Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes is facing serious criticism after legal threats issued to families using the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program. The threats slammed the brakes on purchasing “supplementary materials” considered self-evident in need by the State Board of Education.
As reported by the AZ Mirror, a July notice from Democrat Attorney General Kris Mayes’ office told the director of the ESA program that they may be in violation of Arizona law by issuing reimbursements to families for supplementary education materials, (i.e. flash-cards, periodic tables of the elements, early books for new readers) without requiring that parents provide documentation that it is required under a curriculum.
In the six-page letter, Assistant Attorney General Kathryn Boughton wrote, “Approving ESA funds for materials that have no nexus to the student’s actual curricular needs contradicts the intent of the program and constitutes a payment of funds made without authorization of law.” She went on to claim that doing so, “may enable account holders or vendors to engage in fraudulent behavior, such as purchasing items with ESA funds solely for the purpose of resale.”
She advised that director, John Ward stop authorizing the reimbursements immediately.
Faced with a potentially damaging legal battle, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne told parents in a statement that he would have to concede the point for now. “When I received the attorney general’s message, I sent it to the most knowledgeable people in my department,” Horne wrote.
“I asked them to look at it, not as an advocate, because we all disagree with the Attorney General, but in a neutral way, as though they were judges to determine if they could give me a reasonable assurance of success. They analyzed the statutes on which the attorney general relied, and indicated to me that as a neutral judge, they would rule against me if I made a fight out of it and refused to comply. Getting into a fight and losing, would be much more damaging.”
However, the tune from Mayes’ office changed sharply just one day after the Goldwater Institute filed lawsuit challenging the blatantly partisan determination. Attorneys from Goldwater representing two Arizona mothers wrote, “Following …unsuccessful legislative attempts, the office of Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes initiated a new effort in July 2024 to dramatically limit the use of ESA funds, calling for a prohibition on the purchase of basic educational materials, including books, workbooks, and other ‘supplementary materials’ unless parents could provide an explicit ‘curricular’ document justifying the use of each specific book title or material for their child.”
“Arizona law expressly allows the purchase of such materials with ESA funds, however. In fact, state lawmakers added clarifying language in 2020 with the explicit purpose of ensuring that such purchases would not be denied, following the actions by former State Superintendent Kathy Hoffman that had restricted the purchase of many such items. The State Board of Education has likewise approved rules for the program explicitly permitting the purchase of these materials without additional documentation.”
The AG’s Office then began a campaign of feverishly walking back their determination with a statement responding to the suit. “The Attorney General has simply stated what is required by law,” adding, “The law doesn’t prevent parents from purchasing paper and pencils, but it does require that materials purchased with ESA funds be used for a child’s education.”
But this isn’t what Mayes’ office said in July when they demanded Superintendent Tom Horne’s department “promptly cease approving supplementary material expenses without the requisite documentation of a curriculum nexus,” no matter how self-evidently educational the materials are, as Matt Beienburg,the Director of Education Policy at the Goldwater Institute pointed out in an Arizona Daily Independent op-ed.
As Beienburg notes, Mayes’ office, far from simply targeting extravagant spending, threatened ESA administrators with legal liability unless they applied the same requirements on the list of obviously educational materials approved in the State Board of Education’s ESA Handbook: things like “books,” “workbooks,” “writing utensils,” “atlases/maps/globes,” “calculators,” “flash cards”, etc.
“Thesematerials are what Attorney General Mayes’ intervention is now blocking en masse—unless parents can cite a specific pre-established curriculum calling for the individual book title or resource,” Beienburg explained.
“In other words, the Attorney General’s office still demands that flashcards and other self-evidently educational materials be allowed only if a parent can produce an arbitrary piece of paper calling for their specific use.
The Attorney General’s attempted public deflection away from this fact demonstrates the absurdity of her summer demands. Perhaps she really does believe that families should have to justify their purchases of books like ‘Brown Bear Brown Bear, What do You See?’ and ‘Little People Who Became Great’ to wiser government bureaucrats. But for the rest of us, such restrictions are clearly nonsensical and—under state law, illegal.
The Attorney General is supposed to uphold state law, not torture it to impose her policy preferences. We encourage the Attorney General to withdraw her summer demand letter, or else acknowledge flatly that her position is that families should have to justify why they picked ‘Brown Bear Brown Bear, What Do You See?’ to read to their own children.”
