Speeding Rep. often ‘unfiltered’ with remarks, colleagues say
A freshman Republican legislator made inappropriate comments about marital status, working mothers and religion to several people at the state Capitol while they were working, lawmakers and lobbyists said.
Rep. Paul Mosley, R-Lake Havasu City — who recently has come under fire after reports of excessive speeding — has asked whether people are married, why they don’t have children and why working mothers aren’t, instead, home with their children.
The recollections of encounters
with Mosley come as the statehouse continues to grapple with a culture that some have deemed sexist and demeaning toward women.
Mosley repeatedly asked probing questions about religion, pushing people into conversations about his Mormon faith, colleagues from both political parties said.
And some lawmakers have said they are uncomfortable with his aggressive manner in pushing for legislation, some of which could personally benefit him.
Mosley was criticized last week for claiming legislative immunity after he was pulled over for driving more than 40 mph over the speed limit. He told the deputy who pulled him over that he sometimes drives as fast as 140 mph. After the incident became public, Mosley said he was joking.
A fellow Republican House member filed an ethics complaint about the speeding incident. The House Ethics Committee will next decide how to proceed with the complaint.
The spotlight on Mosley spurred his colleagues, as well as lobbyists, to come forward with stories about other aspects of his behavior over the past two years.
Mosley has not responded to The Arizona Republic’s repeated calls and emails seeking comment on the speeding incident as well as a response to the allegations of inappropriate remarks.
Those allegations began last week with a public Facebook post by a prominent Republican lobbyist.
Meghaen Dell’Artino, who owns the firm Public Policy Partners, wrote that Mosley made comments disparaging her status as a working mother.
Dell’Artino wrote about when she first lobbied Mosley after he was elected in 2016.
“He told me I shouldn’t be in his office because he was told I had 6 month twins at home and didn’t know how I was feeding them when at work,” Dell’Artino wrote.
Mosley then told Dell’Artino she must be working only because her husband didn’t make enough money, she wrote. (Her husband also works in Arizona politics.) Mosley also told her she must not be “pro-family” because she’s a working mother.
He later asked a male employee of Dell’Artino’s how he could work for a woman, Dell’Artino said.
“Honestly, we talk about sexual harassment, but I’ve never felt more harassed or condemned by anyone in my life,” Dell’Artino wrote.
She said she didn’t want to share the story publicly until now, but decided to come forward because she thinks Lake Havasu’s voters should know. She grew up in Lake Havasu and still has family there, she wrote.
One female Republican lawmaker recalled Mosley repeatedly seeking her vote for a bill that may have financially benefited him.
She said he came back multiple times, even after she firmly told him she wouldn’t vote for a bill he sponsored to create a $250 income-tax credit for each child. Mosley has seven children. (The bill failed, both on an initial vote and on reconsideration.)
The lawmaker said she has seen Mosley repeatedly pushing for votes like this, only with women. She said he kept saying she must not care about children or families if she was voting against the bill.
The lawmaker requested anonymity because she didn’t want to affect their working relationship.
The allegations of inappropriate behavior follow a tumultuous year of harassment inquiries at the Arizona House. Former Rep. Don Shooter, R-Yuma, was ousted from the chamber this year after an investigation found several allegations of harassment from women at the Capitol were credible.
House Speaker J.D. Mesnard, RChandler, said in a statement to The Republic last week that he was made aware of the interaction between Mosley and Dell’Artino shortly after it happened.
Mesnard said he was “expressly asked not to formally pursue the matter” by Dell’Artino. But Mesnard said he told Mosley that the comments were “wrong and offensive.” The incident also served as part of the motivation behind ethics training for lawmakers at the beginning of the year, Mesnard said.
Dell’Artino said Mesnard did everything she asked him to and was “supportive in every way.”
A House harassment policy, instituted late last year as the #MeToo movement, started reaching state legislatures, and it defines discrimination as “unequal and unlawful treatment” of people on the basis of gender, race, religion, age and other factors.
