Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap lacks key elections powers, thanks to late decisions by his predecessor and the former Maricopa County Board of Supervisors (BOS).
Reportedly, Heap is operating without a full budget, staff, IT support, access to county buildings, and confirmation of his deputy recorder selection. State lawmakers with the Arizona Freedom Caucus blamed BOS Chair Thomas Galvin for these ongoing limitations to Heap’s authority.
State Senator Jake Hoffman urged Maricopa County residents to contact Galvin over the changes.
“Supervisor Thomas Galvin has STRIPPED Recorder Justin Heap of his control over our Elections and is REFUSING to reinstate it,” said Hoffman.
🚨ELECTION INTEGRITY ALERT
Corruption in Maricopa County!
Supervisor @ThomasGalvin has STRIPPED Recorder @azJustinHeap of his control over our Elections and is REFUSING to reinstate it
Email & Call him now! Thomas.Galvin@maricopa.gov (602) 506-7431
Much of these developments occurred back in October, when the outgoing BOS members and former Recorder Stephen Richer approved changes to the powers of the recorder’s office. The changes took effect in December.
Under that agreement, the BOS assumed control over the recorder’s $5 million budget and IT staff.
Additionally, the BOS appoints the early ballot processing board. Prior to that agreement, the recorder oversaw early ballot processing.
In a statement issued at the time of the agreement, a county spokesperson said the county made changes to make the recorder’s office more efficient.
“In Arizona, elections are administered by the County Board of Supervisors and the County Recorder. The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and Recorder’s Office have had agreements in place to manage these administrative functions since the 1950s,” said the spokesperson. “The update to the current agreement will adjust administrative responsibilities to create efficiencies, most notably in Information Technology-related services.”
Ultimately, Arizona law empowers county boards of supervisors with authority over election administration.
Despite these limitations, Heap has continued to work around the restrictions on his position.
Last week, Heap announced his office’s policy change allowing bipartisan election observers into the signature verification room.
Heap has done more than that his first month in office. In an update issued on Friday, the recorder recapped other accomplishments from his first days: removing a record number of inactive voters from voter registration rolls, preparing for impending upgrades to the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) process for military personnel on deployment, and eliminating the salaries and positions of six external communications officers to free up resources for elections databases and systems.
In that update, Heap addressed the allegations against Galvin and his predecessor. Heap disclosed that he anticipates a new agreement with the BOS will emerge soon reinstating his authority.
“I am currently working with the members of the Board of Supervisors to replace this agreement with one that serves the people and the mission they gave me to ensure future elections in Maricopa County are fully secure, efficiently operated and, above all, accurate. I am hopeful that we will have a new agreement in the near future that helps us all achieve those aims,” said Heap.
Had a great first month at the Recorder’s office with exciting initiatives leading to more transparency and confidence in our election processes!
There is a lot more planned, and this update is a great summary of our accomplishments and challenges facing the office: https://t.co/LCMJELAawB
— Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap (@azjustinheap) February 8, 2025
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With Arizona leaders unifying statewide to back the Trump administration’s effort to make schools healthy, one Maricopa County leader is opposing.
Fountain Hills Town Council initially was unified in its support of HB2164, or the “Arizona Healthy Schools Act”: a bill to clean up the foods offered in the state’s public schools. The town council voted unanimously to issue a letter of support for the bill during its regular meeting on Tuesday. However, after the meeting officially ended, one of the council’s Democrats rescinded her vote.
Even with the rescinded vote from council member Peggy McMahon, the motion still passed.
Welp, that was a short lived beautiful moment of unity for the health of our children.
Peggy McMahon pulled her support now that the cameras are off, so I guess we’ll edit this tweet to say “the council majority”
Vice Mayor Hannah Toth — who led the council effort to file a letter of support — expressed her disappointment with McMahon’s change of heart.
“Welp, that was a short-lived beautiful moment of unity for the health of our children,” posted Toth on X. “Peggy McMahon pulled her support now that the cameras are off, so I guess we’ll edit this tweet to say ‘the council majority.’ What can ya do.”
In her motion to pass the letter of support, Toth pointed out that the U.S. is virtually the only developed country that hasn’t banned the ingredients prohibited in the Arizona Healthy Schools Act.
“[These are all chemicals] that are linked to behavioral issues, cancer, autism, even mental health because it’s chemicals. A lot of it is derived from crude oil,” said Toth. “All cities and towns in my opinion should be coming together in support of this bill – this is something that helps secure our future.”
The motion was celebrated initially as a bipartisan movement to back the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement. MAHA is the primary focus of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary nominee and former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“[President Trump] asked me to end the chronic disease epidemic in this country,” said Kennedy. “And he said, I want to see results, measurable results, in the diminishment of chronic disease within two years. And I said, Mr. President, I will do that.”
Last month, Texas Republican Congressman Chip Roy published a 47-page report, “The Case for Healthcare Freedom,” detailing America’s health crisis as supplementary guidance for the MAHA movement.
