Tag: arizona

Why Is a Democratic Governor Undermining a Conservative Conservation Success Story?

Controversy is again raging over the fate of the Salt River wild horses, protected under state law as a natural treasure, after the Arizona Department of Agriculture awarded a new management contract requiring the removal of more than half the herd — despite a state law that authorizes removals only for humane reasons related to the health and safety of individual horses.

It didn’t have to be this way. In 2016, Arizona Republicans did something Washington rarely manages to do. They solved a problem. 

When the U.S. Forest Service moved to round up and remove every one of the Salt River wild horses from the Tonto National Forest, Arizonans responded with overwhelming opposition that stunned federal officials. More than 300,000 petition signatures flooded in. Members of Congress from both parties objected, including Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake. Tonto National Forest spokeswoman Carrie Templin told reporters she had never seen anything like it: “We expected public outcry. I don’t think anybody comprehended the magnitude.”

The Republican-led Arizona Legislature acted. In 2016, lawmakers passed the Salt River Wild Horse Act by a 53-3 vote. It was signed into law by then-Gov. Doug Ducey, who counted it among his top accomplishments of the year. The law’s intent was unambiguous: to protect the herd from harassment, killing, and slaughter and limit removals to humane reasons only related to the safety or health of individual horses or public safety. Nothing in the bill authorized mass removals for population reduction. Then-State Senator Katie Hobbs was among those who voted for it.

What followed was a model of conservative governance. The Arizona Department of Agriculture, led by then director Mark Killian — a prominent Republican and former state senator,  partnered with the nonprofit Salt River Wild Horse Management Group. This unique public-private partnership evolved into a unique and highly successful humane management program to protect the cherished herd. 

Over the last seven years, the group implemented a fertility control program that has reduced annual births from more than 100 foals to just one or two. Over seven years, the herd declined from 450 horses to 274 — a 40% reduction — without removing a single horse except those injured or ailing animals in need of special care. 

This program is privately funded at no cost to taxpayers, volunteer-powered, and state-overseen. A shining example of conservative principles: Limited government,  local control, fiscal responsibility, and a private initiative solving a public problem.

And it’s working.  

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Deranged Leftist AZ State Senator Attacks and Lectures Female Volleyball Player, Accuses Her of Being Weak for Refusing to Play Against Men – “How Competitive do You Think You Really Are?”

An Arizona State Senator berated a female volleyball player for wanting female-only sports on Wednesday during a Senate Education Committee Hearing, where they considered HCR 2003, the Protect Girls in Sports in Arizona Act. 

The Senator mocked and attacked the athlete’s “sports mentality,” suggesting she’s just not competitive enough to play against men.

Former NCAA athlete Kaylie Ray gave a public comment on the bill, which would simply designate each sport based on the sex of participating athletes and prohibit a school or athletic association from authorizing an individual to use a provided restroom, locker room, or other private space integral to athletic engagement that is not designated for the individual’s sex.

The bill would further require schools and Arizona athletic associations to designate competitive sports in three categories: men’s, women’s, and coed.

Ray, a former Utah State Volleyball captain, who “led a team forfeit against San Jose State in 2024, in protest of a trans athlete on San Jose State University (SJSU),” according to Fox, spoke in the Senate on her experience being forced to compete against a male athlete as a Division 1 college volleyball player. “Our basic right to a fair and safe competition was violated because the people who were meant to protect us decided that validating this individual’s identity was more important,” she said, urging lawmakers to ensure that women have equal opportunities, safety, and fairness in sports and private spaces.

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‘Equity for All Patients’: Arizona Senate Moves to End Vaccine Incentives for Doctors

The Arizona Senate this week approved legislation that would bar insurance companies — including Medicaid — from reimbursing physicians at different rates based on whether their patients “refuse one or more vaccines,” according to the Arizona Mirror.

Lawmakers passed the bill Tuesday by a 16-13 party-line vote. The measure now moves to the Arizona House of Representatives. If approved there, it would head to Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs for consideration.

Bill sponsor Sen. Janae Shamp, a Republican nurse, said the proposal is a response to parents who say they struggle to find pediatric care for their children if they don’t follow the full childhood vaccination schedule from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“This specifically comes from a lot of parents asking for help for their children to be able to go to a pediatrician’s office when they don’t meet the entire vaccine schedule minimums to go to a practice,” Shamp told colleagues on the Senate floor. “This is about equity for all patients.”

