Monday, April 29, 2024

Arizona Republican Party sends a clear message to voters: We be crazy

liz harris arizona house

On Tuesday, the House Ethics Committee determined that Ms. Harris had violated legislative rules by inviting a witness to present false testimony. In addition to the bribery accusation, the witness also claimed the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had control over state agencies. "Each member could make up their own mind on whether or not Rep. Harris did, in fact, not only perpetrate this to begin with, but then contradict herself numerous times during the ethics hearing process," said Toma, one of the 46 lawmakers who voted to expel Harris.

GOP-controlled Arizona House votes to expel Republican member

Willoughby, the chief nursing officer at Exceptional Community Hospital in the city of Maricopa, ran with Harris as a team in last year's election. Jennifer Pawlik, D-Chandler, won the other House seat with more votes than either Harris or Willoughby. When a member of the Legislature vacates his or her office before their two-year term is up — whether by expulsion, resignation or death — Arizona law calls for a replacement by someone from the same party. "The voters of her district knew what they were electing," Kolodin said.

Arizona House votes to expel Rep. Liz Harris

liz harris arizona house

The move leaves the southeast Valley’s District 13 seat vacant and trims the Republican advantage in the House to until it is filled. Ballotpedia features 486,894 encyclopedic articles written and curated by our professional staff of editors, writers, and researchers. In one of the text messages, Breger told Harris she was “trying to think of something that won’t raise a red flag” when naming her presentation, a sign that Harris knew of the extreme allegations the presenter would bring up.

Harris expelled from Arizona House of Representatives (

Julie Willoughby to replace Liz Harris for Legislative District 13 Arizona House seat - KJZZ

Julie Willoughby to replace Liz Harris for Legislative District 13 Arizona House seat.

Posted: Fri, 05 May 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

On April 12, 2023, Harris was expelled from the Republican-controlled legislature for inviting a speaker who promulgated conspiracy theories before a joint hearing of the House and Senate elections committees. PHOENIX – The Arizona House voted to expel Republican Rep. Liz Harris on Wednesday for letting a witness make wide-ranging accusations of bribery during a February hearing about election reforms. Arizona Republican lawmakers have given wide leeway for people claiming to be election experts to share unsubstantiated or disproven claims in hearings at the Capitol. But GOP legislative leaders raced to distance themselves from Breger’s claims and pin blame on Harris.

Arizona House Republicans Expel One of Their Own

Harris represented one of the most competitive legislative districts in the state in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler. Both parties had been anticipating she would face a difficult reelection campaign next year. Critics described Ms. Breger’s more than 40-minute presentation as a publicity stunt and said that Ms. Harris knew ahead of time that it would be laden with wild and baseless conspiracy theories.

Arizona Daily Newsletter

Her removal came less than a week after Tennessee Republicans voted to expel two Black Democrats, a decision that made that state a new front in the battle for the future of American democracy. There are many people I look up to, but I would have to say that President Abraham Lincoln is at the top of the list. Up until recent events, President Lincoln led this country through its toughest times. He was born into poverty, he self-educated himself, and despite all odds against him he eventually became one of the most memorable Presidents of the United States. His famous speech, the Gettysburg Address, became such a historic event that often it is part of today's 5th grade curriculum to be memorized! The themes of that speech hold true value to me - equal rights, liberty, nationalism, republicanism and democracy.

Lawmakers consider changing replacement process - Arizona Capitol Times

Lawmakers consider changing replacement process.

Posted: Thu, 06 Jul 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Gilbert insurance agent Jacqueline Breger also claimed during the February hearing that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints “controls” the government and played a key role in money laundering schemes. A bipartisan, two-thirds majority of the House voted Wednesday to kick out Harris, an election-denying freshman lawmaker from Chandler, a suburb of Phoenix. PHOENIX - The Arizona House has voted to expel Republican state lawmaker Liz Harris.

