Democrats are trying to win a Republican-leaning legislative seat in the southern Arizona area with a candidate who has been endorsed by several progressive organizations.
Kevin Volk is running for the Arizona House of Representatives in Arizona Legislative District 17. Volk was the only Democrat running in the primary for the chamber as his party attempts a ‘single-shot’ strategy to win enough votes for a first or second-place finish in November’s General Election. He obtained 26,330 votes in the July 30 Primary Election.
While my primary was uncontested, it is humbling to have received over 26,000 votes, and to become the Democratic nominee to represent Legislative District 17 in the Arizona State House.
On his campaign website, Volk lists several endorsements from left-leaning organizations for his bid to ascend to the state House, including the National Organization for Women Arizona Political Action Committee, the Arizona Education Association, the Sister District Project, Moms Demand Action, Human Rights Campaign PAC, Climate Cabinet, and the Sierra Club.
Should Volk manage to win a seat in the Arizona House, his endorsement from the Arizona Education Association (AEA) shows that he would likely join with this organization and his fellow Democrat colleagues to undermine – and even dismantle – the state’s historic opportunities for school choice and educational freedom. The AEA has been a staunch opponent of the Arizona Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA) program, which has unlocked a chance for tens of thousands of students around the state to receive the education that best unleashes their learning abilities.
On June 18, the AEA posted, “Happy to be endorsing John McLean and Kevin Volk in LD 17. This is a vital district to win to achieve a pro-education majority in the state legislature, and we’re so glad to have two strong advocates for public education and for Arizona working families in the race!
Happy to be endorsing @JohnMcLean4AZ@KevinVolkAZ in LD17. This is a vital district to win to achieve a pro-education majority in the state legislature, and we're so glad to have two strong advocates for public education and for Arizona working families in the race! pic.twitter.com/jzNe826ayd
The Pima County Democratic Party cheered on the endorsement of Volk from the AEA in a post on X, writing, “This is simple. Kevin Volk and John McLean are champions for the public schools in Marana, SaddleBrooke, Picture Rocks, Tanque Verde, Rita Ranch, East Side, Tucson, and Oro Valley. Good public schools benefit all of us, and all of our community.”
— Pima County Democratic Party (@PimaDems) June 18, 2024
While not on his website, on May 7, Volk also acknowledged an endorsement of his campaign from Save Our Schools Arizona, another organization committed to the end of ESAs and other mediums of school choice in the state. He wrote, “Thank you, Save Our Schools Arizona for your endorsement! As a former public school teacher, I believe that all children in Arizona – more than 90% of whom attend public schools – deserve an excellent education, and that means making sure that our schools are fully funded and fully staffed.”
Thank you @arizona_sos for your endorsement! As a former public school teacher, I believe that all children in Arizona – more than 90% of whom attend public schools – deserve an excellent education, and that means making sure that our schools are fully funded and fully staffed. https://t.co/7jQfAY9eSF
Earlier this year, in April, Volk announced that he had obtained the endorsement of Sister District Project, which has targeted Arizona to help Democrats win competitive races around the state. The organization states that it “prioritize[s] endorsing where we can build momentum at the bottom of the ticket to decrease roll-off in naturally higher turnout environments with strategic higher-ticket Democratic opportunities.”
I am proud to have received the endorsement of @Sister_District, a national organization that is dedicated to helping state legislative candidates in the most critical battleground districts in the country. #LD17
To receive an endorsement from Sister District Project, Volk, like all other candidates who have been endorsed by the organization, had to agree to a six-prong policy plank, including more gun control policies and protection against climate change.
Volk’s support from Sister District Project and its devotion to the radical beliefs around the issue of climate change closely mirrors an endorsement of the LD 17 Democrat candidate from another climate-oriented organization, Climate Cabinet. This organization thanks a number of other likeminded partners – one of which is the Sierra Club Grand Canyon Chapter.
