Attorney General Kris Mayes accused her predecessor, Mark Brnovich, of election suppression.
In a Sunday interview with MSNBC, Mayes said that Brnovich’s office looked too hard for potential voter fraud. Mayes opined that only taking on five cases would be the norm every couple of years, not hundreds or thousands of cases in any one given year.
“This Election Integrity Unit — which was obviously completely misnamed, it was more like an ‘Election Suppression Unit’ here in Arizona — you know, it spent thousands of man and woman hours investigating conspiracy theories, alleged cases of voter fraud,” said Mayes.
Mayes went on to insinuate that the Election Integrity Unit (EIU) would meet its demise under her administration. The attorney general indicated that the EIU would be replaced with a unit that would challenge election scrutiny.
“We’ve got to put an end to that kind of effort to suppress the vote, we’ve got to change this into a unit that protects voters, protects the right to vote, and most of all, protects our elections officials,” said Mayes.
Mayes said she would prosecute anyone who threatens election officials. She also criticized Republicans for attacking early mail-in voting.
The contempt that Mayes and her office have for the former attorney general has been made obvious in recent weeks. Mayes’ newly appointed chief deputy attorney general, Dan Barr, indicated that physical force was the only means of handling Brnovich effectively.
“The only way to deal with cowardly bullies is to punch them in the nose,” wrote Barr. “That’s what @SecretaryHobbs is doing to @GeneralBrnovich.”
Under the leadership of @AZAGMayes, the Arizona Attorney General’s Office will now work with elections officials across the state and will prosecute the people who threaten them. https://t.co/Yui5nWXtL0
Mayes promised in previous weeks to repurpose EIU resources toward “protecting voting access and combating voter suppression.” Mayes toldThe Guardian earlier this month that she would use her office to protect mail-in voting from efforts to reduce it.
Brnovich established the EIU in 2019 with $500,000 from the governor’s office. He appointed now-former assistant attorney general Jen Wright to head the unit. Wright recently joined the legal team for Mayes’ GOP opponent, Abraham Hamadeh, as he challenges the validity of the 2022 general election.
Wright claimed that recount data revealed some voters recorded by election machines as “undervotes” were incorrect, and that provisional ballot rejections suggested previously invactive voters had their provisional ballots rejected as ineligible.
I’m please to announce I have joined @AbrahamHamadeh’s election contest to ensure that every legal vote was counted in the Arizona Attorney General’s race.
Wright has also initiated legal proceedings against Mayes after her office falsely claimed to The Arizona Republic that they fired Wright, when Wright had resigned before Mayes took office. The outlet hasn’t issued a correction or retraction, since Mayes’ office doubled down on the claim.
Mayes’ office may be in violation of Arizona law limiting agency disclosure of personnel information. Wright further claimed that Mayes’ office discriminated against Wright due to her political affiliation.
💥SERVED💥 “Arizona Administrative Code § R2-5A-105(D) limits the personnel information that an agency may disclose publicly… and your lies to the media fit nowhere within the authorized public disclosures.”
Arizona State University (ASU) professor Neal Lester said that cultural appropriation is equivalent to racism and white supremacy, specifically claiming it lacked humanity.
Lester — an English professor at ASU for 26 years and founder of ASU’s social justice-focused initiative, Project Humanities — made these remarks during a September episode of “Dr. Phil.”
“We can say the same thing about racism, sexism, homophobia. Just because you can’t solve it and don’t see it at every corner doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be aware of it and trying to address it,” said Lester. “I put [cultural appropriation] on the same level as white supremacy, because white supremacy is intersectional.”
Lester added that cultural appropriation was not only inhumane, but disrespectful. “Dr. Phil” host, Phil McGraw, pointed out that not everyone who puts on other cultural items was necessarily doing so in a manner intending comedic effect. Lester responded that even those instances would be reductive, performative, and ultimately disrespectful of those from that culture.
“You’re getting some kind of cultural capital by doing it,” said Lester. “It’s not necessarily who’s hurt by it, it’s who is disrespected by it. A whole culture of people whose identities are wrapped in whatever you’re dressing into and can then take off.”
The focus of the “Dr. Phil” episode, “Appropriation Nation: Has it Gone Too Far?”, concerned in part a 2018 controversy after an 18-year-old Utah teenager, Keziah Daum, posted her wearing a qipao dress to prom. A 20-year-old University of Utah student at the time, Jeremy Lam, quote-tweeted the post with the viral comment, “My culture is NOT your goddamn prom dress.”
Lam later told outlets that Daum’s outfit was a sign of racism. His original caption on Daum’s dress inspired months of memes, where social media users would use the phrase in their own captions when reposting others’ outfits.
Though Lam and a select few social media users at the time claimed Daum’s outfit choice was cultural appropriation, Daum revealed in September’s “Dr. Phil” episode that China invited her to its Qipao Festival to be their guest of honor.
“They loved the fact that someone from America was taking in a part of their culture and showing their appreciation for it,” said Daum. “I wasn’t appropriating it. I wore it because it was a beautiful dress and I appreciated it.”
