by Our America | Jun 12, 2025 | Opinion
By Our America |
Last summer, Our America Foundation’s Arizona Hometown Heroes stood up for local control of law enforcement by protesting against the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) consent decree to the Phoenix City Council.
And now, we have a victory – the DOJ has dropped the decree recommendation for the Phoenix Police Department (PPD).
We applaud this move, as we believe that communities are best served when they have a direct say in how they’re governed.
AZ Free News reported late last month that the DOJ rescinded the report and recommendation, thanks in part to an aggressive advocacy campaign by Rep. Abe Hamadeh (R–AZ-8). Hamadeh met with top DOJ officials, including FBI Director Kash Patel and Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon (an Our America-backed official), to push for the decision.
This reverses a June 2024 move by Biden’s DOJ, which released a highly critical report after concluding an investigation into the PPD. The report alleged a wide variety of misconduct and abuses by the PPD, and the DOJ pressured the city to sign a consent decree.
This decree would have meant federal monitoring and control over the PPD, and was criticized as a clear-cut example of federal overreach. The PPD was already taking proactive steps to fix any existing issues, and the department enjoyed strong support from the local community.
As we’ve written about in the past, similar moves by the DOJ to take control over police departments in Seattle and Albuquerque resulted in an increase in crime. Furthermore, these decrees put additional financial burdens on departments and in effect work as a de-facto way of defunding the police.
Keeping control in the hands of Americans over Washington bureaucrats is a good bet to make communities safer and stronger.
Our America is an organization seeking to build a broad, diverse coalition of people who support those timeless American values that empower everyone to thrive, including: equal opportunity, mutual respect, and freedom of expression.
by Matthew Holloway | May 26, 2025 | News
By Matthew Holloway |
“Promise made. Promise kept.” Congressman Abe Hamadeh was celebratory last week and praised the decision by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to rescind a politically driven report against the Phoenix Police Department on “patterns and practice” of discrimination that was found by law enforcement experts to be 97% “factually or contextually inaccurate.”
Describing the report as being from a “weaponized investigation by the Biden Administration,” Hamadeh urged FBI Director Kash Patel to take action to refute the report in a letter previously reported by AZ Free News. In a statement issued Wednesday, Hamadeh’s office said the Arizona Republican had engaged in “aggressive advocacy for the men and women of the Phoenix Police Department,” which culminated in a meeting with top DOJ Officials, including FBI Director Kash Patel and Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon.
“I promised our law enforcement officers before taking office that I would end the weaponization of our judicial system and work with President Trump’s Department of Justice to undo the damage wrought by the Biden Administration,” Hamadeh said.
He added, “I am grateful to President Trump and his team of patriotic professionals dedicated to the men and women of our local law enforcement agencies who run to the sound of danger to keep our communities safe and secure.”
Hamadeh explained, “As I noted in my communications with Trump Administration officials, our officers did everything right, voluntarily cooperating in good faith, opening their records, and participating in lengthy interviews. They were met with stonewalling, mischaracterized testimony, and a final report riddled with glaring inaccuracies.”
“The Trump Administration has now shown that it will not tolerate attacks on our law enforcement officers – either through physical violence or bureaucratic machinations,” said Congressman Hamadeh.
“Overbroad police consent decrees divest local control of policing from communities where it belongs, turning that power over to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, often with an anti-police agenda,” added Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon. “Today, we are ending the Biden Civil Rights Division’s failed experiment of handcuffing local leaders and police departments with factually unjustified consent decrees.”
As reported by Law Enforcement Today, law enforcement experts Dr. Travis Yates and Dr. JC Chaix released a bombshell analysis on May 1st describing the DOJ report as detailing 134 incidents of which 130 were “either factually or contextually inaccurate,” in a shocking “97% rate of false reporting.”
Yates and Chaix wrote, “The answer lies in the DOJ’s investigative methodology—one that leans heavily on anecdotal narratives, hindsight bias, and advocacy framing rather than factual accuracy. While the individuals conducting this investigation are anonymous, it’s clear that they lack expertise in police operations, policy, or law. In many cases, their descriptions misidentified lawful force as unconstitutional, ignored established case law standards, such as Graham v. Connor, and omitted critical contextual information, including suspect behavior, threats, or prior warnings.”
