Citing a report from the Arizona Legislative Budget Committee, the Goldwater Institute debunked the narrative that Arizona’s universal education savings account (ESA) program has harmed students and blown up the states’ budget.
In a lengthy and detailed report from Director of Education Policy at the Goldwater Institute Matt Beienburg, it is made plain that the universal ESA program has been a net-positive development for Arizona’s students, families, and taxpayers.
In a post to X, Beienburg summarized the report writing, “Since universal expansion, AZ enjoyed a $2B budget surplus one year, & an overall K-12 formula savings compared to its enacted budget the second, all as 75,000 ESA students are now being served at lower taxpayer cost $ than their peers in the state’s public school system.”
NEW: Arizona ESAs Defy National Media Propaganda Campaign.
Since universal expansion, AZ enjoyed a $2B budget surplus one year, & an overall K-12 formula savings compared to its enacted budget the second, all as 75,000 ESA students are now being served at lower taxpayer cost $… pic.twitter.com/D1Kc2m3bQ3
In a subsequent comment, he added, “Arizonans deserve better than willful or sloppy misrepresentations by @propublica, @joedanareports, @laurieroberts & @arizona_sos attacking the ESA program while ignoring record public school costs (including recently uncovered misspending on wine tastings & political candidate bootcamps)[.]”
The depth of Beienburg’s breakdown of the committee’s analysis can be summarized into a few key points.
He writes, “While union-aligned journalists and advocacy organizations have painted Arizona’s ESA program as excessively costly to taxpayers and responsible for triggering a budgetary shortfall, the two years of the universal ESA program’s history—and a new report from Arizona’s nonpartisan state budget analysts—suggest otherwise.”
The committee analysts explained, “With the above forecast adjustments, we estimate the total combined district/charter/ESA enrollment will generate savings of $(352,200) in FY 2024 relative to the enacted budget.”
Beienburg points out that the budget deficit of 23’-24’ only arose after Democrat Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed the original budget passed by Republican majorities in the House and Senate. That budget would have left the state with over a billion dollars in reserve funds even after fully funding the ESA program.
“Hobbs instead signed a budget that increased state spending by an additional $2 billion to the highest level of all time and exhausted the state’s surplus financial cushion, leaving it unable to absorb lower than projected revenue collections.”
Beienburg also mentions that the bevy of claims from critics of the ESA program “have relied on ideologically motivated, often factually dishonest misrepresentations of the program and its finances,” and “are simply false and represent either basic numerical illiteracy or willful misrepresentation of fact.”
Finally, the report from Goldwater assesses the fifth claim that critics of the ESA make which is that the program “siphons too much money to ‘wealthy’ or ‘high-income’ families,” by supporting families who are either pursuing home schooling or private education. And it is in this last segment of the report, the ultimate, purely ideological and class-warfare driven motivation for all of the “misrepresentations of the program and its finances” emerges.
The glaring inconsistency in the view of ESA critics that the “Empowerment Scholarship Accounts” benefit the wealthy is utterly undone by even a cursory examination of the families utilizing the program. As the Goldwater Institute, the nonpartisan Common Sense Institute, and multiple conservative outlets have repeatedly verified, families of ESA children cover the full breadth of the socio-economic strata from crushingly impoverished to blindingly wealthy, from the broken down trailer parks of South Phoenix to the most lavish homes of Paradise Valley.
Beienburg notes, “By simply proclaiming a national ‘consensus’ in support of their own views—and ignoring an entire half of the nation seeking something better—advocacy organizations like Brookings suggest the education status quo should be preserved because…that’s how it’s always been.”
He concludes, “Yet this same status quo failed families during COVID-19, locked children out of classrooms, has doubled inflation-adjusted K-12 costs over recent decades, and has failed to meaningfully improve student outcomes for generations. The proliferation of education savings accounts—like other school choice innovations such as charter schools—on the other hand, offers families and lawmakers the opportunity to expand the range of educational choices available to students and ensure that each child can pursue an education of excellence, not simply political convenience.”
Speaking with KTAR’s Jim Sharpe and Jayme West last week, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes openly attacked the Arizona Free Enterprise Club after the group successfully fought to strip away rules from the 2023 Elections Procedures Manual (EPM). The very next day, AFEC President Scott Mussi responded.
As previously reported by AZ Free News, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Jennifer Ryan-Touhill ruled that Fontes’ 2023 EPM contained speech restrictions that violated the Arizona Constitution, as well as misstatements and modifications of statutes, and failures to identify distinctions between guidance and legal mandates.
