Expelled GOP lawmaker fails to regain Arizona House seat

Table Of Content

• Video: Phoenix kindergarten teacher wins Bruce and Gaydos’ teacher tribute
• Arizona House Republicans Expel One of Their Own
• Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court, has died at age 93
• Housing bill near, lawmaker says
• Harris was booted for lying about a hearing
• Grand jury indicts two Cochise County supervisors on felony charges tied to election canvass delays

In addition, they said Harris lied when she claimed she had no idea Breger would say what she did. As a result, the ethics panel found that Harris violated House rule number one, which prohibits disorderly behavior that could damage the House’s institutional integrity. “To go down a trail of conspiracy theories that were thrown out of court, it’s very dangerous,” Stahl Hamilton said. PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) — The Arizona House voted Wednesday to expel Rep. Liz Harris (R-District 13) for violating ethics rules. The House needed a two-thirds vote to expel Harris and they got more than that as 18 of 31 Republicans joined the 28 Democrats on the floor in voting for expulsion.

Video: Phoenix kindergarten teacher wins Bruce and Gaydos’ teacher tribute

The county’s Board of Supervisors instead selected Republican Julie Willoughby to replace her, despite Republican precinct committee members in her legislative district giving Harris the most votes. At the Feb. 23 hearing, Breger claimed that “bribes and infiltration have been used to affect the outcome” of the 2020 and 2022 elections, and she pointed the finger at state officials such as Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, according to the ethics committee report. The House ethics panel launched an investigation into Harris, prompted by a complaint from a Democratic legislator, after she invited insurance agent Jacqueline Breger to promote a series of unfounded allegations at a televised legislative hearing on elections.

Arizona House Republicans Expel One of Their Own

Its purpose is to inform voters about the legislator’s political positions. Because scorecards have varying purposes and methodologies, each report should be considered on its own merits. For example, an advocacy group’s scorecard may assess a legislator’s voting record on one issue while a state newspaper’s scorecard may evaluate the voting record in its entirety. Breger also claimed that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints “control[s]” government agencies and was “integral to the laundering activities,” the report said.

Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court, has died at age 93

Hoffman was one of the state’s 11 fake electors, or as he is called in the grand jury indictment handed up on Wednesday, a co-conspirator in the plot to overturn Arizona’s — and thus America’s — vote in the 2020 presidential election. This Queen Creek Republican burst into public view in 2020, when he ran an internet troll farm, paying teens to post conservative talking points and baseless conspiracy theories on social media — all aimed at getting then-President Donald Trump reelected. Still, she was one of the Republican Party’s fiercest election deniers, and that was enough to get her elected to the Legislature in 2022, wherein she promptly announced she wouldn’t be voting on any bills until and unless there was a redo of the election.

Julie Willoughby named as replacement for Liz Harris - ABC15 Arizona in Phoenix

Julie Willoughby named as replacement for Liz Harris.

Posted: Wed, 12 Apr 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Housing bill near, lawmaker says

Her ouster followed a House Ethics Committee investigation that found she committed "disorderly behavior." In the governor’s race last year, Republican Kari Lake repeatedly promoted false claims of election fraud and later failed in a legal battle challenging her loss to Hobbs. Two years earlier, President Donald Trump and his allies pushed election fraud claims in the state, prompting a Republican-led review of ballots in Maricopa County. She’s the first lawmaker to be expelled in Arizona since Rep. Don Shooter was kicked out for sexual misconduct amid the 2018 #MeToo movement. Rep. David Stringer quit the following year after old sex crimes charges came to light that likely would have led to his expulsion. The vote against Harris comes 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.

After the chair receives that notice, the chair or a designee must inform the precinct committee members in the departing lawmaker's district of the vacancy. Harris was elected by voters in Legislative District 13, which includes much of Chandler and part of Gilbert. “The defamatory allegations that Representative Harris invited her guest speaker to make are patently absurd, but there are many people who believe them. They believe the lies, and they continue to threaten retribution because we dispute them," Cano said. "They believe those lies because a State Representative, Liz Harris, platformed and legitimized them in a televised legislative hearing." Before she was elected to the Legislature, Harris led a door-to-door canvassing effort searching for proof of fraud following the 2020 presidential election. Department of Justice’s civil rights division, which warned about potential voter intimidation.

GOP-controlled Arizona House votes to expel Republican member - NBC News

GOP-controlled Arizona House votes to expel Republican member.

Posted: Wed, 12 Apr 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

It needed a minimum of 40 votes, two-thirds of the GOP-controlled House, to pass. Willoughby, an emergency room trauma nurse, teamed up with Harris in campaign ads and events during last year’s election. They had hoped to win both district seats, but Harris and Democratic Rep. Jennifer Pawlik emerged as the top two vote-getters. Harris (Republican Party) ran for election to the Arizona House of Representatives to represent District 13.

Harris was booted for lying about a hearing

De Los Santos and Ortiz also interrupted a press conference that Rep. Matt Gress, R-Phoenix, held with reporters after the House adjourned on April 10. Barton didn’t dispute his clients disrupted the press conference to speak in opposition to the “delay tactics” of the abortion ban repeal from Republicans but did so while the House was no longer in session. Reach Roberts at  Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, at @LaurieRoberts or on Threads at @laurierobertsaz.