Voters might find it hard to decipher what Volk believes (or does not believe) thanks to his nonexistent record, but as with the endorsements he has received and announced, there are concerning signs that he would be an unwavering vote for the Democrat Party in the Arizona Legislature. In an opinion piece for the Tucson Daily Star on March 6, Volk wrote against an election integrity proposal from Republican Representative Rachel Jones, stating that her legislation would mean that “politicians in our state could potentially choose the winner of the presidential election – regardless of your vote.” He added, “Bypassing Arizonans’ votes for president does not secure elections, it silences voters. I believe that Arizonans, not politicians, should help decide who the next president is.”
However, Volk’s sentiments appear to be hypocritical when it comes to recent actions from his own party at the top of the ticket, where President Joe Biden stepped aside from the votes of millions of Democrats around the country, including Arizonans, after an overwhelming crescendo of voices from his party’s elite forced his hand. What Volk raged against in the southern Arizona publication became reality, not with a Republican policy, but actually with his party’s presumed and eventual nominee who was elected by the votes of political delegates in Chicago, Illinois – not the votes of Arizonans and other men and women from states around the United States.
According to the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, Legislative District 17 has an 8.34% vote spread between Republicans and Democrats in the last nine state elections. In those nine elections, Republicans have won all nine contests.
Volk will face off in the November General Election against Republicans Cory McGarr and Jones, who are both incumbent State Representatives. McGarr and Jones emerged over Anna Orth in the July Primary Election.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen and House Speaker Ben Toma filed an amicus brief in support of a lawsuit against Arizona State University and the Arizona Board of Regents for “unlawfully mandating racist DEI training for faculty.” The lawsuit was brought by Dr. Owen Anderson and the Goldwater Institute. The Arizona Board of Regents brought a motion to dismiss the case, which Petersen and Toma are urging the court to reject.
In the text of the brief, Petersen and Toma establish first and foremost that the case brought by Goldwater and Dr. Anderson “is a civil rights case,” citing Arizona Revised Statutes “enacted in part to prohibit discriminatory state and local government practices, including conduct that could qualify as, or lead to, a discriminatory work environment and even liability for the State.”
Sharing the brief, the Arizona Republican Party wrote in a post to X, “We refuse to normalize discrimination in higher education, or anywhere in the state of Arizona.”
🚨ICYMI: DEI or "Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion" is simply discrimination under another name, and we won't tolerate your tax dollars supporting radical left ideology that provides preferential treatment for individuals based on race, skin color, or sex.
As reported by Goldwater, the crux of the complaint by Dr. Anderson is that Arizona State University is using taxpayer funds to mandate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion training among the university’s faculty. And that Dr. Anderson’s refusal to participate in the inherently discriminatory training has left him open to discipline from his superiors.
“I shouldn’t be forced to take training and affirm ideas with which I disagree as a condition of employment,’” Dr. Anderson said. “This ‘training’ is simply racism under the guise of DEI. It goes against my conscience, and I want no part of it.”
Goldwater Staff Attorney Stacy Skankey noted, “Arizona state law prohibits mandatory training for state employees and use of taxpayer resources to teach doctrines that discriminate based on race, ethnicity, sex, and other characteristics.”
“But the ‘ASU Inclusive Communities’ training teaches discriminatory DEI concepts, including things like ‘how…white supremacy [is] normalized in society,’ how to ‘critique whiteness’; ‘white privilege’; ‘white fragility’; and the need for ‘transformative justice.’ Even ‘seemingly innocuous questions and comments’—like asking people where they’re from or commenting on their hair—can be deemed ‘racist.’”
Skankey and co-counsel Parker Jackson, representing Dr. Anderson, alleged in the complaint that the Arizona Board of Regents and ASU are “using public money to prepare and disseminate mandatory faculty and staff training for its employees that presents forms of blame or judgment on the basis of race, ethnicity or sex, in violation of state law.” They add that the University is “compelling the speech of public employees by requiring faculty and staff to take an examination following a training that presents forms of blame or judgment on the basis of race, ethnicity or sex, and answer with Arizona State University’s ‘correct’ answers, in violation of the Arizona Constitution.”