ICYMI: A Maricopa County Superior Court Judge has ruled that certain portions of Secretary Fontes’ radical Elections Procedures Manual violated Arizonans’ First Amendment rights. https://t.co/HwhZi45sXk
Fontes began by immediately mischaracterizing the lawsuit from the Arizona Free Enterprise Club saying, “First and foremost, I’m going to break a rule and talk about pending litigation. Usually I don’t, but this is important and this manual, the Elections Procedures Manual is promulgated by the Secretary of State every two years. And the rules that are in question right now are guidelines basically for elections workers, for election administrators across the state. And they do in this section particularly help to protect them and voters from harassment and intimidation, specifically using language like blocking the entrance to a voting location. Also, following voters or poll workers coming or leaving voting locations, including to or from their vehicles.
This is some of the language that we put in there, which was also in the 2019 manual, by the way, that the Free Enterprise Club wanted to block and they have now blocked. It is as if the Free Enterprise Club wants voters to get followed to and from their vehicles to polling locations. It is as if the Free Enterprise Club is okay with this.
Check this, they had this blocked by the judge too, intentionally disseminating false or misleading information at voting locations. So is the Free Enterprise Club want people to be lied to?”
We applaud the court’s protection of Arizonans’ First Amendment rights during the exercise of their sacred privilege to vote in free and fair elections. Secretary Fontes and his team of leftwing ideologues must conform the entire manual to state law as is their statutory duty.
Jayme West asked, “But that’s free speech, right? Yeah.”
Fontes answered with a rebuke to the First Amendment, “Is it when you are inside of the 75-foot zone? Look, not all speech is protected. Every American knows this. You can’t yell fire…” he began to quote a classic legal fallacy.
As Reason’s Emma Camp cited, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression President Greg Lukianoff, wrote, “Anyone who says ‘you can’t shout fire! in a crowded theatre’ is showing that they don’t know much about the principles of free speech, or free speech law—or history. This old canard, a favorite reference of censorship apologists, needs to be retired. It’s repeatedly and inappropriately used to justify speech limitations.”
Host Jim Sharpe put the conversation back on track though, “You’re not allowed the electioneer within those 75 feet.”
“That’s exactly right.” Fontes said. “But what the Free Enterprise Club is doing is chipping away at a long established statutes. They’re chipping away at our ability to help the folks out there in our 15 counties regulate the behavior during election seasons. They basically want someone to be able to come up and scream and yell at voters as they’re standing in line to vote.”
West pushed back on the Secretary though, “But not necessarily about the election or electioneering. I mean you could just be yelling at somebody, right? It doesn’t have to be about the specific election itself right?” Fontes began to argue with her, “Is that how we want our voters to be treated? “ “No, I’m just saying not…” she began when Fontes cut her off. “That’s why I have…” But West continued, “not considered electioneering.”
Fontes continued saying, “…why I’m going to fight like heck to make sure that we have peaceful processes so that our voters are treated with dignity during this incredibly important point in time. Because here’s the deal, you have to stand in line in some circumstances and because the regulation is that you have to be in line, the government is forcing you to be in that line. You should be protected while you’re in that line to vote.
He then directly attacked the Arizona Free Enterprise Club claiming, “So the Free Club is basically saying, we want chaos, we want lies. We want people to be able to block entrances to voting locations. That’s what the Free Enterprise Club is saying. By asking for this order, I’m going to fight tooth and nail against this nonsense. So the next steps, as you asked, we have the capacity to appeal. Our lawyers are working on it right now. I’m going to protect every voter. I don’t care if you’re in Sun City, east Mesa or in Holbrook. I’m going to do everything I can to make this process peaceful and reasonable.”
The very next morning, Sharpe and West invited Arizona Free Enterprise Club President Scott Mussi to answer Fontes’ bold-faced politically-driven attack.
“Jim, Jamie, thanks for having me on this morning. These claims being made by Secretary of State Fontes are just outrageous, and it’s ridiculous that he’s attacking and maligning our organization, our 15,000 supporters and activists throughout here in the state of Arizona. Our donors, who he made veiled attacks saying that people should stop supporting our organization because of this ruling. We filed this lawsuit because simply put, Adrian Fontes included language in his Election Procedures Manual that exceeded its statute and was unconstitutionally overbroad. It constrained speech rights.
