A Democratic election worker was arrested Tuesday for the theft of keys and a security fob belonging to the Maricopa County Elections Building (MCTEC) where he volunteered.
MCTEC surveillance footage captured 27-year-old Walter Ringfield Jr. putting the keys and fob in his pants pocket last Thursday, June 20. An employer discovered the theft and confronted Ringfield about it. Though Ringfield initially denied the theft, the keys were discovered later in his vehicle.
The fob remained missing, according to a Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office press release. Ringfield claimed to law enforcement that he returned the fob approximately 20 minutes after taking it. The county reprogrammed the fobs and disabled the one Ringfield claimed to have returned.
Ringfield reportedly told police that he returned the fob out of regret and a desire to “clean up” his life, starting with permanent employment at MCTEC.
The Arizona Daily Independentreported that Ringfield filed a statement of interest last year to run as a Democrat for U.S. Senate this year.
On Wednesday, the Arizona Senate GOP posted that they now suspected that Ringfield stole from a Senate employee earlier this month. The GOP coalition reported that the Department of Public Safety has undertaken an investigation into the matter.
“The suspect appears to be the same individual recently arrested for stealing from Maricopa County,” said the Senate GOP. “In response to requests from the public, we are releasing surveillance video of the incident.”
UPDATE: DPS is investigating a theft of some personal items from a Senate employee. The crime occurred at the Senate on June 15th. The suspect appears to be the same individual recently arrested for stealing from Maricopa County. In response to requests from the public, we are… pic.twitter.com/RrNZQ4Q7f4
According to a since-deleted LinkedIn profile, Ringfield volunteered at Our Voice Our Vote and graduated from Arizona State University. Ringfield also interned for Tempe City Council member Berdetta Hodge and former state representative and congressional candidate Jevin Hodge.
The latter Hodge resigned earlier this year from the House of Representative amid allegations of a past sexual assault.
Ringfield’s Truth Social profile, which is still active as of this report, prompted some media outlets to initially label him a straightforward Republican or, at the very least, right wing. Ringfield did repost some content supportive of President Donald Trump and retweeted content from right-wing individuals, politicians, and outlets, among them Melania Trump, Steven Crowder, Fox News, Townhall, Conservative Brief, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Sean Hannity, and The Federalist.
However, Ringfield has also posted remarks like, “We are a nation built on enslaved immigrants,” and “Transgender people is not new transphobia is.”
One picture he posted depicted him with a woman named Sofia (Sonya) Schmerer, his longtime girlfriend who supports Black Lives Matter and goes by “they/she” pronouns per her social media, alongside CNN Analyst Bakari Sellers, and both Berdetta Hodge and Jevin Hodge.
More telling of Ringfield’s political interests and beliefs are apparent under his online persona “Alphonso SunDevil.” His Facebook profile header, updated at the beginning of June, reposted the city of Phoenix’s graphic for its Pride Day pronoun badge/button making with ASU Museum: the LGBTQ+ flag with the Sun Devils hand gesture superimposed.
Other photos from Ringfield’s social media show his involvement or support for the Arizona Education Association, Senator Mark Kelly, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, Phoenix Vice Mayor Lauren Kuby, Congressman Greg Stanton, and Tempe Mayor Corey Woods.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
On Monday, an Arizona court ruled that government “prevailing wage” mandates for businesses were unlawful.
The Maricopa County Superior Court issued a ruling against the cities of Phoenix and Tucson concerning their prevailing wage ordinances, which required contractors on public works to pay its workers according to city and federal rate determinations. The Department of Labor defines prevailing wage as that average wage paid to similarly employed workers in a specific occupation in that area of intended employment.
The Maricopa County Superior Court agreed that state law (A.R.S. § 34-321(B)) prohibited any city from enacting such prevailing wage ordinances as the cities of Phoenix and Tucson had done in January.
“This Prevailing Wage Statute, by its plain language, prohibits any Arizona political subdivision, such as the City of Phoenix and the City of Tucson, from enacting an ordinance that requires contractors and subcontractors to pay their workers less than the prevailing rate of wages. Nevertheless, both cities did just that on January 9, 2024,” read the ruling.