The training included slides containing these objectively racial and gender discriminatory statements and concepts:
“[A]cknowledging the history of white supremacy and the social conditions for it to exist as a structural phenomenon.”
“How is white supremacy normalized in society.”
“[G]iven the socio-historical legacy of racism, sexism, homophobia and other forms of structural inequality, perceptions of authority and control are not always granted to minoritized [sic] faculty.”
“White Fragility.”
“What is White Privilege, Really.”
“Explaining White privilege to a broke white person… .”
“7 Ways White People Can Combat Their Privilege.”
“Racism … can take the form of … and include seemingly innocuous questions or comments, such as asking people of color where they are from … .”
“Sexual identities are linked to power, and heterosexuality, the dominant sexual identity in American culture, is privileged by going largely unquestioned.”
A video segment of the training includes the statements via transcript:
“[I]t scares people to talk about white supremacy or to be called a white supremacist. But if we start thinking about it in terms of whiteness as something that is culturally neutral and we’re moving it from that neutral space into a critical space.”
“[W]e also have to open the space to critique whiteness.”
“[W]hite supremacy … referring to here is the period between the 1500’s and the 1800’s that encompasses both Spanish colonization and Euro American colonization. And what colonization did, was it really created this system of binary thinking. There were folks that were inherently good and folks that were inherently bad, and that led to the systems of superiority that were then written into the foundation documents of our nation.”
The original complaint summarizes: “The Inclusive Communities training provides discriminatory concepts including, but not limited to: white people are inherently racist and oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously; heterosexuals are inherently sexist and oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously; white people should receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of their race or ethnicity; white people bear responsibility for actions committed by other white people; land acknowledgement statements are a way of holding one race or ethnicity responsible for the actions committed by other members of the same race or ethnicity; transformative justice calls for an individual to bear responsibility for actions committed by other members of the same race, ethnic group or sex; and dominant identities (whites or heterosexuals) are treated morally or intellectually superior to other races, ethnic groups or sexes.”
Skankey explained, “ASU is essentially forcing its employees to agree to a certain type of speech, which violates the Arizona Constitution’s broad protections for free speech.”
Speaking with Fox & Friends in March, Dr. Anderson explained, “I was told I need to ‘decolonize my classroom.’”
In a statement responding to the lawsuit, an ASU spokesman told Fox producers, “The Goldwater Institute suit misleads the court and misrepresents both the content and requirements of this training to make an argument the represents a political perspective but is not based on the law. ASU’s commitment to providing a support and welcoming educational environment for students of all backgrounds will continue and the university will respond appropriately to the Institute’s tactic.”
The case is currently awaiting a response from the Arizona Board of Regents.
The 2024 report from the Joint Legislative Budget Committee could potentially silence opponents of Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) Program once and for all. This week, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne called the myth that the ESA program was ever a threat to the budget: “utterly demolished.”
In a press release from the Arizona Department of Education, Horne explained that for Fiscal Year 2024, which concluded on June 30th, the Basic State Aid payments for education programs at district and charter schools and the controversial ESA program all finished well under budget with a net savings to the state of $4.3 million. The news comes just days after the Goldwater Institute debunked the narrative that the ESA program harmed students and blew up the state budget as previously reported by AZ Free News.
Horne said in the press release, “Having a surplus of more than $4 million is proof positive that the critics who have claimed the ESA program will bust the not only the state’s education budget but the entire budget itself were always wrong. It was always a myth, and that myth is utterly demolished.”
The report revealed that out of $6,309,352,100 appropriated toward education funding, even with the ESA, the state only spent $6,305,050,851.55 leaving behind a $4,301,248.45 surplus.