He’s citing things that simply, there’s already statutes and we didn’t challenge any specific statute. We challenged the language in the procedures manual itself and the language in the manual cannot rewrite state law, cannot create new laws, and there’s laws against the things that he’s describing. The things that we sued over are things dealing with speech constraints where he included vague language that’s undefined that could be used against people that are trying to simply engage in their First Amendment rights at poll locations.”
Sharpe asked Mussi, “So would you be okay with some of the provisions in the Election Procedures Manual that you’ve asked to have removed if they were worded in a more precise manner?”
Mussi replied, “The section of the Election Procedures Manual that we sued over included, again, as I mentioned before, vague language if it’s drafted in a way that’s consistent with what state law is or what statute is. And again, for example, he’s talking about blocking people. That’s against state law. You can’t do that. And that goes beyond even what’s really to an election. For example, nobody could show up at your guys’ radio station and block your ability to go to your vehicle. There’s already statutes against harassing other people. You can’t do those things. But that’s not what is Election Procedures Manual in the section that we were challenging does. Again, it includes language that says that if you raise your voice or say things that are offensive and these things are undefined, and if these things are enforced, you can be not only kicked out of the polling location, but you can be prosecuted.
The irony of all of this is that in the public ranting that Adrian Fontes is engaging in, where he is raising his voice, something could say or engaging a language that many people could find offensive, especially when he’s maligning our organization. Ironically, it could be used against him to kick him out of a polling location. It is bizarre. I think that the judge was correct. I would encourage everybody to read the ruling that the judge issued yesterday or earlier this week outlining this because it’s very clear these terms that he included in the Election Procedures Manual are overly broad. They infringe on people’s constitutional rights to engage in the election process.”
West sought some clarification from Mussi asking, “I asked him, I said, is it just an issue of it being the language being too broad? But he said that specifically your organization, the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, wants to make it okay to harass voters waiting to cast ballots at polling places.”
He answered, “And again, those comments and claims are outrageous and only vindicates that we were correct in filing this lawsuit.”
“We’re not just talking about just some individual. He is the top election officer here in the state of Arizona who’s now again, maligning and attacking our organization, our 15,000 activists and supporters throughout the state of Arizona. And we’re supposed to believe that he’s not now going to use this vague language that he included in the Election Procedures Manual to impinge on people’s First Amendment rights to engage in the political process.
And again, just based on his own behavior, he violated his own guidelines within his Election Procedures Manual. Or it could be interpreted that way. And that’s the problem because somebody does have a First Amendment right. If Adrian Fontes wants to show up at a polling location and complain that he lost a lawsuit to the Free Enterprise Club and say the same mistruths and lies that he said on your radio program, he does have a First Amendment right to do that.”
When reminded of the 75-foot barrier for electioneering under the law by Sharpe, Mussi added, “That’s correct. That’s another thing too that he said was factually wrong. He was talking about people. It’s against state law to go within the 75-foot parameters and election area. The Election Procedures Manual can’t change any of those statutes. And we weren’t challenging statutes. We were challenging this vague and overbroad and unconstitutional language that he included in the Election Procedures Manual.”
According to KTAR, Fontes said that his office plans to appeal the ruling and is hoping to expedite the request citing the general election being just three months away. In her scathing ruling, Judge Touhill called the EPM provisions “overbroad” and “unenforceable.”
Merissa Hamilton, the Executive Director of Kari Lake’s organization Save Arizona Fund and Co-founder and CEO of Strong Communities Action, notched a victory against Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer in his ongoing defamation lawsuit against Lake.
The lawsuit overall is continuing to move forward with Richer stating through his complaint that he has faced “violent vitriol and other dire consequences,” due to what he calls lies spread by Lake, according to the Associated Press. In an op-ed he wrote for the Arizona Republic, Richer said, “Rather than accept political defeat, rather than get a new job, she has sought to undermine confidence in our elections and has mobilized millions of her followers against me.”
In the course of this case, Richer’s attorneys subpoenaed Hamilton, who is not a party to the lawsuit, and compelled her compliance to provide documents for the case. According to court documentation, “Hamilton informed Plaintiff’s counsel she had copied over 100,000 documents. As was her right under A.R.S. § 12-351, Hamilton insisted on payment of reasonable costs at the time of production.” Hamilton assessed her costs to be $32,345.50.