Shamp previously said she lost her nursing job after refusing the COVID-19 vaccine.

‘Bill protects families’ rights to make informed decisions’

Ursula Conway, president emeritus of Children’s Health Defense’s (CHD) Arizona Chapter, said the legislation reflects broader debates about medical choice and physician incentives.

Shamp’s bill reflects “Arizona’s commitment to each individual’s right to make their own healthcare decisions,” Conway said.

She said some physicians receive financial bonuses tied to vaccination rates within their practices. She argued that those incentives can influence how doctors treat families who decline shots.

“Consequently, some practitioners choose to restrict their practice to those families who agree to the recommended vaccine schedule, thus securing their bonus income,” she said.

Families who don’t follow the schedule face difficulty finding care, according to Conway.

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Maricopa’s Dirty Secrets Unraveling: Finchem Says Nothing Changed from 2020 Cheat to 2024 

Arizona State Senator Mark Finchem said federal investigators are examining election issues in Maricopa County that may stretch from the 2020 election cycle through 2024, suggesting the inquiry could examine multiple election years and related processes.

Finchem discussed the ongoing investigation during a conversation with Amanda Head and journalist John Solomon, where the topic of a federal grand jury inquiry into Maricopa County election practices was raised.

Head asked Finchem what he expects the investigation to uncover as federal authorities continue reviewing election data and records.

“What do you anticipate is going to come out? What do you want to come out from this? What’s the most damning thing?” Head asked.

Finchem responded that the investigation remains ongoing and that the legal process requires patience as investigators gather information.

“Well, every good investigation takes time, and right now, what we’re seeing is a grand jury indictment that is sealed, but also a search warrant that is part of the grand jury action,” Finchem said.

He said the investigation appears to cover a time frame that includes multiple election cycles.

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Arizona Senate President Confirms “the FBI Has the Records” After FBI Seizes Maricopa County Election Records in Criminal Probe

The FBI has reportedly expanded its investigation into election fraud in Maricopa County, Arizona, obtaining election records through a subpoena in the state’s largest county. 

This comes after DHS Secretary Kristi Noem traveled to Arizona last month, just weeks after the FBI executed a search warrant in Fulton County, investigating fraud in the 2020 election.

Arizona State Senator Jake Hoffman at the time had teased a major breakthrough in Arizona’s elections, saying he’d been in contact with the Department of Homeland Security for the “last 72hrs,” adding, “Stay tuned America.”

Now, the FBI has quietly seized Maricopa County election data and voting records via a grand jury subpoena, according to Just the News.

The probe reportedly involves allegations from the 2024 election that Runbeck Election Services, the private company that provides ballot printing and mail-in ballot services in 31 states and 54% of the nation’s voters, allegedly commingled voted ballots with blank ballots in multiple states. US Rep. Abe Hamadeh previously alerted the Department of Justice to these findings and demanded an investigation.

This also comes after the 2020 and 2022 elections, during which hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots were counted without chain-of-custody documentation and with mismatched signatures.

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FBI secretly seizes election records from Arizona’s largest county as voting probe expands

The FBI is expanding its criminal probe into suspected election irregularities, secretly obtaining a large tranche of voting records from Arizona’s largest county with a recent grand jury subpoena, multiple people familiar with the probe told Just the News.

The sources, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of the grand jury probe, said FBI agents are receiving gigabytes of electronic election data from Maricopa County, about a month after the bureau first disclosed an investigation into election irregularities by raiding a warehouse near Atlanta and seizing ballots from the 2020 election conducted in Fulton County, Georgia’s largest metropolis.

Election irregularities in Arizona and elsewhere

The subpoena comes five years after the GOP-led Arizona state Senate conducted a lengthy investigation into the 2020 election and concluded there were significant irregularities.

More recently, the bureau was alerted to a report filed by Republican and Democrat election observers who believed they observed irregularities in November 2024 at a warehouse in Arizona where blank and filled-out absentee ballots were observed in the same location, according to the sources.

