 2017 legislative session. Whether it’s because his votes are politically expedient, or achieve the goals of his more conservative constituents, Bowie’s voting pattern fit the model for an Arizona Democrat in a swing district: play to both sides of the aisle.
Reps. Mitzi Epstein, D-Phoenix, and Kelli Butler, D-Paradise Valley, don’t play by those bipartisan rules. Epstein, who represents the same district as Bowie, and Butler, who represents a district where registered Republicans outpace Democrats by nearly 11,000 voters, cast no alike votes with Republicans at a threshold of 230 alike votes, according to the analysis.
Find the interactive data tool below. (Data by the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting; Graphic by Katie Campbell/Arizona Capitol Times)
[Use the interactive data tool created by AZCIR to discover the alike votes between each representative HERE.]
Voters in those swing districts will have the final say in 2018 on whether they prefer a bipartisan voting record like Bowie’s or a solid blue streak like Epstein and Butler’s.
“That is what they both will be held to, not only the fact that they are both Democrats, but what is your actual voting record?” said Janie Hydrick, chair of the LD18 Democratic Party.
Independent streak
In LD18, Bowie and Epstein both boasted of their efforts to meticulously analyze bills, meet with stakeholders and arrive at independent decisions to cast votes on bills. While their methods were similar, the decisions they made were far different.
Sen. Sean Bowie (D-Phoenix) (Photo by Rachel Leingang/Arizona Capitol Times)
Bowie said his votes often hinged on thinking what’s best for his entire district. Sometimes that meant ignoring calls to vote with his own caucus, and instead joining Republicans to approve bills.
“There were a couple of bills, especially toward the end of session, that were bills that were going to impact my district,” he said. “Something like the university bonding bill, which I know every Democrat in the House voted against it. I worked in higher education before getting elected, I’m very aware of the cuts to higher ed by the Legislature, and I thought that was a very important bill, not just for the universities, but for my district.”
Bowie’s district is full of ASU employees, himself included. Bowie worked at ASU in an administrative role prior to his election, and now serves as an adjunct professor. The fact that so many of his constituents also work at the university made his vote to approve more funding for the state’s three public universities a no-brainer, Bowie said.
So, too, was a vote on the final day of session to offer a manufacturing tax credit that would apply to Intel and Honeywell, two of the largest employers in LD18, he said.
“They were looking to expand their facilities in my district, and we had a lot of pressure from Democratic groups to not support that, but at the end of the day, I knew it was going to help my district,” Bowie said.
Epstein voted against the university bonding bill as part of a show of force by House Democrats, all 25 of whom opposed the bill.
She gave preliminary approval of the tax credit bill in a committee vote, but she missed the vote on the floor when it was narrowly approved in the House by 32 votes.
Epstein said her business experience provided crucial insight when researching bills and considering their economic impact. Her decisions to vote against bills that most Republicans support comes from a fierce independent streak, she said, not towing the Democratic Party line, and that voters in her district “should be dancing in the streets that I don’t bow to somebody else’s prior decisions.”
Find the interactive data tool above. (Data by the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting; Graphic by Katie Campbell/Arizona Capitol Times)
“It’s not about whether I voted with the Democrats or Republicans. It’s about, was I willing to stand up to power and say, ‘Hold it. You have to actually give me a good reason to vote for this, or I’m not going to vote for it,’” Epstein said. “And if Democrats were in the majority, I’m that person who’s going to stand up to them, too.”
For Bowie, representing his constituents means sometimes voting with the Republican majority.
“It’s a moderate, high income, well-educated district, and I think they’re looking for legislators who care more about what’s best for the community and what’s best for the cities there than necessarily what’s best for the party or ideology,” Bowie said.
Pragmatic wing
The LD18 election will be a perfect test of disparate voting patterns of the district’s two Democrats. Darin Fisher, himself a former legislative candidate, is now a Democratic precinct committeeman in the district. He said Bowie fits the mold of LD18 Democrats and has the voting record to prove it.
