GOP lawmaker won’t vote without Nov. 8 election redo
Newly elected Republican lawmaker Liz Harris has pledged to withhold voting on any legislation next year unless the state holds another election “immediately.”
She and other election conspiracy promoters want a redo of the Nov. 8 election, claiming Republicans should have performed much better than the results showed.
Democratic leaders say the power of hard-liners like Harris may not matter as much in the era of divided government about to begin in Arizona.
“If she thinks she’s holding the cards, she’s mistaken,” said Sen. Lupe Contreras, D-Avondale, who’s moving to the state House next year where he’ll be the new assistant minority leader. “We are now in a different form of politics.”
Republicans maintained their onevote majority in the state House and Senate after the Nov. 8 election, but having Democrat Katie Hobbs in the governor’s office changes the usual paradigm. Since Hobbs can veto any bill, legislation that reaches her desk with no Democratic support would probably be dead on arrival, Democratic leaders said.
In other words, Harris won’t have leverage over fellow Republicans to block bills that might pass solely on party lines because such bills would be doomed, anyway, they said.
Several high-profile bills passed the House this year with no votes from Democrats, including an anti-abortion law signed by Gov. Doug Ducey that bans abortions after 15 weeks, with an exception to save the mother’s life but no exceptions for rape or incest victims.
Republicans who “don’t like the election results” must move on from these “cheap political games,” said Rep. Andres Cano, D-Tucson, who just won a third term in office and will serve next year as House minority leader. “If this faction of the Republican caucus continues to have the most leverage at the decision-making table, then the Republican Party is not paying attention to the direction that Arizonans want us to go in.”
Democrats have been the minority party in the Arizona Legislature for decades, with rare exceptions like a Senate tie in 2000. The last time Republicans had to cope with a Democratic governor was from 2003 to 2009, when Janet Napolitano was in office. For Republican lawmakers — then, as now, without a veto-proof majority — it was a time of frustration and forced cooperation with their Democratic colleagues.
Cano said that the Democrats’ goal is to determine “bipartisan priorities” with Republicans in the next several weeks.
“I’m more optimistic about the conversations about our shared priorities than I am in our perceived differences,” he said.
Harris uncompromising
Candidates and their supporters who made baseless claims of fraud in the 2020 election began making new accusations of fraud before the Nov. 8 election took place. Widespread problems with printer settings in Maricopa County on Election Day gave conspiracy theorists plenty to talk about.
The state Attorney General’s Office is pressing county officials for answers, and two other counties – Cochise and Mohave – have briefly delayed certification of the election.
Maricopa County officials say nobody was denied their vote and the Secretary of State’s Office, overseen by Gov.-elect Hobbs, is still on target for state certification of the vote on Dec. 5.
Harris, a Chandler real estate agent who has published misinformation, promoted 2020 election conspiracy theories and led hundreds of people to contact Arizona voters in an unofficial canvassing operation, claimed in a social media announcement last week there were “clear signs of foul play” in the Nov. 8 election. Her threat to withhold votes on bills in the 2023 legislative session unless a new election was scheduled would be a protest of the “potential fraudulent election,” she wrote.
Harris will represent the new Legislative District 13, which includes much of Chandler and part of Gilbert, barring an unlikely change in an automatic recount that will be conducted in her race. She had 270 more votes than Republican Julie Willoughby after the final vote counting on Monday.
Harris declined to comment to The Arizona Republic Monday.
In a video on Rumble she posted Friday with former Montana lawmaker and right-wing activist James Knox, who just won a spot on the Queen Creek Unified School District governing board, Harris disparaged fellow GOP lawmakers for their alleged unwillingness to help take measures like eliminating voting by mail.