On Monday, the Arizona Senate passed two election integrity bills and turned down three others. The two that passed with the Republican majority 16-13, SB1260 and SB1477, make it a class 5 felony to help a non-Arizonan vote and require superior court clerks to give monthly records of felony convictions to the secretary of state so they may unregister those felons.
The three bills that failed — SB1358, SB1475, and SB1478 — were sponsored by State Senator Kelly Townsend (R-Mesa). She ultimately voted against her own bills in a failed attempt to have the senate reconsider them.
The first bill, SB1358, would’ve required ballots in counties with voting centers to be separated and grouped by precinct for hand count audits. SB1475 was a striker bill to grant greater power to the attorney general to enforce election law concerning federal elections; originally, the bill made anyone falsely claiming to be a citizen while registering to vote guilty of a felony.
My bill, SB1475, states:
“A PERSON WHO KNOWINGLY AND FALSELY CLAIMS UNITED STATES CITIZENSHIP WHILE REGISTERING TO VOTE IS GUILTY OF A CLASS 2 FELONY.” There is room to lessen it, but it should remain a felony, nonetheless. pic.twitter.com/Tn0K1Hl3hQ
SB1478 would have prohibited county boards of supervisors from requiring specific marking on paper ballots, as well as from providing pens that would bleed through ballot paper. The bill related back to the SharpieGate scandal.
SB1358 failed 13-16, with State Senators Paul Boyer (R-Glendale) and Michelle Ugenti-Rita (R-Scottsdale) joining Democrats in voting against the bill. SB1475 and SB1478 both failed 14-15.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
On Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that Pinal County’s transportation excise tax was unlawful. The ruling affects two 2017 voter-approved measures from the Pinal County Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) Pinal County Board of Supervisors. The two measures instituted a tax on purchases under $10,000, constituting a two-tiered retail transaction privilege tax (TPT) that would pay for infrastructure.
BREAKING NEWS – MASSIVE Goldwater victory for taxpayers' rights!
The Arizona Supreme Court just ruled that Pinal County's "transportation excise tax" is ILLEGAL. pic.twitter.com/BhRBGH1cwp
— Goldwater Institute (@GoldwaterInst) March 8, 2022
The Arizona Supreme Court disagreed with the county’s assertion that the tax afforded a modified and variable rate in accordance with state law.
“We therefore conclude that the two-tiered retail TPT structure in Proposition 417 is neither a ‘modified rate’ nor a ‘variable rate’ under § 42-6106(C). In this case, until the legislature ‘expressly delegates’ to counties the authority to implement this tiered-rate tax on specified businesses—an authority that is ‘strictly construed’ — Pinal County’s two tiered retail TPT structure as part of a transportation excise tax is unlawful and invalid,” wrote the court.
The ruling marked the Goldwater Institute’s seventh Arizona Supreme Court ruling in their favor. The institute’s vice president of litigation, Timothy Sandefur, asserted that the ruling ensured clarity, ease, and lowered costs for businesses.
“The legislature intended state taxes to be uniform — not to allow each of the state’s 15 counties to set their own rules. To allow that would make Arizona inhospitable for business, because it would transform the state into a crazy quilt of different tax rules in each locality,” wrote Sandefur. “[I]t marks a victory for taxpayers not just in Pinal County but throughout Arizona. In tough economic times—with inflation and fuel costs rising—the last thing Arizona needs is for public officials to create more and more complicated tax rules that take more of people’s earnings away and drive away job-creating industry.”
We just won a big victory for taxpayers – it's our 7th win before the AZ Supreme Court!
The last thing AZ needs right now is for government officials to create complicated tax rules that take away more of people's hard-earned money and drive away jobs. https://t.co/uuJNlJHg0d
— Goldwater Institute (@GoldwaterInst) March 8, 2022
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
The Arizona Senate kicked off their Monday with a show of bipartisanship. Four Senate Republicans joined their Democratic colleagues in voting against a bill to prohibit local governments from using lobbyists: State Senators Paul Boyer (R-Glendale), Tyler Pace (R-Mesa), T.J. Shope (R-Phoenix), and Senate President Karen Fann (R-Prescott). The bill from State Senator Warren Petersen (R-Gilbert), SB1198, failed 12-17.
The four senators didn’t explain their “no” vote; neither did the Democrats. The bill would’ve prevented counties, cities, towns, school districts, and any other political subdivisions from contracting with or spending money on lobbying services, with exemptions for employees of that local government entity, cities or towns with less than 75,000 citizens, or counties with less than 250,000 citizens.
Peterson explained during the Senate Government Committee that the end of lobbying at the state level several years ago allowed for a “greater balance” between citizens and the state government.
A spokesman for Apache County, Greenlee County, Scottsdale, and Prescott said that the bill was a good idea philosophically but would result in higher costs for the cities and counties. He said that the local governments would have to hire full-time employees to fulfill duties normally filled by lobbyists contracted at lower costs.
The League of Arizona Cities and Towns also opposed the bill. Their spokesman explained that their lobbyists alleviated the burdens of keeping up with the legislature for elected officials.
The Goldwater Institute National Litigation Director Jon Riches said the bill prevented taxpayer dollars from being spent on services that further government interests while ignoring the taxpayer.
“Tax dollars should not go to support status quo special interests at the expense of taxpayers, small businesses, and citizens who might not be able to afford a team of well-funded lobbyists, including lobbyists who often advocate against those taxpayers’ interests,” said Riches.