Per A.R.S. § 12-351, ‘All reasonable costs incurred in a civil action by a witness who is not a party to the action with respect to the production of documents pursuant to a subpoena for the production of documentary evidence shall be charged against the party requesting the subpoena if the witness submits an itemized statement to the requesting party stating the reproduction and clerical costs incurred by the witness.” It also allows a witness to “demand payment of the reasonable costs simultaneously with actual delivery of the subpoenaed documents.”
Rachel Alexander of the Arizona Sun Times reported via X, “MaRICOpa(sic) County Recorder Stephen Richer just got smacked down by a left wing judge; ordered to pay Merissa Hamilton $25,345.50! And it appears she was representing herself without an attorney and still won. This was regarding him trying to drag her into his defamation lawsuit against Kari Lake.”
👁️👁️👁️👁️MaRICOpa County Recorder Stephen Richer just got smacked down by a left wing judge; ordered to pay Merissa Hamilton $25,345.50! And it appears she was representing herself without an attorney and still won. 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 This was regarding him trying to drag her into his…
Hamilton corrected her noting that the judge had been changed over the summer and that the presiding judge is now “the Honorable Randall Warner[.] He’s known as being a traditional Constitutionalist judge.”
Judge Warner ruled in Hamilton’s favor that Richer must pay Hamilton $25,345.50 upon picking up the documents even if he elects not to take them, ruling that “Hamilton is not entitled to $7,000 for clerical costs both because those costs are not itemized as required by A.R.S. § 12-351(A), and because 280 hours—the equivalent of seven people working full-time for a week—is an unreasonable amount of time to spend on producing documents.”
Richer’s legal team argued that “Hamilton’s costs are unreasonable because they result from her unilateral decision to produce paper documents. Plaintiff points out that the subpoena and Rule 45 direct documents to be produced in native form and as they are kept in the usual course of business.” However, Hamilton noted that the cover letter she received with the subpoena stated, “Plaintiff was seeking ‘copies of all documents requested,’ that she could comply with it by ‘mailing or delivering the requested documents,’ and that she would be reimbursed for ‘reasonable copying expenses.’” She also pointed out that the letter failed to mention electronic production as an option and that her decision to produce the documents on paper was reasonable.
Judge Warner did concede that “Hamilton misread Plaintiff’s instructions, which any lawyer familiar with the discovery rules would understand as a request for documents in native form. This means digital documents must be produced in their original digital form. Documents stored as PDF’s must be produced as PDF’s. Word documents must be produced as Word documents. Excel files must be produced as Excel files.” However, he added “But it is easy to see how a non-lawyer endeavoring to comply with Plaintiff’s subpoena could be confused.”
In law, many attorneys believe you should never ask a question you don’t know the answer to. It seems clear that Richer didn’t know Hamilton would answer on paper.
Arizona Senator Jake Hoffman recently responded to the launch of an Arizona chapter of “Republicans For Harris” with a blistering comment.
In his scorching post to X, Hoffman quipped “Strange… I thought prostitution was illegal in Arizona.” He advised his fellow Republicans to “Ignore these whores,” and asserted confidently, “Donald J. Trump will win Arizona.”
Strange… I thought prostitution was illegal in Arizona
In the image shared by Delaney Corcoran, Communications Director for the Harris campaign, Mesa Mayor John Giles is shown headlining the rally. “Our party used to stand for the belief that every Arizonan, no matter their background or circumstances, should have the freedom, opportunity and security to live out their American Dream,” he wrote, in his endorsement of Harris according to The Hill.
“But since Donald Trump refused to accept the outcome of the 2020 election, Republicans have yet to course correct,” Giles claimed. “The Republican Party with Trump at its helm continues down the path of political extremism, away from focusing on our fundamental freedoms.”
Expressing a similar sentiment, former Maricopa County GOP Chair Tyler Bowyer wrote, “For those not aware— John Giles is not a real Republican. He sold out in exchange for switching his party later to run for Congress next term to replace Democrat Greg Stanton in CD4. This is simple backroom politicking. He is supporting the most radical leftist ticket ever.”
For those not aware— John Giles is not a real Republican. He sold out in exchange for switching his party later to run for Congress next term to replace Democrat Greg Stanton in CD4.
This is simple backroom politicking. He is supporting the most radical leftist ticket ever https://t.co/dwz92oRyBO
In the aftermath of his initial comment, Hoffman addressed concerns over his choice of words from one commenter Kenny Jacobs, writing, “This commie is crying because I used textbook definitions to describe fake Republicans who’ve decided their virtue signaling and future pay day is more important than your future[.] Sorry losers Pimp yourself out to the Left at the expense of hardworking Americans… you’re a whore.”