The Arizona Healthy Schools Act, introduced by Republican State Rep. Leo Biasiucci, would restrict public schools from serving or selling “ultraprocessed” food and drink during school hours. The bill defines “ultraprocessed” foods and drinks as those which contain one or more of the following ingredients: potassium bromate, propylparaben, titanium dioxide, brominated vegetable oil, yellow dye 5 or 6, blue dye 1 or 2, green dye 3, or red dye 3 or 40. The bill doesn’t prohibit parents from providing their students with foods or drinks containing these ingredients.
An amendment to the bill also prohibited third parties from selling ultraprocessed food and drink on school campuses. The amendment also directed the Arizona Department of Education to post on its website a standardized form for public schools to certify its compliance with the legislation as well as a list of public schools certified by the department for their compliance with the legislation.
The bill passed out of the House Education Committee recently with unanimous bipartisan support.
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It’s taken the better part of a year for vigilant Scottsdale parents, but the vulgar books they discovered will no longer be in their district’s libraries.
Last July, Scottsdale mom Jill Dunican wrote to the Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) governing board about 17 books allegedly containing “vulgar or educationally unsuitable content.” Dunican wrote on behalf of several advocacy organizations and individuals: Scottsdale Unites for Educational Integrity, Arizona Women of Action, Restore Parental Rights in Education, Protect Arizona Children Coalition, A Legal Process, Not In Our Schools, Shiry Sapir, Dan Kleinman (SafeLibraries), EZAZ, Save CFSD, Kids First, Mom Army, and Moms For Liberty.
The contested books were “A Stolen Life” by Jaycee Dugard; “Doomed” and “Haunted” by Chuck Palahniuk; “Lucky” by Alice Sebold; “PUSH” by Sapphire; “Sold” by Patrick McCormick; “Tricks,” “Perfect,” “People Kill People,” “Identical,” and “Smoke” by Ellen Hopkins; “Icebreaker” by Hannah Grace; “A Court of Frost and Starlight” by Sara J. Maas; “Anatomy of a Boyfriend” and “Anatomy of a Single Girl” by Daria Snadowsky; “Breathless” by Jennifer Niven; “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” by Jesse Andrews; and “Lawn Boy” by Jonathan Evison.
Most of these books were only available at the various high schools within the district. One contested title — “Sold” — was available at the Desert Canyon K-8 school.
In her letter to the board, Dunican claimed these books violated Arizona’s laws on furnishing harmful items to minors and Arizona’s parental bill of rights.
“The negative impacts of vulgar material on children include: ‘greater acceptance of sexual harassment, sexual activity at an early age, acceptance of negative attitudes to women, unrealistic expectations, skewed attitudes of gender roles, greater levels of body dissatisfaction, rape myths, and sexual aggression,’ as well as sexual risk taking, mental health problems, decreased academic performance and detachment from family and friends,” wrote Dunican.
SUSD agreed. Following a temporary pull of the books and investigation by a review committee, SUSD found that nearly all of the contested books needed to be kept out of circulation permanently — meaning these texts violated Arizona laws on furnishing harmful materials to minors.
Last Friday, SUSD advised Dunican of the removal of 15 of the 17 contested books. The district determined the other two books — “Sold” and “Stolen Life” — may remain in circulation under the condition of parental consent for checkouts.
In a response email to Dunican, SUSD director Kim Dodds Keran added that the 15 books to be removed from circulation had “very limited circulation,” meaning they were checked out five or fewer times over the past three years.
In an email shared with AZ Free News, Dunican asked SUSD to adopt a policy complementing Arizona law prohibiting public schools from referring students to or using sexually explicit material in any manner.
This law maintains exemptions for works that possess “serious educational value” or “artistic, literary, political, or scientific value.” In those cases, schools must obtain written parental consent on a per-material basis.
Dunican suggested the proposed SUSD policy could have librarians rely on rating services to review book ratings ahead of book purchases.
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Election volunteers will be allowed to observe signature verification processes in Maricopa County up close for the first time.
Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap announced the “common-sense” policy change on Monday. The recorder said the observers won’t have access to the party affiliation of voters.
“This change allows bipartisan election observers into the Signature Verification room to more directly observe the Signature Verification process,” said Heap. “This is one of the first of many commonsense improvements to make Maricopa’s election processes more trustworthy and transparent.”
This change allows bi-partisan election observers into the Signature Verification room to more directly observe the Signature Verification process. The new policy ensures Signature Verifiers are not able to see the Party Affiliation of the voters whose signatures are going… https://t.co/boxwqisUjG
— Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap (@azjustinheap) February 4, 2025
In order to protect the party affiliation of voters, Maricopa County won’t display political parties or any “personally identifying data” on the signature verification screen. This change will take effect with the May 2025 elections, per the recorder’s office.
Heap revealed in Monday’s press release containing the policy change announcement that previous recorder administrations hadn’t been fully honest about election workers’ abilities to access voters’ party affiliations and personal identifying information. Per Heap, all election workers had to do to access that information was scroll down on their screens during signature verification processes.