Discrimination includes unwelcome written, physical or verbal conduct that “either degrades or shows hostility or aversion towards a person.”
Asked whether the incident described by Dell’Artino violated the policy, House spokesman Matt Specht said an investigation would need to occur before determining whether the policy was violated.
House Republican leaders did not answer The Republic’s questions about specific allegations regarding Mosley’s behavior.
Mesnard, the chamber’s top official, wrote in a statement that he could not discuss concerns or complaints publicly that were made in confidence.
His statement makes clear that he has received complaints about Mosley and has acted on them, although his specific responses to the complaints were not disclosed.
Legislative leaders routinely hear “gripes about the work, actions, or attitudes of legislators from other lawmakers, lobbyists, staff, and the public,” Mesnard wrote in his statement Monday.
Much of the time, information is taken to House leaders in confidence, and people often ask leadership not to directly pursue the matter, Mesnard said. That limits leadership’s ability to address it.
“While I’ve not received a formal complaint about Representative Mosley, I have spoken to him regarding complaints about comments he has made,” Mesnard said.
Mesnard pointed to the ethics complaint filed against Mosley for the speeding incident, and said he would await the Ethics Committee’s review.
“However, if there are any criticisms about how leadership has handled a particular matter, I hope those concerns will be brought to our attention,” Mesnard said.
In an interview with The Arizona Republic, Dell’Artino said she has mostly stayed away from Mosley for the past two years. Instead, she had a male lobbyist at her firm go to Mosley’s office when they needed to talk to him about legislation.
Dell’Artino, who has worked in Arizona politics for more than 15 years, said the incident with Mosley was the worst she had experienced at the statehouse. She said she found the conversation extremely offensive and that it was inappropriate for a lawmaker to discuss breastfeeding with her.
“It was not really workplace conversation in my mind, and it made me uncomfortable,” she said. “I don’t know, I just never felt more judged or harassed for working, and (he was) frankly trying to make me feel guilty for leaving my kids at home.”
Another female lobbyist from the firm was in the meeting, Dell’Artino said. Dell’Artino was vocal about the incident and told some lawmakers and other lobbyists, along with family and friends who live in Lake Havasu.
Mosley called Dell’Artino this year after a family friend of hers posted about the incident on Facebook. She said he apologized, to some degree, and didn’t dispute that he made the comments.
“Even in his apology to me, he just kept saying, you know, ‘I’m sorry you were offended, I just really care about family,’” Dell’Artino said. “And I said, even that statement, in and of itself, makes it seem like I don’t care about my family or my kids because I choose to work.”
Dell’Artino said she has no ulterior motives. She said she hasn’t worked on campaigns of Mosley’s opponents, and has given money only to Rep. Regina Cobb, a Republican lawmaker from the House district, not anyone else running for that office.
She said watching her mother battle cancer and wanting to improve the world her girls will grow up in spurred her to speak out publicly.
“Staying silent because I was worried about repercussion from Mosley seemed silly,” Dell’Artino said. “I care more about making Arizona better for my children than I do about anything else, and people deserve to know the true person they are electing.”
Other lawmakers and lobbyists say Mosley frequently and adamantly discusses his religion at the Capitol, occasionally handing out copies of the Book of Mormon.
The comments have made others uncomfortable and, in at least one instance, troubled a lobbyist so deeply that the lobbyist gave up on lobbying Mosley altogether.
Cobb, R-Kingman, who is Catholic, told The Arizona Republic that she was uncomfortable with Mosley’s injection of religion into their conversations.
She said she has a tense relationship with her seatmate, which is partly tied to his comments to her related to religion. She said he will try to “convert you (to Mormonism), have judgments on you based on your beliefs if he didn’t feel it was part of what a religious person could be.
“Having a cocktail is something he totally disapproved of, and would tell you to your face.”
She declined to elaborate.
“It’s just a wise move for me to ... stay clean from it,” she said.
Cobb supports another Republican running against Mosley in the primary election and has held campaign-style