Phoenix Ordinance G-7217 and Tucson Ordinance No. 12066 required city contractors or subcontractors under a contract with an aggregate value of $4 million or more and $2 million or more, respectively, to pay workers not less than the prevailing wage rate for the same class and kind of work in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Both cities required certain record keeping and instilled penalties for violations including contract rescission, disqualification from future city contracts, and liquidated damages up to three times the wages owed.
Yet, the cities argued that their ordinances were protected under Proposition 202, or the Raise the Minimum Wage for Working Arizonans Act. The cities claimed that the act functioned under the doctrine of implied repeal: since the act and state law were inconsistent, the act took precedence since it came after state law. The superior court rejected that interpretation, since the act itself didn’t address the term prevailing wage, and there remained definable differences between prevailing wage and minimum wage.
“A prevailing wage ordinance is not a minimum wage law, and the Minimum Wage Law did not impliedly repeal the prevailing wage prohibition because the two laws can be harmonized by ‘reasonable construction,'” stated the court. “They have fundamentally different underlying policy goals. Moreover, unlike minimum wage laws, which set a single, across-the-board floor on wages, prevailing wage measures impose a complex, fluctuating schedule of wage standards (determined by federal law and regulation) meant to approximate average wages for specific occupations and localities.”
The Goldwater Institute, in partnership with attorney Robert G. Schaffer, sued Phoenix over its prevailing wage ordinance on behalf of the Associated Minority Contractors of Arizona, the Arizona Chapter of the Associated General Contractors of America, and the Arizona Builders Alliance.
The institute’s vice president for legal affairs, Timothy Sandefur, said in a press release that the ruling protected fairer wages for workers.
“Today’s decision is a victory for Arizona taxpayers — who deserve to have public works projects run as closely as possible to true market conditions, instead of having their costs decreed by politicians in order to benefit their political friends,” said Sandefur. “It’s also a win for workers themselves, who deserve to do work in a competitive environment where wages are based on merit, instead of political dictate.”
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
On Saturday, Democratic Mesa lawmaker Lorena Austin hosted a drag show fundraiser open to all ages.
The legislature’s first “nonbinary,” “gender nonconforming” elected official planned the event from 9 to 11 pm at Meno’s Place in Mesa. The event required a $10 cash cover charge to enter. Along with offering $5 raffle tickets, Austin teased the appearance of an unnamed, special guest, in addition to the MC, a drag queen named Gypsy Rose.
Austin first posted about the fundraiser event back on June 1 to commemorate the beginning of Pride Month.
Back in March, Austin drew ire for hosting a controversial drag queen story hour event hosted at the state capitol. House leadership claimed Austin misled them to reserve the conference room where the story hour took place. House Speaker Ben Toma revoked Democrat access to House meeting rooms as a result of Austin’s event.
“Use of House facilities for radical activism to promote dangerously perverse ideology will not be tolerated while I am Speaker,” posted Toma.
Democrat Rep. Lorena Austin deliberately misled House leadership to reserve a conference room to host a drag story hour with Planned Parenthood.
Use of House facilities for radical activism to promote dangerously perverse ideology will not be tolerated while I am Speaker.
Austin responded that it was “ridiculous” that she was accused of being dishonest or deceitful, let alone perverse for promoting LGBTQ+ ideologies in children.
The drag story hour took place ahead of an “LGBTQ+ Youth Day” at the Capitol, arranged in part by One-N-Ten. That organization recently made headlines for hosting a name change clinic advertised by the DeMiguel Elementary School in the Flagstaff Unified School District.
One-N-Ten provides LGBTQ+ programs to minors as young as 11 years old, focusing on topics such as sexual health and gender identity.
The gender nonconforming lawmaker won her first election thanks to a majority of funding from out-of-state Democratic money. Austin campaigned in part on rolling back laws prohibiting males from joining female sports teams and gender transition surgeries for minors.
This time around, Austin is campaigning on some of the same things — increasing teacher pay, establishing more affordable housing, expanding Medicaid access, and greater legalization of abortion — though missing from her priorities are those related to LGBTQ+ policies.
Austin is defending a seat in a historically Republican district, though she and another Democrat, Seth Blattman, won in 2022.