The episode also addressed content created by former Prager University influencer, Will Witt, in which he wore outfits depicting various cultures on college campuses and then in areas dominated by the culture reflective of that outfit. Witt wore outfits representative of Native American, Mexican, and Chinese cultures. Only those on college campuses expressed negative sentiment toward Witt’s outfits, a majority of whom didn’t hail from the areas dominated by the culture while those in the areas reflective of his outfits expressed positive sentiment.
“The only people who are actually offended by cultural appropriation don’t really have anything else of meaning going on in their lives, it seems,” said Witt. “[Cultural appropriation] is a thing created by elitist white people who don’t really ever talk to these people in these cultures.”
Lester likened cultural appropriation to plagiarism. Witt said Lester’s comments proved him to be one of the “anti-white, ivory tower professors” attempting to domineer cultural norms.
The Arizona Democratic Party (ADP) rejected Gov. Katie Hobbs’ pick to lead the state party on Saturday.
Chairing the party will be Yolanda Bejarano, a longtime union organizer who’d been serving as ADP’s vice chair. Hobbs’ pick was Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Gallardo, who also served as a member of her transition team. Bejarano won in a landslide, receiving 70 percent of over 600 state party committee member votes.
AZ Free News reported in December that Hobbs’ endorsement of Gallardo indicated a party divide. The governor issued multiple public endorsements in the weeks leading up to the election.
In 2022 I was elected Arizona’s first Democratic governor in 15 years – and in 2024 we have the once in a lifetime opportunity to flip the legislature blue for the first time in decades.
Altogether, Bejarano boasted a lengthy list of top party leader endorsements, including: Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ); Reps. Greg Stanton (D-AZ-04), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ-03), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ-07); Secretary of State Adrian Fontes; Attorney General Kris Mayes; State Reps. Athena Salman (D-LD08), Analise Ortiz (D-LD24), Leezah Sun (D-LD22); State Sens. Anna Hernandez (D-LD24), Juan Mendez (D-LD08); Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cazares-Kelly; Phoenix City Vice Mayor Yassamin Ansari and Council Members Betty Guardado and Carlos Garcia; former Reps. Ann Kirkpatrick, Tom O’Halleran, and Gabby Giffords.
By comparison, Gallardo’s endorsements featured a smattering of unions and mostly former leaders from the state legislature and party. Present leadership that endorsed Gallardo included the Arizona Education Association; State Reps. Jennifer Longdon (D-LD05), Consuelo Hernandez (D-LD21), Minority Whip Marcelino Quiñonez (D-LD11), and Amish Shah (D-LD05).
Incredibly proud to have the support of these Arizona Democratic leaders. Together, we’re building a state party that leaves no one behind. I hope you’ll join them in supporting me for #ADPChairpic.twitter.com/ctcZ9Thh7X
However, Hobbs opted to congratulate all elected for the ADP board rather than acknowledging Bejarano’s win individually.
Congrats to the newly elected @azdemparty board – I look forward to partnering with them and @a_dlcc over the next 2 years to win back our US House & Senate seats, deliver our electoral votes for Pres. Biden again, and flip the legislature blue.
Hobbs later issued a tweet thanking former ADP chair, State Senate Minority Leader Raquel Terán (D-LD30), for her past two years of leadership. She credited Terán for helping her secure the governorship, but omitted Bejarano entirely.
“Together, we won the 9th floor for the first time in 15 years and I look forward to all that you will do in Senate leadership fighting alongside me,” said Hobbs.
So grateful for the amazing work and leadership from @RaquelTeran these past 2 years.
Together, we won the 9th floor for the first time in 15 years and I look forward to all that you will do in Senate leadership fighting alongside me. https://t.co/2BggPZngl1
With Bejarano at the helm, the ADP plans on flipping the state legislature next year. Republicans have held a consistently slim majority over the past four years: 16 Republicans to 14 Democrats in the Senate, and 31 Republicans to 29 Democrats in the House, the lowest in decades. The GOP majority began slipping from a recent high point in 2011, when it had 21 members to Democrats’ nine in the Senate and 40 members to Democrats’ 20 in the House.
Other board members are: Rick McGuire, treasurer; Lisa Sanor, secretary; Paul Eckerstrom, first vice chair; Sierra Yamanaka, senior vice chair; vice chairs April Ignacio, Brianna Westbrook, Deydrek Scott, Lupe Conchas, Shanna Leonard, and William Knight.
Congratulations to the new board of the @azdemparty! It’s time to win more elections, serve, and bring our communities together. We look forward to your leadership. pic.twitter.com/QmLhTeXdXo
The Arizona Department of Education (ADE) is eliminating social-emotional learning and other “woke” initiatives from its administration, with an eye on barring it from schools entirely.
ADE Superintendent Tom Horne explained his vision during an interview with “The Conservative Circus” on Thursday. Horne said that leftist agenda initiatives took away critical funding from teacher salaries.
“The money should be going to teachers’ salaries, and not, as we say, ‘woke’ ideology,” said Horne.
