Running for Congress in CD2, Kirsten Engel Seeks a Thriving Economy and Infrastructure Development

Arizona State Senator Kirsten Engel (D-LD10) has an impressive resume that checks all boxes as a Democratic Congressional Candidate looking to succeed the retiring Ann Kirkpatrick in 2022. Senator Engel has been: A staff attorney for the Environmental Protection Agency. A staff attorney for the Sierra Club. The acting chief of the Massachusetts Environmental Protection Division. Visiting Associate Law Professor at Vanderbilt, University of California, and Harvard. Professor of Law/Environmental Law at the University of Arizona (a position she still holds.) Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Arizona from 2012 to 2015 A member of the Arizona State [...]

By David Gordon|2021-04-20T16:56:53-07:00April 20th, 2021|Arizona Democratic Party, Criminal Justice, Economics, Elections, Uncategorized|

America Needs National Election Reform to Protect Voting Rights

The most consequential legislation that the national Democratic leadership must pass this year is the two voting rights and election policy bills: HR.1/S.1 and HR.4. These two measures will stop state legislation in Arizona and 41 other states from blocking access to the ballot box and restrict how elections are run. Georgia's Republican legislative and executive leadership has already enacted a menu of election-limiting outrages designed to limit citizens' voting rights. They affect minority voters in the Atlanta area and communities of color throughout Georgia. I will remind you, dear readers, that the governor of Georgia was the Secretary of [...]

By Paul Waugaman|2021-04-09T14:02:14-07:00April 8th, 2021|Arizona, Elections|

Supreme Court Tosses Trump’s Sanctuary City and Election Challenges

Tossing out the last of the election challenges and sanctuary city claims, the US Supreme Court proved that Chief Justice John Roberts’ statement “that there are no Trump Justices, no Obama justices” to be true. Last week, Biden’s Justice Department and New York and San Francisco asked Scott Harris, the Court clerk, to dismiss the three sanctuary city cases in New York City, New York State, and San Francisco. Their Attorneys General refused to cooperate with Federal ICE authorities. The Trump administration had retaliated against the Blue states and cities by blocking approximately $385 million in justice assistance grants. Trump’s ICE [...]

By Lynn Shapiro|2021-03-09T19:41:54-07:00March 9th, 2021|Elections, Immigration/Refugees|

Republicans Ignore Constituents and Hate Voters

Recently we saw a series of bad-faith efforts by Republican leaders to undermine majority rule across our democratic republic. Then the self-styled Dowager President from Mar-a-Lago emerged at the annual Conservative Political Action Committee meeting in Florida. Along with him were two of his handmaids cleverly disguised as U.S. Senators. Once more, they amplified The Big Lie and vowed to fight on. The CPAC performances made this cautionary essay even more germane. Let's start in our Nation's Capital It appears that Republicans in Congress have decided to turn their backs on their constituents and ignore their needs, which are meet [...]

By Paul Waugaman|2021-03-03T16:03:17-07:00March 3rd, 2021|Elections, Voter Suppression|

Three Strikes This Week for Rep. Mark Finchem

This is not Mark Rep. Finchem's (R-LD11) week. First, the ethics committees of the Arizona State House and Senate Republican Chairpersons dismissed his complaint aimed at the whole Democratic delegation to the Legislature. The State House Chair, Becky Nutt, who erred in not following through with the over 80 complaints against the LD 11 Representative, issued a statement on Finchem's complaint: This article first appeared on the Blog for Arizona. “The ethics committee is not an arena for waging political contests. That is true whether the subject of a complaint are individuals Republicans (as before) or nearly the [...]

By David Gordon|2021-02-24T10:50:46-07:00February 23rd, 2021|Elections, Local Candidates and Electeds|

VIDEO: How to Win Over Rural Voters with Susan Bickel, LD9 Chair

The path to turning rural counties blue runs through local parades, county fairs, and community affairs, according to LD9 Democrats Chair Susan Bickel. She spoke at the Democrats of Greater Tucson meeting on February 8, 2021. LD9 had a 90.4% Democratic turnout in the 2020 elections, so Susan knows what she’s talking about. Susan Bickel lived in Douglas, AZ, from 2000-2013 and successfully motivated rural voters. In contrast, the turnout in nearby rural counties was less: Cochise County: 78.6% of Democrats voted. Greenlee County: 77.5% of Democrats voted. Graham County: 73.2% of Democrats voted. It wasn’t always [...]

By Larry Bodine|2021-02-11T12:51:36-07:00February 10th, 2021|Arizona, Elections|

8 Reasons to Pay Attention to State Politics

Melinda Merkel Iyer created the AZ Legislature Weekly Update. State laws directly affect our daily lives. From firearm regulations to DUI, from tax code to community property, the vast majority of laws that affect our daily lives are not federal, but state laws. The feds may get more media attention, but our state lawmakers have the money and influence to decide our state’s priorities — and they are directly responsible for serving us. Our state leads the way when the feds don’t. For four years, with Trump and DeVos in Washington, federal education reform was stalled — but [...]

By Melinda Iyer|2021-02-09T13:50:10-07:00February 9th, 2021|Arizona, Ballot Referenda and Initiatives, Elections|

Video: Jeremey Lasher on How To Win Elections

Former DGT President Jeremey Lasher spelled out how he helped win elections for Democrats in Arizona and Georgia. The single, most-effective technique is face-to-face meetings with workers. Many thanks to Anne Simmons, our Video Production Editor, for editing this video. However, the pandemic quashed this key tactic and forced Democrats to merely drop off literature, because county and state Democratic parties advised volunteers that voters did not want to meet visitors at their front door. Volunteers did make phone calls, sent texts, and hand-wrote postcards -- which he said are less effective than in-person meetings with voters. [...]

By Larry Bodine|2021-01-20T14:48:45-07:00January 19th, 2021|Elections|

Bonnie Heidler Heads New Leadership Team for Pima Dems

Bonnie Heidler Hundreds of Pima County Democratic Party (PDCP) committee persons decisively elected Bonnie Heidler as the new county party Chair. She is the former chair of LD10 Democrats, a successful fundraiser and organization builder. The vote affirmed the groundbreaking work of outgoing PCDP chair Alison Jones, who nominated Heidler. With Jones’ leadership, Democrats won a resounding victory in Pima County in 2020, winning 5 of 6 countywide offices and 4 of 5 county supervisor positions. Heidler said, “I have a team to lead PCDP into the future. It is young, experienced, and skilled. I am honored to [...]

By Larry Bodine|2020-12-19T17:08:19-07:00December 19th, 2020|Elections, Local Activism, Local Candidates and Electeds|

21 Trump Lawyers Charged with Filing Frivolous Election Lawsuits in Arizona

Trump attorney Dennis Wilenchik Bar charges have been filed against 21 Trump lawyers who filed bogus lawsuits seeking to overturn Arizona election results. The attorneys could be disbarred for filing frivolous lawsuits backed by anonymous sources and phony experts. The complaint accuses the lawyers of violating their oaths as attorneys and violating ethics rules against spurious lawsuits. “This barrage of litigation is based not on law but on a clear political agenda: to undermine confidence in elections that will inevitably subvert constitutional democracy,” the complaint states. Trump attorney Alexander Kolodin allegedly filed 5 baseless lawsuits. In [...]

By Larry Bodine|2020-12-17T14:54:30-07:00December 17th, 2020|Arizona, Elections|