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
by Staff Reporter | Apr 13, 2025 | News
By Staff Reporter |
The Trump administration will no longer continue its legal challenge to Arizona’s documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC) laws.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a brief on Tuesday motioning to drop the case.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon filed the brief the very day after she was sworn into her position within the Civil Rights Division, alongside the controversial Interim Attorney for the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona, Timothy Courchaine.
Senate President Warren Petersen called the development “a major win for election integrity and the rule of law” in a statement Wednesday. Petersen previously submitted a letter to the DOJ requesting they drop the case.
“The @azsenategop and @azhousegop will continue to defend this law against the special interest groups challenging it,” said Petersen.
Petersen submitted his request letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi in mid-February.
The case, Mi Familia Vota v. Fontes, is before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Arizona’s DPOC laws required automatic rejection of Arizona state form registration submissions lacking DPOC, prohibited individuals who hadn’t provided DPOC from voting for a president or returning a ballot by mail, and added mandatory fields to the state registration form for a registrant’s birthplace and a checkbox confirmation of the applicant’s U.S. citizenship.
Last August, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Arizona would have to accept state voter registration forms without DPOC.
Tuesday’s motion by the DOJ was the latest in the Trump administration’s efforts to cease legal action against states’ election laws.
Last month, the DOJ dropped multiple election-related lawsuits in Texas, Georgia, and Louisiana initiated under the Biden administration. Those lawsuits opposed voting maps and election integrity initiatives, respectively.
President Donald Trump and his administration have also taken steps to require proof of citizenship in elections, prompting resistance from the state’s top Democratic leaders.
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, alongside Attorney General Kris Mayes, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over President Donald Trump’s recent executive order requiring DPOC to register to vote in federal elections as well as requiring all ballots to be received by Election Day.
Last week, Mayes and Fontes held a joint press conference announcing their lawsuit and accusing Trump of “unconstitutional intrusion” on states’ rights and congressional authority regarding elections. The pair want Trump to go through — not around — Congress for any election law changes.
“If President Trump wanted to make laws then he should have run for congress where the U.S. Constitution says that work is done,” said Fontes. “If the President wants to reshape our elections, he must propose realistic bipartisan legislation in Congress instead of forcing states into unfunded mandates through unlawful executive orders.”
“Clearly, Trump only supports state’s rights when it suits him,” said Mayes.
Last month in another case pertaining to DPOC, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled against the Elections Procedure Manual (EPM) produced by Secretary of State Adrian Fontes. Fontes’ EPM would have allowed voters who failed to submit or couldn’t achieve verification of their DPOC.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
by Staff Reporter | Oct 29, 2024 | News
By Staff Reporter |
Maricopa County says its current election plan is adequate to ensure everyone will have an opportunity to vote in this election, despite additional reports of long voting lines and wait times.
The county board of supervisors and recorder’s office issued their assurance through the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office (MCAO) last Friday in response to a Thursday letter from GOP congressional candidate Abraham Hamadeh and the Republican National Committee (RNC) requesting a new election plan.
Deputy County Attorney Joseph E. La Rue issued the response letter on behalf of MCAO. LaRue began his letter with a remark aimed at the author of the Hamadeh-RNC letter, Harmeet Dhillon, for submitting the letter to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and Maricopa County Recorder’s Office rather than MCAO.
“We do not know how they do things in California, where you are barred,” said La Rue. “But here in Arizona, it is an ethical violation for an attorney to communicate about the subject of her representation of her client with someone that the attorney knows is represented.”
As the Arizona Daily Independent reported, the Hamadeh-RNC letter claimed that it took voters longer on average to complete their ballots than the county predicted: an average of 15 minutes compared with the county’s 12-minute estimate, due to the ballot consisting of two pages.
La Rue responded that this comparison was “inaccurate” because it was based “on outdated information.” La Rue further dismissed Dhillon’s reliance on Verity Vote data, characterizing it as a “discredited organization that has been shown to play fast and loose with the facts” based on VoteBeat reporting.