"They knew she was going to go down and do some controversial and inflammatory things, and it's not my place to second-guess the wisdom of the people who put her in office." State Rep. Alex Kolodin, who voted against Harris' expulsion, told NBC News that while Breger's presentation was "improper," he wanted to respect the voters. The Tennessee Legislature last week expelled two Black Democrats, Justin Jones and Justin J. Pearson, for protesting gun violence. The ethics panel stopped short of recommending a specific punishment for Ms. Harris by the House, in which fellow election deniers have wielded significant power and orchestrated a partisan review of the 2020 election results in Arizona. Election deniers have zeroed in on Arizona’s most populous county, Maricopa, where Election Day glitches last fall disrupted some ballot counting.

An independent report released on Monday found that heavy paper and longer ballots contributed to those problems. Representative Liz Harris, an election denier who has expressed support for QAnon and has aligned herself with Mike Lindell, the MyPillow founder who has pushed election conspiracy theories, was overwhelmingly removed from office by her colleagues. The expulsion resolution said that Harris “undermined the public’s confidence in this institution and violated the order and decorum necessary to complete the people’s work in the state of Arizona”.

Arizona’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives took the rare step on Wednesday of expelling a G.O.P. lawmaker who earlier this year had arranged testimony from a conspiracy theorist falsely accusing top state officials of bribery and other misconduct. The joint elections hearing came after Harris voted against a Republican-led budget plan, and Republican leaders allowed the hearing as a way to get Harris to change her vote on the budget. "Harris engaged in disorderly behavior in violation of House Rule 1, thereby eroding the public trust in the legislative process," the resolution calling for her expulsion read. The committee also determined in 2023 that Rep. Stephanie Stahl Hamilton, D-Tucson, violated the same House rule for hiding Bibles. Former Republican Rep. Liz Harris was found to have violated that rule after she allowed conspiracy testimony to be delivered from a guest speaker during a legislative committee meeting. In full, the ethics panel concluded Harris’ actions violated House Rules and damaged the body’s institutional integrity.

The swing state has been a hotbed of election denialism and unsuccessful Republican lawsuits contesting results, including a legal action by Kari Lake, who has refused to accept her November defeat in the governor’s race. Representative Liz Harris was ousted from her seat by the G.O.P.-controlled House for promoting conspiracy theories during a legislative hearing. Republican and Democratic representatives joined together to expel Harris with a vote. The last expulsion from the Arizona legislature was in 2018, though before that, the most recent was in 1991. A Republican, she was a member of the Arizona House of Representatives from January 2023 to April 2023. Harris was elected in November 2022 from the 13th legislative district, which includes much of Chandler, Arizona.

The precinct committee members will then vote, within five business days, to nominate three qualified candidates to replace the lawmaker. The board of supervisors from the county where the departing lawmaker lives will select the new lawmaker from that group. Specifically, Harris brought a guest to a public hearing who made unvetted accusations that officeholders, Mesa City Council members and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were part of a drug cartel's "bribery" scheme. She also lied to the Ethics Committee about whether she knew her guest would make those accusations, the investigation found. House members expelled Harris on a bipartisan vote of (with one Democrat home sick and not voting).

The lawmaker’s ouster came a day after the House Ethics Committee determined Harris had engaged in “disorderly behavior” in violation of the chamber’s rules. The highlight was a Scottsdale insurance agent who slimed dozens of public officials and private citizens, making preposterous, evidence-free accusations that they all accepted bribes from the Sinaloa drug cartel. Breger in February spoke at a public hearing in front of lawmakers when she, without evidence, accused numerous Republican and Democratic public officials of laundering money for the Sinaloa Drug Cartel through the use of fraudulent mortgage documents. She also accused the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints of being "integral to the laundering activities." During her Feb. 23 presentation at a hearing organized by Harris, Jaqueline Breger accused a swath of politicians from both parties, judges and public officials of taking bribes from a Mexican drug cartel.

They also accused De Los Santos of violating rules of decorum and impermissible debate since his shouting of “Shame! The House Ethics Committee unanimously concluded that Harris not only knew what that insurance agent was likely to say during that February hearing but that she actually took steps to hide the details from House leadership. Party officials, during their state convention, elected none other than indicted Sen. Jake Hoffman and expelled Rep. Liz Harris to represent Arizona on the Republican National Committee.

The Republican-controlled Arizona House of Representatives voted to expel one of their own Wednesday morning, a day after a report found now-former Rep. Liz Harris committed "disorderly behavior" in inviting a speaker who spread a baseless election conspiracy theory. Harris organized a daylong hearing of the House and Senate elections committees in February. At the end, a Scottsdale insurance agent, Jacqueline Breger, gave a 40-minute presentation alleging without reliable evidence that two women working on behalf of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel used fraudulent mortgage documents to launder money to a range of officials. The committee’s report said Harris knew the person she invited to a legislative hearing in February would accuse her colleagues of criminal activity, that she took steps to hide it from House leaders ahead of time and then misled the committee investigating her actions. Rep. Liz Harris, a prominent supporter of discredited election conspiracies, was kicked out of the Legislature in a bipartisan vote after the presentation by an Arizona insurance agent.