This commie is crying because I used textbook definitions to describe fake Republicans who’ve decided their virtue signaling and future pay day is more important than your future
He cited The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language 5th Edition definition of “Prostitute” which reads, “A person considered as having compromised principles for personal gain.
Hoffman is currently one of several defendants in an ongoing organized lawfare campaign by Arizona’s Democrat Attorney General Kris Mayes. He is being prosecuted for his 2020 role on the GOP slate of alternate electors who prepared documentation to be presented to Congress in the event that the slate favoring President Joe Biden was rejected.
In a more recent post, he has also revealed a letter from an Instagram whistleblower with nearly 150k followers, “exposing a sophisticated Astroturfing effort underway by the Harris-Walz campaign. Social media users are being PAID to post pro Harris-Walz content on Instagram.”
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has brought a lawsuit against Southwest Key, a non-profit organization based in Texas operating eight shelters for illegal immigrant children in Arizona. In the lawsuit, the DOJ alleges that the firm, through its employees, “has engaged in a pattern or practice of sexual abuse and harassment of the unaccompanied children.”
As reported by the Arizona Daily Independent, Southwest Key has profited greatly from operating the shelters through lucrative federal government grants in excess of $5.6 billion paid out from the Department of Health & Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement since 2003. The lawsuit from the DOJ is rooted in the company’s alleged violation of the Fair Housing Act.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas alleges that from 2015 through at least 2023, several Southwest Key employees “subjected children in their care to severe or pervasive sexual harassment that has included, among other things, sexual contact and inappropriate touching, solicitation of sex acts, solicitation of nude photos, entreaties for inappropriate relationships and sexual comments.”
The lawsuit charges Southwest Key with taking insufficient action to protect the children it was contracted to care for and furthermore failed to follow federal requirements for the prevention, detection, and reporting of abuse despite the Office of Refugee Relocation reportedly issuing several corrective actions against them.
Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in the release, “Sexual harassment of children in residential shelters, where a child should be safe and secure, is abusive, dehumanizing and unlawful. Sexual abuse of children is a crisis that we can’t ignore or turn a blind eye to. This lawsuit seeks relief for children who have been abused and harmed, and meaningful reforms to ensure no child in these shelters is ever subjected to sexual abuse again.”
U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani of the Southern District of Texas wrote, “In search of the American Dream, children often endure perilous journeys on their migration north to the southern border. The sexual harassment alleged in the complaint would destroy any child’s sense of safety turning what was an American Dream into a nightmare.”
“We look forward to working together with the Civil Rights Division (CRD) and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas (WDTX) to provide justice for the victims who allegedly suffered harm in Southwest Key’s shelters.”
As noted by the Arizona Daily Independent, the outlet has reported on Southwest Key for more than ten years with cofounder and longtime contributor Loretta Hunnicutt citing her concerns publicly in reports and in meetings with public officials as early as 2014. Per the ADI, these efforts were met with “indifference or outright contempt for the minors.”
The ADI recapped the lengthy reports implicating Southwest Key writing in part:
“Hunnicutt met with former Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas in 2015 to ask that Southwest Key be directed to remove the fencing around their shelters in accordance with ORR policy, which prohibits fencing around the places where refugees reside. Fenced in by an organization paid billions to house them, America’s youngest refugees have had no escape. Douglas declined.”
“In December 2015, the Arizona Daily Independentreported on former Southwest Key employee whistleblowers who testified to running a corrupt, prison-like environment.”
“In response, then-Arizona State Rep. Bob Thorpe, who chaired the House Federalism, Property Rights and Public Policy Committee, called for an investigation into the Southwest Key facilities under contract by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).”
Sources within the company gave the ADI several startling reports as well telling the outlet:
“Children were viewed as commodities.”
“Under the constant directive of keeping costs down, staff were directed to ignore children’s complaints of hunger.”
Furthermore, they were “to give the children only a quarter-sized dollop of soap for bathing.”
Staff were also instructed to “give one child’s underwear to be reused for another.”
Through the lawsuit, the Department of Justice is seeking to exact monetary damages from Southwest Key in order to compensate the children victimized in the shelter and obtain a court order compelling Southwest Key to take the necessary steps to avoid future abuse.
The DOJ has requested that anyone who believe that they may have been victims of sexual harassment or abuse at Southwest Key shelters or who has information that may be relevant to this case, please contact the Justice Department’s housing discrimination tip line at 1-833-591-0291.