“We’re not the hardcore progressive wing, we’re the pragmatic wing. People call us blue dogs, people call us all sorts of things – DINOs,” Fisher said. “But the reality of it is, particularly when you’re in the minority, you have to understand that you still have to govern. Sean understands I think so much better than Mitzi the nuances of governing, and how things actually work, particularly in a state like Arizona.”
Governing means being willing and able to cross party lines when you vote, and Bowie’s got a reputation that proves he’s capable. Even Republicans have taken notice, Fisher said, giving Bowie support from moderate Republicans in LD18.
At the other end of the voting spectrum, Epstein is “a little bit too beholden” to the hardcore progressive Democrats of the district, Fisher said.
“Mitzi, she’s just not a policy wonk, so rather than digging into the details, she takes more direction from leadership as opposed to actually staking out her own positions,” he said.
Hydrick, the Democratic Party chairwoman in LD18, said Epstein’s well-versed in the subject that matters most to voters in the district: public education.
Rep. Mitzi Epstein (D-Phoenix)
“There were a lot of votes this session about education, and Mitzi is absolutely firm – she’s always been an advocate, outspoken for public education. And that’s what she ran on. That’s what she promised people she would do. And that’s what she did when she got into the Statehouse,” Hydrick said.
Bowie, on the other hand, is “looking at it not as, particularly as a Democrat who will vote down the line on what Democrats hold, but what the district, as a whole district, would favor,” she said.
Bowie’s varied voting record will help him gain bipartisan support in the 2018 election, Hydrick said, while Epstein will be leaning on her votes on education policy to cut across party barriers, Hydrick said.
“There are a lot of moderate Republicans who support public education, there are a lot of independents who support public education. Of course, that’s one of the tenants of the Democratic platform,” Hydrick said. “So she has a broad base.”
To Fisher, Epstein’s base is not as broad as Hydrick believes. Epstein will have to rely on overwhelming support from Democrats to overcome a voting record that shows little deference to GOP interests.
Bowie likely won’t find as strong support as Epstein among Democrats, but given his penchant for crossing the aisle, he has appeal with centrist Republicans and conservative independents, Fisher said.
Bad ideas
When Butler won in 2016, she continued a trend set by former Rep. Eric Meyer of a single-shot Democratic candidate winning a seat in Legislative District 28, where Republicans hold a healthy voter registration majority.
Despite her lack of alike votes with Republicans, Butler said her votes “absolutely” represent her district’s values.
Rep. Kelli Butler (D-Paradise Valley)
“I got elected to go down there and fight for education and for the economy, and I was focused on those priorities,” Butler said. “And when there was something that was not going to create a good solution that was going to help our schools and our teachers and our students, I had no problems voting against it.”
In a Legislature where Republicans decide which bills get through the legislative process, a Democrat must cast more votes on bills sponsored by Republicans. And Republicans had a lot of bad ideas, Butler said.
“I was not down there to play games, and I had absolutely no trouble voting against bad ideas. And so I saw far too many things that were bad ideas, and I was not going to support those,” she added.
Butler’s voting pattern is contrasted by the district’s senator, Kate Brophy McGee, R-Phoenix. She was one of a handful of GOP senators who voted alike with Democrats most frequently, according to the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting analysis. So while even a Republican in a swing district fits the conventional wisdom of spreading out votes across the aisle, those bipartisan votes Brophy McGee took were often related to education, an issue that plays across party lines in LD28, Butler said.
As for how her voting pattern will affect her campaign in 2018, Butler said that never came up during the legislative session.
“I wasn’t thinking about my re-election strategy when I was voting. I literally was doing my best to understand the issue and vote the way I thought I will be able to talk to, answer to my voters for,” she said.
Meyer, the former representative Butler replaced, said Butler’s voting pattern may have something to do with post-presidential election pressures from the progressive left – an influence that can be significant on a freshman lawmaker.
But like Epstein, Meyer argued that Butler’s strong support of public education will play well in an issues-based campaign in LD28. Democrats, independents and Republicans in LD28 with kids in Arizona’s public schools will all favor a candidate who took votes to ensure as much money as possible is available to public schools, he said.
Find out more about your lawmakers’ voting patterns below:
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
Sign In
Free Newsletter