Arizona Free Enterprise Club Vice President Aimee Yentes concurred with Riches’ statement, insisting that it’s elected officials’ duty to take on the responsibilities that they pass on to lobbyists. Yentes is also a member of the Gilbert Town Council.
Disappointing result on SB1198. The Senators in red voted to allow government entities to continue wasting our tax dollars to pay lobbyists to lobby against the taxpayers’ interests.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Marco Lopez has ties to a massive foreign corruption scandal involving a global construction conglomerate Odebrecht and its bribes to politicians globally. According to an investigative report from Arizona Agenda relying on case information from anti-corruption news organization Mexicanos Contra la Corrupción y la Impunidad, Lopez’s company, Intermestic Partners/International Strategic Solutions, received $35,000 from Odebrecht for his several months of work on former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s 2012 campaign. Ultimately, Odebrecht shelled out $800 million through its secretive business department tasked with bribing all levels of government officials across the world, the “Division of Structured Operations,” earning a minimum criminal fine of $4.5 billion in 2016.
Peña Nieto’s former campaign lieutenant, Emilio Lozoya, connected Lopez’s $35,000 to a $3 million bribe from an Odebrecht shell company: campaign money for public works contracts. Lozoya’s shell business, Latin American Asia Capital Holdings, received the $3 million from Odebrecht before redistributing tens of thousands to Lopez.
According to Lozoya, the invoices that Lopez and others submitted were bogus. Lopez claimed to have worked on something called the “Colombia Project.” Lopez refused to speak with the Arizona Agenda about his ties with Odebrecht and the Peña Nieto corruption.
By all accounts, Lopez would qualify as a career politician. As a teen, Lopez served as a congressional page for former Arizona Congressman Ed Pastor. In his early 20s, Lopez worked on Al Gore’s presidential campaign. In 2001, Lopez was elected mayor of his hometown, Nogales, Arizona, becoming one of the youngest mayors in American history at the time.
Another two years after his election, former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano appointed Lopez to be the executive director of the Arizona-Mexico Commission. Lopez took on a Latin American policy advisory position within Napolitano’s cabinet. After three years, Napolitano promoted Lopez to serve as her senior advisor on foreign affairs and trade. Napolitano again promoted Lopez in 2008 to direct the Arizona Department of Commerce.
It appears Napolitano didn’t forget Lopez when the White House came to bring her into the Obama Administration in 2008. Not long after Napolitano’s appointment as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Lopez was appointed chief of staff for Customs and Border Protection (CBP). He remained in that position until 2011, before focusing his attention on business ventures of his own. That year, Lopez established the Phoenix-based business and investment advisory group linked to the Odebrecht scandal, Intermestic Partners. Additionally, Lopez began to serve as senior advisor to Forbes’ 2010-2013 richest person in the world: Carlos Slim Helu.
For a decade, Lopez abstained from taking on a political office. Then in March of last year, Lopez announced his candidacy for Arizona governor — the first to do so.
After the report broke, Lopez denied his involvement. He claimed the report was inaccurate because it was heavy with “innuendo, racial stereotypes and falsehoods.”
This story is outright false. National security checks are a continuous service Intermestic provides, and has conducted hundreds of. The story is filled with innuendo, racial stereotypes and falsehoods. (1/2)
Indicating any knowledge of Odebrecht’s bribing operations could be a deadly maneuver. Odebrecht’s former vice president, Henrique Valladares, was found dead in his Rio de Janeiro apartment in September 2019, shortly after entering a plea bargain with state prosecutors to reveal who was in on the company’s bribing system. Valladares was one of the key informants in the case. According to state police, the cause of his death was “undetermined.”
Odebrecht was implicated following a smaller Brazilian anti-bribery investigation codenamed “Lava Jato,” or “Car Wash,” that began with the arrest of Brazil’s former national oil company executive, Nestor Cerveró.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
A bill to prevent the state and public utilities from contracting with companies who rely on forced Uyghur labor, HB2488, passed out of the Senate Commerce Committee 8-1 on Wednesday. The only senator to vote against the bill was State Senator Tyler Pace (R-Mesa). The Uyghurs are a Muslim ethnic group that the Chinese government has detained in “reeducation camps” since 2017. The legislation passed out of the House nearly a month ago.
HB2488 prohibits the state and any of its political subdivisions, agencies, boards, commissions, or departments from entering contracts without explicit confirmation that the company doesn’t and won’t rely on forced labor from Uyghurs in China. The prohibition also extends to goods and services produced by those Uyghurs, as well as any Uyghur labor used by a company’s contractors, subcontractors, or suppliers.
The bill sponsor, State Representative Justin Wilmeth (R-Phoenix) explained in a press release that this was a necessary measure to stand against human rights violations.
“As a student of history, I know what happens when good people remain silent,” stated Wilmeth. “The Chinese Communist Party keeping millions of people locked in internment camps, which harkens back to the darkest chapters of the 20th century. HB 2488 sends a strong message that the State of Arizona won’t do business with anyone that turns a blind eye to this horrible human rights abuse.”
In the House, the bill passed unanimously. The only other votes against the bill that occurred came from Minority Whip Domingo Degrazia (D-Tucson) and State Representative Diego Espinoza (D-Tolleson) in the Rules Committee. Degrazia ultimately voted for the bill during the final house floor vote, while Espinoza didn’t vote at all.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