Congress has never released the report from the staffers who were sent to observe the 2024 election in Maricopa County, which includes Arizona’s largest city of Phoenix.

But House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil recently hinted at the significance of the report in an interview with the Just the News, No Noise television show.

“We’re digging back through those reports that were submitted by our election observers that were deployed across the country,” Steil said. “This is where working hand in glove with other federal government agencies is so important.

“We have reports documenting instances that occurred in Arizona and across the country, and we are reviewing those in real time and working hand in glove with federal partners to make sure that the law was followed in every jurisdiction in the country,” he added.

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Arizona Senators Scale Back Bills To Punish Marijuana Users Over Excess Smoke Or Odor Complaints

Arizona senators have dialed back a pair of measures that would penalize people who create “excessive” amounts of marijuana smoke or odor, with members advancing revised versions of the legislation following criticism that, as introduced, they would have added criminalization provisions back into the state’s cannabis use laws.

The latest bill and companion resolution, sponsored by Sen. J.D. Mesnard (R), were amended by the Senate Committee of the Whole on Wednesday, with a floor vote on third reading now imminent. While the bill would on its own enact a statutory policy change, the separate resolution would put the issue before voters to decide.

As the original proposals moved through the legislative process, advocates and certain lawmakers voiced concerns about undermining the will of voters who passed legalization at the ballot, as well as the ambiguity around enforceability and what constitutes “excessive” marijuana smoke.

The legislation was previously amended in committee last month in an attempt to provide a clearer definition of “excessive” smoke and remove a reference to making the offense a “crime.”

The latest revised definition of excessive cannabis smoke or odor describes it as “airborne emissions resulting from the burning, heating or vaporizing of marijuana or marijuana products,” according to a summary of the adopted floor amendment.

Such emissions must also be “detectable by a reasonable person of ordinary sensibilities on other private property” and “occur for more than 30 consecutive minutes on a single occasion or on three or more separate days within a 30-day period.”

Members further revised the legislation in response to criticism that the committee-passed versions continued to lack clarity and would pose the threat of criminalization by making the offense a class 3 misdemeanor, punishable by up to 30 days in jail, a maximum $500 fine and up to one year of probation.

That, too, was ultimately changed in the bill (SB 1725) and resolution (SCR 1048) that are teed up to advance through the full Senate.

Specifically, the legislation stipulates that “excessive marijuana smoke or odor is a public nuisance if the person’s conduct is intentional or the person knowingly and substantially interferes with the comfortable enjoyment of life or property,” a summary of the amendment says.

The proposals also now specify that “lawful possession or use of marijuana does not preclude a finding of nuisance, except that a court may consider possession of a valid registry identification card as a mitigating factor,” and they provide that “a person is not liable for committing a private nuisance unless the person has received notice of the interference and fails to abate it within five days.”

Under the revised legislation, the affected party would first have to file a compliant with local officials before they pursue action with the state, but only if the municipality has already adopted an ordinance regulating excessive cannabis smoke or odor.

A person would be deemed in violation of the law if a local court has issued a written order directing them to “abate excessive marijuana smoke or odor that constitutes a nuance” and that person “knowingly violates or refuses to comply with the order.”

Each day of non-compliance after failing to adhere to the order would be consider a separate offense, and failure to comply would be a petty offense, rather than a criminal violation.

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Arizona Senators Take Up Bills To Criminalize ‘Excessive’ Marijuana Smoke, Even On Private Property

Arizona lawmakers are considering at a pair of measures that would make the act of creating “excessive” amounts of marijuana smoke a nuisance crime punishable by jail time, even if the person is using cannabis in compliance with state law in their own homes.

Sen. J.D. Mesnard (R) is sponsoring the two proposals—one that would amend state statute legislatively that would put the issue before voters at the ballot. Members of the Senate Judiciary and Elections Committee are set to consider the proposals this week.

The lawmaker said he decided to push the issue due to the smell of marijuana in his own neighborhood.

Both versions of Mesnard’s legislation stipulate that “it is presumed that a person who creates excessive marijuana smoke and odor causes a condition that endangers the safety or health of others.”

The reason behind having both a proposed bill and resolution is related to the potential legal challenges of lawmakers changing the voter-approved marijuana legalization law.

