By Staff Reporter |

A major health insurance company behind significant rate hikes has issued more campaign mailers in the Valley, this time targeting Legislative District 4. 

Elevance Health financed attack mailers for Democratic State Senate candidate Aaron Lieberman against incumbent Sen. Carine Werner (R-LD4). 

The mailers accused Werner of sponsoring a bill to make school board elections into partisan ones, supporting another bill to ban certain books, and bullying school staff. 

“Carine Werner brought partisan bickering into our schools — and our kids are paying the price,” stated the mailer. 

The first two accusations referenced Senate Bills 1441 and 1435, respectively. The former bill would have required candidates to disclose their political party affiliation on the ballot, but it was vetoed by Gov. Katie Hobbs. The latter bill would have made it a felony for public library employees or independent contractors to refer unemancipated minors to any sexually explicit materials in any manner. The latter bill failed to advance out of the House. 

The third accusation referred to an incident last September when Werner was caught during a meeting on a hot mic criticizing a district employee. Werner observed that Patti Bilbrey, the district’s nutritional services director, was “morbidly obese.” 

Along with Elevance Health, top donors behind the attack mailers also included Jackpocket Inc., a lottery courier service and subsidiary of sports betting giant DraftKings. 

Campaign finance filings don’t reflect any donations from Jackpocket to Lieberman’s campaign. 

State campaign finance records do reflect that Elevance Health donated $25,000 to the Arizona Democratic Party last year. They were not reported to have donated prior to that time. AZ Free News previously reported that Elevance Health was one of the top single donors last year to the heavily indebted Arizona Democratic Party. 

Elevance Health has not been reported as a donor to the Arizona Republican Party, but it has been subjected to widespread coverage this past year for raising its rates by double digits.

Elevance Health recently raised premium rates by 24% across its Affordable Healthcare Act and Medicare plans, and requested another 17% increase for 2027. It also exited what it classified as underperformance programs, beginning with Louisiana and then the Washington, D.C. markets. 

Elevance Health has appeared as a top funder on campaign mailers for other Democratic candidates, but usually alongside Arizona Public Service. The exception on this mailer may be due to Lieberman’s primary campaign promise to lower utility costs. 

Apart from utilities, Lieberman’s primary campaign message has focused on improving the quality of public schools through increases to funding. 

Lieberman was a state lawmaker from 2019 until 2021, when he resigned to run for governor. He dropped out of the race ahead of the Democratic primary. Lieberman’s victory would have made him Arizona’s first Jewish governor. 

Lieberman is one of the 17 Arizona candidates backed by the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which is focused on flipping seats to undo the Arizona Republican Party’s majority in the state legislature. 

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