According to testimony from Austin in a promotional video for her alma mater, Arizona State University, she discovered her gender identity after joining an LGBTQ+ activist community in St. Louis, Missouri following the 2014 death of Michael Brown. This epiphany occurred after she dropped out five times from Mesa Community College; Austin credited her involvement in the ensuing protests to her desire to return to continue her degree at MCC and then finish at ASU.
ASU awarded Austin a scholarship through a leadership program launched by President Michael Crow. She graduated ASU in 2020 as the dean’s medalist for the School of Transborder Studies.
Austin was one of the primary opponents of a bill prohibiting schools from using preferred pronouns or names rather than those that align with a child’s biological sex or birth certificate, respectively.
Governor Katie Hobbs cited Austin’s testimony in opposition to the bill as evidence that the legislation would be harmful, and that transgenderism among children was something to be supported, not opposed.
Hobbs’ husband, Patrick Goodman, helped children embark on gender transitions in his capacity as a Phoenix Children’s Hospital Gender Support Program counselor.
The hospital was known for its provision of comprehensive gender-affirming care to gender dysphoric children. As part of his job, Goodman consulted with minor patients about the application of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
The Arizona legislature’s new budget for the state nixed the Kindergarten Entry Assessment (KEA) at the behest of Department of Education Superintendent Tom Horne, who called the program a “waste of classroom time.”
The KEA required teachers to assess their students within the first 45 calendar days of enrollment.
Horne issued a press release earlier this week acknowledging the change as motivated by educators’ disdain for the program, which the superintendent said was reportedly viewed as “an unnecessary bureaucratic requirement.” Horne said eliminating the KEA would improve academic results through reducing teacher paperwork.
KEA’s elimination wasn’t sudden: the education department reported that it reduced the program’s administrative requirements by over 80 percent last year. Although, Horne said he would have eliminated the KEA earlier if he’d had the legal authority to do it on his own.
“Over time, the KEA had ballooned into an endless morass of paperwork that meant teachers had to spend too much time on bureaucratic requirements versus time with students,” said Horne. “Now the legislature has taken the welcome step of entirely removing the legal requirement for the KEA, which frees up more time for teachers to spend on classroom instruction.”
Several public school leaders offered support for Horne’s decision.
“Superintendent Horne reviewed our feedback on the KEA in our Kindergarten classes,” said Dysart Unified School District Superintendent John Croteau. “The KEA duplicated many of our current practices and took away valuable instructional time. This decision prioritizes student interests by focusing on maximizing valuable classroom time to enhance student learning opportunities.”
“Superintendent Horne and his department sought feedback directly from kindergarten teachers and families about the time, student privacy, and resources lost to KEA and we appreciate the swift and effective action taken to eliminate this program in the best interests of Arizona kids!” said Challenger Charter School CEO Wendy Miller.
According to last year’s KEA requirements, teachers were to observe the following learning and development objectives in their students during instruction: social emotional development (manages feelings, follows limits and expectations, responds to emotional cues, interacts with peers, solves social problems); physical (uses fingers and hands); language and literacy (tells about another time and place, follows directions, notices and discriminates rhyme, notices and discriminates alliteration, uses and appreciates books and other texts, uses print concepts); cognitive/approaches to learning (attends and engages); and mathematics (counts, quantifies, connects numerals and quantities).
School districts and charter school governing bodies were given discretion through the last legislative session as to the appropriate evaluation methods or assessments to accomplish the KEA. Prior to that, educators had to rely on the Teaching Strategies GOLD (TSG) platform to complete KEA. TSG usage and accurate KEA completion required additional training from teachers, with the introductory course amounting to three hours alone.
Arizona’s KEA requirement can be traced back to 2013 when the state launched a pilot initiative, The Kindergarten Project, through partnership with the Arizona State Board of Education, First Things First, Alesi Group, and Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
Democratic congressman and Senate candidate Ruben Gallego recently held a fundraiser in California with Hollywood elites, a move punctuating his continued reliance on out-of-state donors to bankroll his campaign.
Deadline first reported that Gallego had his fundraising event at the home of political strategist Donna Bojarsky, with major guests including Leslie Gilbert-Lurie, author and former TV executive and member of the Cal State University board of trustees; Christy Callahan, former creative executive and TV writer; former Rep. Howard Berman; actress and dancer Stephani Sosa; Flame Ventures’ Tony Krantz; and attorney and former Los Angeles City Controller Wendy Greuel.