When Hobbs, a Democrat, won the governorship in November, Harris said she would not vote for anything unless there was a revote of the 2022 election. The expulsion in Arizona follows the expulsions — for different reasons — of two Black lawmakers in Tennessee. Democrats Justin J. Pearson and Justin Jones were kicked out by a Republican supermajority after the pair — alongside Rep. Gloria Johnson, who is white — led a protest from the House floor calling for reforms to gun laws. It's the second time in six years the House has voted to kick out one of its own. The notable move to expel Harris, who's pushed baseless claims about the 2020 and 2022 elections, comes as members of the state's Republican Party have in recent years led Arizona to become a hive of election denialism. Barton asked the House Ethics Committee to rebuke the complaint from Republicans and accused them of attempting to equate the actions from De Los Santos and Ortiz to people who were present at the January 6, 2021 U.S.

Lawmakers had accused Ms. Harris of making a mockery of Arizona’s Legislature by inviting Jacqueline Breger, a Scottsdale, Ariz., insurance agent and conspiracy theorist, to testify during a February hearing about election oversight. But a video of her testimony in front of election committees exploded on the internet in the days following the hearing. The woman, Gilbert, Ariz., insurance agent Jacqueline Breger, also claimed during the February hearing that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints "controls" the government and played a key role in money laundering schemes. The committee earlier determined this legislative session that former Democratic Rep. Leezah Sun engaged in disorderly behavior after she threatened a lobbyist with the city of Tolleson, leading to her resignation. Republicans argued in their complaint that the shouting and use of insulting language towards Republicans is enough to be considered disorderly behavior.

The ethics report also found that Harris lied to the panel when she claimed she had no idea Breger would make such wild accusations. That was problematic enough to merit the ethics investigation and expulsion, according to House Speaker Ben Toma, a Republican and one of the lawmakers falsely accused of criminal activity. A bipartisan, two-thirds majority of the GOP-led House voted Wednesday to kick out Liz Harris, a freshman lawmaker from Chandler, a suburb of Phoenix. This Chandler far-right Republican first surfaced in public view during the bad old days of the Arizona Senate’s now-infamous Cyber Ninja Audit, when she ran an absurd door knocking “canvass” and claimed to have found massive fraud in the 2020 election. A prominent supporter of discredited election conspiracies, she was also found by the House Ethics Committee to have engaged in "disorderly behavior" in violation of the chamber’s rules. All Democrats and most Republicans voted to expel Harris, getting the necessary two-thirds of the House to pass the resolution.

The fact that they were presented before Republican lawmakers in their official capacity at the state Capitol — Democrats on the committees boycotted the hearing — gave the accusations enough credibility to spread. Legislative District 13 precinct committee members nominated Liz Harris, Julie Willoughby and Steve Steele in two rounds of voting at their meeting April 17. But she likely would have little chance of winning the approval of the supervisors and Sellers, a harsh critic of the state Senate's partisan audit of the 2020 election who called the effort in 2021 an "adventure in never-never land." The secretary of state will "immediately" notify the chair of the appropriate party, which in this case would be GOP Party Chair Jeff DeWit.

PHOENIX - Expelled Republican lawmaker Liz Harris will not be sent back to the Arizona House of Representatives, Maricopa County officials announced on May 5. Rep. Travis Grantham, a Gilbert Republican serving on the Ethics Committee, said the panel’s conclusions made him “sick to my stomach,” but he stood by the factual evidence that showed Harris lied to the panel. On April 11, the House Ethics Committee issued a report saying Harris broke a rule during an election presentation. The final vote on Wednesday was 46 to 13, with 18 Republicans joining the 28 Democrats in approving the expulsion. Harris, elected for the first time in 2022, made a controversial name for herself early by announcing she would not cast her vote on any bill unless the 2022 election was redone. She issued the statement on Instagram and her campaign website saying in part "it has become obvious that we need to hold a new election immediately."

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