The office of Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly has become the center of the latest election controversy in Arizona. On October 19th, the county’s online portal to request vote-by-mail ballots was shut down when voting officials claimed the site was overwhelmed with the quantity of requests. The shutdown occurred a week prior to the Oct. 25th deadline.
According to the Tucson Sentinel, as an alternative, the county office posted a notice at the top of the disabled form page instructing voters to call-in to the office in order to request a mail-in ballot.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Senator Wadsack Launches Investigation into Pima County Recorder's Office Following Apparent Elections Violations
Arizona Senator Justine Wadsack announced Wednesday that she is launching an investigation into the allegations against Cázares-Kelly’s office “following potential violations which may have suppressed thousands of Southern Arizona voters.”
“I was truly shocked to learn our County Recorder’s Office had done this,” Senator Wadsack said in a statement. “These actions are absolutely unacceptable, undermine the integrity of our elections, and raise serious questions regarding voter suppression. This has affected my current constituents and my community, and I want to make sure their votes are protected as well as votes for all candidates involved. I’m here to make sure there’s accountability for the laws that appear to have been broken. My message to voters is to get out today and vote in person to ensure your vote is not suppressed.”
In a letter of inquiry sent to the County Recorder, Wadsack wrote, “You certainly know that, under Arizona law, ‘an elector may make a verbal or signed request to the county recorder’ for an early ballot. Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 16-542(A) (emphasis added). Further, your office must mail voters the early ballot ‘within forty-eight hours after receipt of the request.’ Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 16-542(D). It appears clear that your office violated both requirements.”
Arizona Reps. Rachel Jones and Cory McGarr issued a similar inquiry on Oct. 24th to Cázares-Kelly following allegations that the Recorder’s office, on receipt of undeliverable ballots or those returned due to an outdated address, sent notice that the voters mailed ballot was “received,” creating confusion.
We’re still waiting for answers to the questions asked in our below letter. Received an email yesterday that says they’ll get us those answers asap.
Is asap going to conveniently be November 6th? Maybe never? Why is the Pima County Recorder’s office not already following the… pic.twitter.com/mAcmfUfhZP
Per the Sentinel, Cázares-Kelly’s office sent alerts to approximately 4,000 voters in a mass email to notify them that their requests for a mail-in-ballot were canceled and instructed them to contact the office by phone to request a ballot, citing Marion Chubon, chief deputy to the Pima County Recorder, who ordered the shutdown. Chubon told reporters that the office didn’t inform the press as they “didn’t think it was a story.”
Chubon, responding to the outlet, explained that although the state law requiring ballots be sent within 48 hours of a request (as referred to by Sen. Wadsack), “was a consideration, obviously, and we weren’t going to fulfill those requests in that time. So we chose the more effective option – bottom line, getting those people their ballots that they needed.” However, the state law doesn’t allow for the County Recorder to make such a determination and cast aside requests that have already been submitted.
Subsequently, over 3,000 phone calls were fielded by the office on Oct. 21st and some 1,858 new requests were processed. Between that Monday and Friday another 2,829 requests were handled to the tune of approximately one every four minutes. Chubon told the outlet that she was confident that most of the voters whose requests were thrown out had received one. However she noted that, “We can’t guarantee that every single person called us to get a ballot, but we’re pretty confident that the majority of those were second requests… and those who didn’t fit into that category may have had a hold on their record and wouldn’t have gotten a ballot.”
“We just didn’t think it was a story,” Chubon added. “We were literally just trying to meet our statutory obligations and serve the voters. Like I said, over the weekend, we were processing unprecedented amounts of ballots. We have staff working 12-hour days, seven days a week, including the recorder and myself. We’re all working every day. It was just, ‘Let’s get these people their ballots.’ That was our focus. We would never, intentionally, not try to alert the media.”
One news network is shifting the status of the Grand Canyon State as the all-important November General Election inches closer to the nation.
Earlier this week, Fox News’ Power Rankings shifted Arizona from being a “Toss-Up” to a “Lean R” battleground state. If Arizona were to land in the Trump camp, he would capture its eleven electoral votes, which have proven critical to securing a victory for the White House in recent elections.
🚨 BREAKING: Arizona Moves from ‘Toss-Up’ to ‘Lean R’
In the final week before Election Day, Arizona has shifted from battleground to a likely win for President Trump and the @AZGOP!