According to OpenSecrets, over 75 percent of Gallego’s funds come from outside Arizona: nearly $11.7 million, compared to just over $4.8 million from Arizona.
A majority of the millions from Arizona came from the Phoenix-Mesa area (over $2 million) and Tucson (over $1 million).
Aside from Arizona, the other top four individual states to contribute to Gallego’s campaign were: California at $3.5 million, New York at $1.4 million, Massachusetts at $911,000, and Texas at $812,000.
Top out-of-state metro areas were New York ($915,000), Los Angeles-Long Beach ($731,000), and Washington, D.C. ($726,000).
In March, Gallego attended another Democratic mega-fundraiser out of state, that time in New York City. His presence was marked by George Soros’ son and now-leader of the Democratic dark money empire, Alex, in an Instagram post, where Gallego and Alex stood alongside the famed playwright who played co-host to the fundraiser, Lin-Manuel Miranda.
“Kicking off campaign season with my co-host [Lin Manuel] for congressman Ruben Gallego’s Senate run in Arizona,” wrote the young Soros. “Ruben has an impressive life story and the stakes of this year’s election couldn’t be higher, they’re existential.”
The Soros family has given over $13,000 to Gallego’s campaign.
According to the FEC’s latest data through March, Gallego’s top Arizona donors include Nathan Sandler, an investor out of Paradise Valley; Donald Martin, chairman of Competitive Engineering out of Tucson; William Lewis, an investor out of Phoenix; Charlotte Hwang, president of Competitive Engineering out of Tucson; Timothy Riester, chief executive and owner of Riester Advertising out of Phoenix; Francis Najafi, CEO of Pivotal Group out of Phoenix and his wife, Cheryl; Gene Banucci out of Scottsdale; James O’Keefe, a consultant out of Scottsdale; William Cook out of Phoenix; Donalyn Mikles out of Sedona; James Pederson with the Pederson Group out of Phoenix; Jim Mapstead with Accurate Signs & Engraving out of Phoenix; William Humphreys a rancher out of Tucson; Subhash Thathi out of Mesa; Gilbert Lara out of Prescott; Kathleen Counihan, a gallery owner out of Tucson; Nieves Riedel with Riedel Construction Company out of San Luis; Kent Heath, vice president of Bruker out of Scottsdale; Phyllis Banucci out of Scottsdale; Karl Obergh, president/CEO of Ritoch-Powell out of Phoenix; Christina Isner out of Scottsdale; Pamela Powers, a physician out of Prescott; Stephen Golden out of Tucson; Pat Deconcini with 4-D Properties out of Tucson; David Young with Trifecta Clinical out of Tucson; Pamela Werth out of Scottsdale; and Reuben Merideth, a veterinarian out of Tucson.
Among Gallego’s top individual out-of-state donors as of March were Arthur (Art) Lipson, an investor out of Utah, Ronald (Ron) Conway, an investor out of California; Rogelio Sosa, the CEO of OURO out of Texas; David Trone, a Democratic congressman out of Maryland, and his wife, June; Vincent Ryan, multimillionaire chairman of Schooner Capital out of Massachusetts, and his wife, Carla Meyer; Ken Olum, professor of Tufts University out of Massachusetts; Molly Munger, a California attorney; Charles Mostov, a California attorney; Roger McNamee, an investor and retired venture capitalist out of California; Anthony Maceira and Andres Guillemard, Puerto Rican lawyers; Anne Lovett out of New Hampshire; George Krupp, co-founder and CEO of Berkshire Property Advisors out of Massachusetts; Chris Hughes, senior fellow at the Institute on Race, Power And Political Economy in New York; Mitzi Henderson, former president of PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) National; Robert Haselow, a doctor with Minneapolis Radiation Oncology out of Minnesota, and his wife, Justine; Stephen English, a retired attorney out of California; Joseph Cotchett Jr., a California attorney; Sundae and Mark Breen out of Connecticut; Joseph Albright, a retired journalist out of Wyoming and husband to the late Madeleine Albright, the first female Secretary of State; and Oscar Ramirez, government relations personnel with Fulcrum Public Affairs out of Washington, D.C.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