Horne, who was previously State Superintendent of Schools from 2003 to 2011 before being elected State Attorney General, continued:
“Budget figures are stubborn facts and they do not stand up to the political posturing that ESA critics have consistently and wrongly thrown at the program. The universal ESA scholarships are a vital part of making sure that parents are able to choose the schools that best fit the needs of their children. For example, we have families with three children. Two are doing fine in the neighborhood public school, but the needs of the third are not being met. ESAs enable the parents to find a school that meets the needs of the third child. How can anyone be so immersed in ideology that they would deny the parents that ability?”
He concluded, “Having choices such as charter schools, open enrollment for district schools and ESAs are a valuable tool for Arizona parents. As today’s announcement shows, these choices do not result in any part of the budget deficit. It resulted from overly optimistic projections of state revenues. ESAs are enabling parents to find the best schools to meet their children’s needs. No rational person should oppose that.”
The revelation from the JLBC report could severely undermine the political arguments of Democrats running against the state’s ESA program in November such as Democrat John McLean who is seeking to gain a State Senate seat in Arizona Legislative District 17. McLean is challenging Republican Vince Leach.
In a statement to AZ Free News in early August, Leach warned, “John McLean is going to have to defend the actions of the Democrat party both at the state level and the national level. He owns the damage to the state of Arizona by Governor Katie Hobbs, and also the radical policies that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are inflicting on our country. If voters elect McLean to office, that will help the Democrats take over the state legislature, which means that taxes will increase, school choice will disappear, and commonsense election laws will be reversed.”
81 school board races were recommended for cancellation this year by the Maricopa County School Superintendent due to a lack of candidates.
35 districts were impacted. Maricopa County has 58 districts in total, meaning 60 percent of the districts either had no candidates or only one candidate running for a seat.
All but a handful of the races had one individual in the race poised for appointment by default. 72 of those seats were recommended to have the sole candidate appointed to them, with the remaining 9 seats declared vacant due to having no candidates at all.
💥 Not enough candidates stepped up for school boards – leaving voters without choices to help improve their school districts.
The following districts have races impacted by the lack of candidates:
Aguila Elementary School District: three appointments, two vacancies
Alhambra Elementary School District: three appointments
Arlington Elementary School District: three appointments
Avondale Elementary School District: one appointment
Balsz Elementary School District: one vacancy
Buckeye Elementary School District: two appointments, one vacancy
Cave Creek Unified School District: one appointment
East Valley Institute of Technology – 4: one vacancy
East Valley Institute of Technology – 6: one appointment
East Valley Institute of Technology – 8: one appointment
Fountain Hills Unified School District: one appointment
Gila Bend Unified School District: one appointment, one vacancy
Litchfield Elementary School District: three appointments
Littleton Elementary School District: three appointments
Madison Elementary School District: three appointments
Mobile Elementary School District: three appointments
Morristown Elementary School District: one appointment, one vacancy
Murphy Elementary School District: three appointments, one vacancy
Nadaburg Elementary School District: three appointments
Osborn Elementary School District: three appointments
Paloma Elementary School District: three appointments
Palo Verde Elementary School District: four appointments
Pendergast Elementary School District: three appointments
Phoenix Elementary School District: three appointments
Riverside Elementary School District: one appointment
Saddle Mountain Unified School District: three appointments
Sentinel Elementary School District: three appointments
Tempe Union High School District: three appointments
Union Elementary School District: two appointments, one vacancy
West MEC – 3: one appointment
West MEC – 4: one appointment
West MEC – 5: one appointment
West MEC – 6: one appointment
Wickenburg Unified School District: three appointments
Wilson Elementary School District: one appointment
Of the recommended appointments, 12 were write-in candidates: three for Aguila Elementary School District, three for Paloma Elementary School District, two for Union Elementary School District, one for Alhambra Elementary School District, one for East Valley Institute of Technology – 6, one for Gila Bend Unified School District, and one for Morristown Elementary School District.
