Lawmaker: Give GOP nominee electoral votes before election
A Republican lawmaker in Arizona wants the state’s electoral votes in 2024 to go to the GOP nominee for president — before voters know for certain who will be on the ballot in November’s election.
Democrats, who are in the minority in the Arizona Legislature, appeared poised to vote against the idea. But it also got strong pushback Wednesday from other Republicans.
The legislation, sponsored by Republican state Rep. Rachel Jones of Tucson, also “urges” Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs to sign an “election reform bill” that would ban early voting and require the hand-counting of ballots.
House Concurrent Resolution 2055 would have no effect if approved by the Legislature, other than to make the declaration and request to Hobbs. But Rep. Jacqueline Parker, R-Mesa, the GOP chair of the nine-member House Committee on Municipal Oversight and Elections decided to table the bill for “later” after it was clear it would not pass.
“Wouldn’t we be guilty of exactly what we accused the other side of doing? Stealing an election,” Rep. Alex Kolodin, R-Scottsdale, said during the hearing while criticizing the bill.
Jones’ bill declares the state Legislature has “full and complete plenary authority over the manner of presidential elections in the state” and maintains “recent past presidential electors have been selected by voters.” The last time a state Legislature appointed presidential electors was in the 19th century.
The declaration goes on to say the Legislature should resolve to change the presidential election “by appointing Arizona’s eleven presidential electors to the Republican primary winner to offset the removal of a Republican candidate from the primary ballot of Colorado and Maine.”
Her wish reflects the mindset of some Republican lawmakers who are still focused on alleged conspiracy theories about the results of the 2020 presidential election. Arizona voters rejected former President Donald Trump by over 10,000 votes in 2020, but some of the state’s Republican leaders haven’t been able to accept the fact.
Besides a state Senate audit of the election that was mocked nationally by critics, lawmakers tried unsuccessfully to enact several laws in the last few years that assert the Legislature’s authority over voters in appointing presidential electors.
Arizona Sens. Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern, plus former state Republican Party chair Kelli Ward and her husband, are under investigation for declaring falsely they were electors for Trump in 2020 despite the election results.
The two lawmakers and other Arizona Republicans have held for years that the Legislature, not voters, hold “plenary” — or absolute — power over elections. They believe that allows the body to override judicial constraints in elections and appoint presidential electors. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the idea of the “independent legislature” last year, ruling that state courts could apply “state constitutional restraints” in elections.
Kern introduced his own official declaration this year “that the Legislature, and no other official, shall appoint presidential electors.” His Senate Concurrent Resolution 1014 has so far failed to get a hearing.
Josh Barnett, a 2022 Republican candidate for Congress who campaigned on election conspiracy theories, spoke in favor of the resolution. He said it was about “protecting” voters like him.
“So, you’re arguing that we should go ahead and just appoint electors now and ignore the results of the election. Is that what I’m understanding?” Rep. Justin Heap, R-Mesa, asked Barnett.
“Ignore the results of another illegally run election,” Barnett answered.
After some more back-and-forth, Heap asked: “Then why do we even have an election at all?”
None of the four Democrats on the panel were likely to vote for Jones’ bill, meaning the loss of one Republican vote would have killed it. Parker didn’t say when the legislation, a strike-all amendment to another bill, would be heard again.
In explaining her bill, Jones, who was elected in 2022, told the panel the 2020 and 2022 were “illegally administered” and “people on both sides of the aisle do not trust our elections.”
She didn’t respond to requests from The Arizona Republic about her bill.