According to the analysis from Fox News, “Immigration continues to be a highly important issue in Arizona, which shares a border with Mexico. In the latest Wall Street Journal survey, 25% of voters said immigration was the most important issue to their vote, higher than any other battleground. It was a ‘deal-breaker’ issue for 24% of voters. And Arizona voters preferred Trump on the issue by 10 points.”
The analysis added that “statewide polling has been directionally consistent and immigration reigns supreme.”
Both the Trump and Harris campaigns have targeted Arizona repeatedly over the past few months, spending large sums of money on advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts and making several trips to the state to encourage men and women to vote for their candidate in the closing days of the contest. Both Trump and his Vice-Presidential nominee, Senator J.D. Vance, were in Arizona last week, and they are returning this week. Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Governor Tim Walz, have made a handful of stops in communities around the state in recent weeks as well.
A recent poll from Atlas Intel shows that President Trump has opened up an almost four-point lead on Harris in Arizona, when the full field of candidates is included in the survey. Almost fifty-seven percent of respondents disapprove of President Joe Biden’s performance over the past four years, compared to just thirty-nine percent who approve, assisting in Trump’s ascent to the top of the polls in the Grand Canyon State. Almost fifty-four percent of respondents believe that Biden’s performance has been “bad / terrible” compared to twenty-eight percent who selected “excellent / good.”
As of Wednesday, Arizona Republicans continue to outpace their Democrat counterparts in early ballot returns, giving cautious optimism to many in the party around the state that, should the trend continue, Election Night on Tuesday, November 5, could be a very good night for them as they watch the results roll in from around the country.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
Democratic Candidate for Congressional District 1 Amish Shah was revealed to have attacked former President Ronald Reagan and the entire system of capitalism in a recently uncovered video from 2018.
In the video footage, Shah is heard to say, “What we’ve got is an economic system here that isn’t fair. People have started to realize this finally after years. What happened with Ronald Reagan starting to cut taxes on the very, very wealthy has now given us the society we have, and this is what the real travesty is.”
In full, Shah offered a distinctly socialist rebuke of Reagan-era conservative reforms, tax cuts that objectively revived the U.S. economy after the disastrous Carter Administration.
“We’re institutionalizing inequality this… this is what we’re doing. Um, what… what we’ve got is an economic system here that isn’t fair,” Shah said.
He then began to outline a socialist solution:
“And, and, and this is what the real travesty is: lack of good healthcare for example. Um… an expensive healthcare strips people of assets. Not having affordable education then takes those people and puts them at, those kids, and puts them at a massive disadvantage. And there you go.
What you’re going to get is people without opportunity and then finding themselves in a place where they can’t make ends meet. And we’re funding a school to prison pipeline and …and that’s, that’s not right. That’s, that’s just morally, uh, objectionable way for a society to run.
And so I’m… I’m happy that what we’re seeing within the democratic party is a… a huge progressive movement that’s coming up and saying this is wrong and we’re going to do something about it.”
Shah’s views do not appear to have changed. In a recent debate featuring Shah, he explained his class warfare argument and even vowed to raise taxes on Arizonans. “I’m not in favor of extending the Trump tax cuts because a lot of the folks that were helped by those were wealthy,” said Shah.
NRCC Spokesperson Ben Petersen criticized Shah heavily in a statement, “Amish Shah’s extreme vow to axe the Trump tax cuts represents a declaration of war on Arizonans’ livelihoods. Shah’s class warfare campaign and support for socialism are disqualifying in the first district.”
As previously reported by the New York Post, Shah’s heavily radicalized socialist background has caused significant controversy in recent weeks as ties to Senator Bernie Sanders found him endorsing single-payer socialized medicine.
He recently ran afoul of the City of Tempe for use of mailers depicting a retired Tempe Police officer in full uniform in violation of A.R.S. 9-500.14, which forbids the use of city resources to influence an election.
And further reporting from the Washington Free Beacon also uncovered his rental of a modest condominium in his district and listing of that address for voter registration purposes, instead of his primary residence located in the neighboring third district, in possible violation of Arizona law.
A Republican lawmaker is making recommendations for voters in key ballot measures for the state of Arizona.