La Rue clarified that the board of supervisors had expanded the in-person voting plan during its September 9 meeting to accommodate the two-page ballot.
La Rue also defended the county’s decision on the number of voting locations, check-in stations, and voting booths. He reported that the county had expanded the numbers of these election components adequately from past elections: a 40 percent increase since 2020 and a 10 percent increase since 2022 in voting locations; a 35 percent increase since 2020 and 33 percent increase since 2022 in check-in stations; and a 60 percent increase since 2020 and a 23 percent increase since 2022 in voting booths.
At the close of his response letter, La Rue concluded with a decisive “no” on the request from Hamadeh and the RNC to devise a new election plan.
“In light of the county’s extensive preparations for in-person voting on November 5, 2024, our clients do not see the need for an emergency meeting with your clients,” stated La Rue.
The county’s denial of a request for expanding election location capacities, such as establishing additional voting booths, came ahead of Monday reports from the media and individual voters on long wait times and lengthy lines for in-person early voting.
Maricopa County has warned that it could take them anywhere from 10 to 13 days to count all the ballots, due to the nearly 2.1 million mail-in ballots requested in this election. The county came up with the timeline based on the percentage of voters who waited to turn in their early ballots closer to or on Election Day in the 2022 election — almost 20 percent.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
by Matthew Holloway | Oct 29, 2024 | News
By Matthew Holloway |
In partnership with the Republican National Committee (RNC), Republican Congressional candidate for Arizona’s 8th District Abe Hamadeh has issued a letter to Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer. In the letter, Hamadeh and the RNC called for an emergency meeting with the county election officials to review what they described as a “flawed Election Plan.”
In a post to X sharing the letter, Hamadeh wrote that the plan, “fails to account the time voters need to complete the FOUR-PAGE ballot, setting the stage for long lines & chaos on Election Day. I won’t tolerate an election system that disenfranchises the will of the people.”
In the three-page letter from Hamadeh and RNC attorney Harmeet Dhillon, they wrote, “We have received information indicating that voters will take significantly longer to complete their ballots than the estimates upon which the Maricopa County Election Plan is based, specifically the provisions related to Election Day voting. Our observations in the field confirm this concern.”
The letter explains, “The county’s current plan, which already expects long lines on Election Day, is based on the unlikely expectation that voters will only take up to a maximum of approximately 12 minutes to complete their ballots. Our information is that voters will take, and are now taking substantially longer to complete their ballots—averaging at least 15 minutes with a maximum that his much higher.”
Dhillon and Hamadeh further pointed out that there has been a significant decrease in the number of voting centers near Paradise Valley Community College, noting that the area has one of the highest turnout rates in the county.
They added, “This will mean dramatically longer lines than expected on election night. As you know, many voters will not be able to endure an hours-long wait to vote, effectively disenfranchising them if the lines grow too long.”
As previously reported by AZ Free News, there has been a serious decrease in the amount of polling centers made available to the county election officials due to limitations in security features and concerns over potential violence and damage in the 2024 election. In the area served by one Phoenix area school district, the number of polling stations has dropped from 17 to one, housed in a secured District office replete with barbed-wire fencing, security gates, and badge-only access, “one step below Fort Knox.”
According to a study from the America First Policy Institute, an analysis of precinct-level data in six Arizona counties from the 2022 election in Arizona revealed “some precincts where there were more ballots being counted than there were registered voters listed as casting ballots and some precincts where the reverse occurred,” as printing errors and long-lines plagued polling centers throughout the state. The total number of discrepancies was well over 8,000 ballots. And as the AFPI notes, the race for Attorney General, in which Hamadeh was defeated, was decided by a razor-thin margin of 280 votes.
The 2022 issue and potential 2024 problems could be quite similar as Yavapai County’s Registrar of Voters Office explained to the Institute’s researchers:
“If a voter checks in on Election Day but walks out with their ballot (does not put it in the ballot box), they will be listed as voted because they signed the register but there will not be a ballot to tabulate.”
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