“Previously, voters were assured by election officials that no party or personally identifying data was available to signature verifiers,” said Heap. “In my review of our election processes I have discovered this was not the case. Signature verification workers who scrolled down the page would still see this information on the scans of older ballots.”
Prior to Heap’s administration, election volunteers weren’t permitted to observe signature verification processes. In the accompanying press release issued on Monday, the recorder’s office claimed that the previous policies requiring signature verification observation to take place from an adjacent hallway some distance from the work “made meaningful observation of the process impossible.”
“Removing that data will accomplish two important things: it brings bi-partisan observers back into the room to scrutinize the process and ensures that verifiers do not know the party affiliation of the voters whose signatures they are verifying. This will be the first of many commonsense improvements we will be making to ensure that future elections in Maricopa County are run in a trustworthy, transparent, and efficient manner,” concluded Heap.
Ahead of the presidential election last year, the state established the first legally binding signature verification rules as part of necessary modifications to election dates made to comply with the shortened electoral count deadline.
Those signature verification rules (contained within HB 2785) require the rejection of early ballot envelopes bearing signatures that don’t match the voter’s registration or records. Beginning next year, voters may bypass the signature verification requirement by showing their ID while returning their early ballot in person. Other Republican-led aspects ensuring stricter signature verification were stripped from the bill following negotiations with Democratic lawmakers and Governor Katie Hobbs.
Improving signature verification processes was a top priority for Heap during his campaign to oust then-incumbent Stephen Richer. Heap attested during his campaign that the county’s standards for signature verification were too lax based on his personal experiment with the process.
We recent has bond elections all over the state. Bond elections are "Mail-in only" and the ONLY security measure we have on mail-in ballots in signature verification. So I decided to test the system. I signed my ballot with an old signature that I haven't used sign high school…
— Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap (@azjustinheap) February 7, 2024
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Attorney General Kris Mayes wants to hire the federal prosecutors behind former President Joe Biden’s January 6 investigations.
On Sunday, Mayes put out an offer to hire those prosecutors, as well as any other federal agents that may be terminated in the Trump administration’s newly-launched review of all involved in January 6 investigations.
“My message to all FBI agents and federal prosecutors who are being wrongfully fired by Trump: come see me about a job,” said Mayes. “We are hiring at the AZ Attorney General’s office and we actually support law enforcement.”
My message to all FBI agents and federal prosecutors who are being wrongfully fired by Trump: come see me about a job. We are hiring at the AZ Attorney General’s office and we actually support law enforcement. https://t.co/hGhRjusTWv
Last Friday, Department of Justice (DOJ) leadership sent a memo ordering the immediate firing of all federal prosecutors who oversaw the January 6 cases.
Emil Bove — the acting deputy attorney general — also ordered acting FBI director Brian Driscoll to hand over the names of all FBI employees involved in the January 6 cases.
“I do not believe that the current leadership of the Justice Department can trust these FBI employees to assist in implementing the President’s agenda faithfully,” explained Bove in his correspondence.
However, Driscoll refused perThe Washington Times. Driscoll said the request pertained to himself and “thousands” of other employees within the agency. Driscoll’s refusal occurred over the weekend as FBI agents involved in the case against Trump over the Mar-a-Lago classified documents were removed from field offices in New York, Miami, and Washington, D.C.
This wouldn’t be the first instance of Mayes’ office scouting of those ousted for their work in the Biden administration. Their offices are also considering law school graduates whose offers of employment from the Biden administration were rescinded by the Trump administration.
Chief Deputy Attorney General Daniel Barr announced Mayes’ interest in hiring those sought out by the prior Democrat-led administration on LinkedIn last week.
“Plenty of opportunities at the Arizona Attorney General’s Office for recent law school graduates whose job offers were recently rescinded by the Department of Justice,” said Barr. “We do vital and interesting work in protecting, and pursuing justice for, the state of Arizona and its people.”
Another key player caught up by the Democratic Party’s unsuccessful bid for a consecutive presidential term has already found a soft landing within Mayes’ office.
The attorney general’s office recently hired the Arizona communications director for Kamala Harris’ campaign, Delaney Corcoran; she is now serving in a similar deputy communications position.
Although Mayes has indicated an eagerness to hire those ousted by the Trump administration, she is also fighting to keep them within the federal government.
On Monday, Mayes joined 11 other Democratic attorneys general in urging the two million-plus federal employees tapped by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) for a “deferred resignation program” to contact their unions for guidance.
The deferred resignation program would enable the tapped employees to receive their regular pay and benefits through the end of September — but only if they enter by voluntarily resigning ahead of the Thursday deadline. Otherwise, OPM warned, they may be part of the next administration purge and not be eligible for the extended pay and benefits period.
Mayes called the program “completely unreliable” and possibly “unenforceable” in a press release.
“My office will do everything in our power to protect Arizona workers and we urge you to follow your union’s guidance,” said Mayes. “This so-called buyout offer is yet another attack that will cripple the critical federal services Arizonans rely on.”
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