Tom Horne, AZ Superintendent of Public Instruction, discusses the elimination of emotional learning training along https://t.co/ML7GQVsO36
Horne said that social-emotional learning, sexualized curriculum, and critical race theory (CRT) had nothing to do with academics.
“The nonsense is producing the low test scores. If we focus on academics, we can bring the test scores back up,” said Horne.
Arizona students have struggled to perform well in tests over the last few years: a sharp downturn in achievement from forced school closures amid the pandemic following years of general decline.
Last October, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) revealed in a report that students suffered severe learning losses in math and nominal losses in reading due to the COVID-19 shutdowns. In September, ADE revealed that a majority of Arizona students were still failing the statewide assessment.
In response to critics alleging Horne operated out of racial animosity, Horne disavowed claims of racism and noted that he’s been a longtime supporter of Civil Rights. Horne participated in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s March on Washington in 1963.
Horne’s first moves in office included purging ADE of initiatives by former Superintendent Kathy Hoffman: sex chat rooms for minors, such as “Queer Chat”; the division on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI); and references to social-emotional learning.
“The word ‘equity’ in common-use of the English language is a very positive word,” said Horne. “But what they’ve done with Critical Race Theory is they’ve made it into a negative word: it is the desire that we have equal outcomes by racial groups which doesn’t recognize individual merit. I believe in individual merit.”
The Office of EDI contained the Office of Indian Education (OIE), which administered federal and state program resources for Native American students;
As part of ADE’s annual conference that began on Wednesday and concludes Friday, ADE eliminated presentations on social-emotional learning and racial trauma, as well as diversity and equity.
ADE spokesman Doug Nick said that these events didn’t address core academic issues: namely reading, science, and math. Nick said that teachers tell ADE that they oppose prioritizing SEL in the classroom.
“[Teachers] disagree with being compelled to use social-emotional learning curriculum instead of teaching core subjects,” said Nick.
During his campaign, Horne declared “war” on CRT and other “woke” curriculum championed by former Superintendent Kathy Hoffman.
“[CRT is] venal racism, and its war against merit and achievement, which if not stopped, will make us a third world country,” stated Horne.
There are two reasons I want to take office to fight CRT: its venal racism, and its war against merit and achievement, which if not stopped, will make us a third world country.Visit https://t.co/3hsKA2QKwf click donate now in the upper right hand side of web page. Thank you!
Arizona State University (ASU) has placed men’s urinals in women’s restrooms.
The woman who discovered one of these installations, Rachel Hope, was at ASU’s Art Building. The urinal was located inside one of the enclosed stalls next to a regular toilet. Hope is the vice chair of the East Valley Young Republicans.
ASU caves to the far left by putting men’s urinals in the woman’s restroom!! 🤢🤡 pic.twitter.com/semEfmUsWz
ASU allows students to use restrooms according to their gender identity. Those opposed to this policy may be in violation of ASU’s anti-discrimination rules. ASU’s Academic Affairs Manual (ACD) prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
These two choices are considered protected characteristics. ASU encourages students to report any violations of this policy through the Office of University Rights and Responsibilities (OURR) and Title IX officials.
Directly underneath the policy stating that ASU allows students to use restrooms according to their gender identity, the university includes a direct link for reporting discrimination.
Those found in violation of ASU’s anti-discrimination policy may include firing for employees, or suspension or expulsion for students. Those not enrolled or working for ASU may be subject to other legal penalties, if pursued by ASU.
Title VII protects employees from discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. This interpretation of federal law was determined by the Supreme Court in 2020 through Bostock v. Clayton County.
Gov. Katie Hobbs recently enacted a similar policy through her first executive order, declaring that the state may not discriminate against gender identity when hiring.
ASU completely supports transgenderism. In addition to its policies and guides prioritizing LGBTQ+ ideology in the classroom, ASU helps advance that lifestyle elsewhere.
On International Transgender Day of Visibility, Barrett, along with Prism, PAB @ Poly, RHA @ Poly, and BLAST @ Poly, hosted Pride Prom at the ASU Polytechnic Campus. While the event celebrated the LGBTQIA+ community, all students were invited. Read more: https://t.co/RodJqb0SzI
— Barrett, The Honors College at ASU (@barretthonors) April 7, 2022
As AZ Free News reported previously, ASU began reimbursing employees and their dependents, children, up to $10,000 for gender transition procedures. They’re joined in this health care policy by the University of Arizona (UArizona).
ASU Educational Outreach and Student Services provides a page dedicated to transgender-specific resources. In addition to a guide informing faculty and staff on advancing inclusivity of transgender individuals, the resource page directs students to gender-inclusive housing, gender-neutral housing, health services, name change links, voice therapy, and both local and national resources for advancing transgenderism.
However, activist students have found these accommodations insufficient. Last April, students complained that gender-inclusive housing, launched in Fall 2016, forced them to endure an insensitive application process which deadnamed (identified them by their birth rather than preferred name) and misgendered them.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