The filing deadline for write-in candidates occurred at the end of July, with the filing period opening at the start of June.
State law authorizes the county school superintendent to either appoint a qualified elector or call a special election to fill the vacant seat.
As part of the former option consisting of an appointment process, the office of county superintendent receives up to three names from the relevant district governing board as well as a full list of candidates who applied with the district. Individuals not on those lists who are interested in being appointed may also apply directly to the office of county superintendent to be considered for appointment.
The office of county superintendent will then filter out applicants through interviews.
Only those who are registered voters in the state and residents of the school district for at least one year immediately preceding the day of the election are considered eligible to serve on a school governing board.
The county superintendent’s recommendations were submitted to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors for final approval.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
Arizona Department of Education (ADE) Superintendent Tom Horne demanded an explanation from a prominent anti-school choice leader after her remarks defending males in female bathrooms and locker rooms.
Save Our Schools Arizona Director Beth Lewis criticized three of Horne’s guests for opposing males in female spaces. Lewis questioned why gender mattered in terms of intimate and traditionally gendered public spaces.
“Why do Tom Horne and these Grandmas care who my kids are sharing a bathroom with?” posted Lewis. “My kids and their peers accept each other — gay, straight, lesbian, trans, bi, they don’t care!”
Horne released a statement on Thursday challenging Lewis over her remarks. The superintendent said Lewis’ position was reckless and jeopardized the safety of children.
“These changes to Title IX regulations are outrageous since they allow biological boys to expose themselves to girls in bathrooms and locker rooms and invade the girls’ privacy,” stated Horne. “They will also cause unbelievable management challenges for campus administrators, teachers and coaches that will make their jobs much more difficult.”
Horne blasts "Save Our Schools" leader for supporting biological boys using girls' locker rooms and showers Social media post reveals stance For immediate release: August 15, 2024 pic.twitter.com/DnADNSDav9
— Arizona Department of Education (@azedschools) August 15, 2024
The Biden administration modified Title IX regulations to redefine the term “sex” to include “gender identity” back in April. The change impacts access to gendered programs, activities, or spaces, which extends not only to bathrooms and locker rooms but sports teams as well.
Louisiana has challenged this change by the Department of Education in court. Last month, the Fifth Circuit and Sixth Circuit Courts of Appeals rejected the Biden administration’s requests to undo separate injunctions against their Title IX changes, stemming from challenges by the states of Kentucky and Louisiana. On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the injunctions.
Horne reflected on findings within the courts, specifically in the Louisiana case which presented evidence of a pattern of males attacking females in public restrooms.
“The courts see the tragedies that have already occurred because of policies such as the new Title IX regulations,” said Horne. “Beth Lewis and SOS have no excuse for not understanding that as well.”
Lewis responded to the statement by characterizing opposition to males in female bathrooms as “hateful rhetoric,” and deriding Horne as “a weirdo who is publicly obsessing over kids’ genitals.”
Supt. Horne is again using his state agency handle to (weakly) attempt to troll me for standing up against his hateful rhetoric 😂 I’ll say it again — @RealTomHorne is a weirdo who is publicly obsessing over kids’ genitals 💁🏻♀️ https://t.co/bf0emvwpSBpic.twitter.com/GnHMvQlssX
Prior to directing Save Our Schools Arizona, Lewis taught elementary and middle school students for over a decade.
Save Our Schools Arizona is a public schools advocacy organization with much of its focus on opposing the state’s school choice program. As the fight over gender ideology ramped up in recent years, their organization also took on advocacy in favor of LGBTQ+-friendly legislation.
In this past session, the organization opposed a requirement for students and adults to restrict access to school bathrooms, changing facilities, and any sleeping quarters in accordance with biological gender, as opposed to gender identity (the mental belief behind transgenderism).
Save Our Schools Arizona also regularly backs Democratic candidates, most recently applauding the naming of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as Kamala Harris’ vice presidential pick.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
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.”