The legislation would establish “a presumption that the creation of excessive marijuana smoke and odor is injurious to health, indecent, offensive to the senses and an obstruction to the free use of property that interferes with the comfortable enjoyment of life or property,” a summary of the proposal says.

If enacted, the loosely defined offense of creating “excessive” marijuana smoke under the bill and resolution would be considered a class 3 misdemeanor, punishable by up to 30 days in jail, a maximum $500 fine and up to one year of probation.

“I’m hearing from some people that, depending on their neighbor situation, they may not be able to have their kids go outside because the marijuana smoke is so potent,” Mesnard, the sponsor, said. “It can even creep into your own house or, in my case, into my garage.”

“But experiencing now what’s happened, even in my own neighborhood, is a pretty frustrating situation,” he told The Arizona Daily Star. “You should be responsible neighbors if you’re going to smoke pot… It can be a real issue for families, especially with kids.”

Asked about the seeming double standard given that no such nuisance offenses exist for smoking cigarettes or cigars on a private property, the senator said, “I’ll concede I hadn’t thought about it.”

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Maricopa County Recorder Finds 137 Illegal Voters, Refers 60 Non-Citizens to be Prosecuted for Voting as Democratic Arizona Secretary of State Whines Over Kristi Noem’s Visit to Arizona and Claims Illegals Can’t Vote

While Democrats claim that illegal aliens can’t vote in elections because it’s already illegal and they need to sign an affidavit attesting they’re eligible to vote, Maricopa County recently identified over 100 noncitizens who were registered to vote.

While investigating a voter registration glitch that occurred in the state’s Motor Vehicle Division voter registration system, which, for nearly 20 years, allowed individuals who received a driver’s license before 1996 to vote without citizenship verification, the County Recorder’s office said it identified 137 non-citizens who were registered to vote.

The Gateway Pundit previously reported on this issue, which surfaced in September 2024, just months before the 2024 election. The massive “error” allowed anybody who received a driver’s license before 1996 to vote without citizenship verification, and left nearly 100,000 voters with no citizenship verification. It was later revealed that the error may have affected more than 200,000 voters.

Arizona executive branch officials, who were fraudulently elected after 60% of voting machines failed Republican voters in 2022, were further caught discussing the error and admitting that the 2020 and 2022 elections were “challengable” as a result.

Nearly half of them, 60, “have voted in prior elections,” according to the Recorder’s office.

Those 60 individuals have been referred for prosecution to the Maricopa County Attorney’s office and the Arizona Attorney General.

This comes after Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited Arizona on Friday to deliver remarks in support of the SAVE America Act. Some speculate that the federal government may return to Arizona to investigate the fraud in the state’s elections.

After Noem’s speech in Arizona, where she rebuked the state’s election procedures, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes attempted to puff out his chest and own Noem with a contemptuous video statement, claiming that Arizona already requires proof of citizenship to vote. “We’ve been doing that for 20 years, maybe not in the Dakotas, where you came from, but we do it here,” he said.

However, this is not true. To vote in Arizona, one simply must check a box saying they are a US citizen. Ironically, the Secretary released the following video on the same day that Maricopa County found the illegal voters!

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Neighbor Says One Dead and Three Detained After SWAT Team Raids Home as Part of Nancy Guthrie Investigation

A dramatic Friday night SWAT raid tied to the kidnapping of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie ended with one person shooting himself in the head as law enforcement closed in, a neighbor claimed to local media.

According to a Shadow Hills resident who spoke directly to KVOA News 4 Tucson, she witnessed three people being detained during the operation, and says another individual turned a gun on himself.

The statement had not been confirmed or denied by any law enforcement agency as of early Saturday morning.

KVOA reports:

A Shadow Hills resident tells News 4 Tucson that she witnessed three people being detained during a SWAT operation on Friday night. According to an unconfirmed report by a neighbor, another person shot himself in the head.

This comes after a SWAT situation occurred in the Shadow Hills neighborhood on Feb. 13. A man and a woman were detained at the house, and a third person was detained in a traffic stop, according to sources close to the investigation.

A neighbor also spoke to Kevin Posobiec of Human Events, making the same claim.

It is unclear if he spoke to the same neighbor or an additional one.

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