In the most recent Arizona Senate Republicans’ newsletter, state Senator Shawnna Bolick released a statement in support of propositions that her party in both legislative chambers had passed for voters’ review in the upcoming election.
Bolick said, “We are just days away from a crucial election that will help determine the future of Arizona and our nation. Republicans at the Legislature spent tireless hours working to provide voters with the opportunity to have the final say on the key issues our state is facing. Despite Democrats voting ‘no’ on our proposals, we voted in support of sending Propositions 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 311, 312, 313, 314, and 315 to the ballot.”
She added, “Included is the ‘Secure the Border Act’ (314), which would provide law enforcement the authority to arrest illegal border crossers to keep our communities safe after the Governor vetoed our original bills to address the crisis. Also, the ‘Children Are Not For Sale’ measure (313) would protect children from sex trafficking by deterring this evil practice with a life imprisonment sentence for the offenders. Make your voices heard! Send in your ballot no later than October 29, or vote in person on November 5- just be prepared for lines.”
Arizona’s ballot propositions haven’t been the focus of many polls – at least publicly available ones, though Noble Predictive Insights had released results from a survey in early September, showing that Prop 314 was receiving 63% support for passage.
The veteran legislator is fighting to retain her seat in the state Senate in next week’s election. Bolick faces a stiff challenge from Democrat state Representative Judy Schwiebert for Legislative District 2, which is one of the most competitive across Arizona, with a 3.8% vote spread in the past nine statewide elections. It is very winnable for Republicans, however, as the party has emerged victorious in six out of those nine elections.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
The vice president of the Higley Unified School Board, Anna Van Hoek, received a package with an apparent threat of violence from a leftist parent.
The package, sent from Amazon, contained a rope and a book containing sexually explicit content, “Homegoing.” Following a report from Van Hoek, Gilbert Police submitted a warrant to Amazon and identified the sender as Queen Creek mother Lindzie Head.
Lindzie Head sent a copy of “Homegoing” along with a rope to Higley school board member Anna Van Hoek.
Head is a medical technologist (clinical lab scientist) at Mercy Gilbert Medical Center who serves on the Queen Creek Parks and Recreation Advisory Board. She previously held leadership roles with the PTO for Cortina Elementary School and Sossaman Middle School.
Van Hoek has taken stances on issues such as removing dirty books from classrooms and barring boys (identifying as transgender girls) from girls’ sports, in alliance with organizations such as Arizona Women of Action.
The package came after a high school English teacher, Brittany O’Neill, came under investigation for assigning the very book Head sent to Van Hoek, “Homegoing.” The book is a historical fiction addressing slavery that contains a number of passages depicting sex and rape, as well as abuse and drug use.
State law prevents the provision of sexually explicit books unless the materials are deemed educational, and parents give their consent. The Gilbert Police Department notified the district that it was investigating O’Neill over the assignment last month.
In that controversy, Van Hoek sided with the aggrieved parents who believe the book shouldn’t have been assigned to minors due to its content.
Van Hoek said in a statement that Head and her husband, Kyle Head, indicated to police that they have retained legal counsel.
In her statement, Van Hoek also said that she would not tolerate this threatening behavior. Van Hoek advised that she had previously endured an attack on her property: her tire was slashed during a board meeting last October.
“I want to make it unequivocally clear that I will not tolerate this kind of harassment and threats directed not only at myself but also at our district parents,” said Van Hoek. “Everyone has a right to express their concerns and speak out without fear of intimidation.”
Van Hoek also advised that another district parent had received the same sexually explicit book in an anonymous package from Head (confirmed by Gilbert Police) with the following message:
“Read the book and maybe you’ll learn something,” said Head’s message.
The same district parent who received Head’s package reported having his identifying information doxed on social media.
Van Hoek said that no additional information about the incidents could be provided due to an ongoing investigation.
These unwelcome packages appear to be the latest efforts by Head to become more civically involved.
Last May, Head participated in and graduated from the town of Queen Creek’s Citizen Leadership Institute. It was several months after this graduation that she applied for (and was given) the board member role for the Queen Creek Parks and Recreation Board.
Last October, Head wrote an opinion piece for the Daily Independent asking Congress to work in a bipartisan manner and pass the budget.
Head’s Instagram bio reads, “You can sit with me. Here to be unreasonable. Uninformed and relying on hearsay.”
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