First day in office as our Arizona Governor, January 2nd:
- Katie Hobbs took the sworn oath of office in a private ceremony on January 2nd, 2023 where no media was allowed in, but it was live streamed and she took the oath to “follow the Constitution”.
- Unfortunately, she already issued her first executive order, 2023-01, which amends Executive orders 2003-22 and 2009-09. It is claiming to “protect employment opportunity”, however, it seems to be focused on the more than 30,000 contract agencies and vendors serving Arizona that use the Arizona Procurement Portal but excludes state offices “led by one or more elected state officials.” Could that possibly be the Governor’s office that is excluded from it’s own executive order? It appears to focus on “CHARGES of pregnancy discrimination”, “disabled veterans who FEAR discrimination” and “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people across the nation that report experiencing unfair treatment at work”. Ultimately it is asking for “procedures to be established” to add sexual orientation and gender identity into a protected class for hiring practices as well as resources “to research, analyze and implement best practices in protecting employment opportunity (of these individuals) and to create awareness of the importance of this issue throughout state government.” Follow this link to the full e0_2023-01.pdf.
- The Arizona Freedom Caucus planned a press conference starting at 10:45am on January 9th to detail their plans to sue Katie Hobbs for her Unconstitutional Executive Order 2023-01. This press conference was to be held in front of the Arizona Senate building downtown. GIT team is awaiting news on the actual filing.
Kari Lake’s Election Lawsuit
- Arizona Court of Appeals has reserved time for Conference and Possible Oral Argument on January 24th in Kari Lake’s historic election lawsuit.
- Her 2 day trial on Dec 21st and 22nd heard by Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson, ended in a dismissal on Dec 24th, despite the evidence of massive voter disenfranchisement targeting Republicans on Election Day (over 50% of printer and tabulators failed the moment polls opened) as well as false testimony by County election officials. Examples of that false testimony:
- Maricopa County Elections Director Scott Jarrett testified at least 4 times on Day One of the trial that 19-inch ballot images were not printed on 20-inch ballot papers and he had “no knowledge” of this occurring. Yet the next day he changed his testimony that he learned of a fit-to-paper issue “a few days after Election Day”.
- Witness testimony by Heather Honey confirmed Maricopa County did not produce “ delivery receipts” (chain of custody documents) for nearly 300,000 Election Day ballots. This testimony was further corroborated by a Runbeck Services (3rd party responsible for printing ballots, scanning early ballot green envelopes for signature verification and counting Election Day ballots) Whistleblower who testified that Runbeck received 298,942 ballots on Election Day which includes the Early Voting ballots. The required chain of custody for these ballots does not exist, despite Recorder Stephen Richer claiming they were.
- Even Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer admitted in court that Maricopa County failed to comply with chain of custody laws and transported ballots to Runbeck, a third party vendor, without knowing how many ballots were transported. “When the early ballots leave the early voting center, they are not counted at the voting centers”, stated Richer. Recorder Richer testified that on Election Day, “Election Day ballots are not counted at MCTEC (Maricopa County Election Center), and are instead counted at Runbeck because there are too many ballots.”
- The appeal also seeks relief on counts that Judge Thompson dismissed before trail, including Count III, which alleges tens of thousands of mail-in-ballots were counted with invalid affidavit signatures. Three whistleblowers from Maricopa County’s signature verification and curing process testified to deep flaws in the County’s review of ballot signatures. One witness testified that level two managers were reversing rejections of signatures and it is likely that “level 2 managers were changing about 90% of the rejected signatures to accepted”. Kari alleges at least 20,548 early votes should have failed signature verification and must be invalidated.
- Note that Kari Lake lost to Katie Hobbs by just under 17,000 votes. Kari filed her Appeal arguing the trial court dismissed these “explosive findings”.
Arizona Attorney General, Kris Mayes
- After a mandatory partial hand recount of votes that reduced the margin from 511 votes down to 280 votes state-wide (of 2.5 million votes total), Kris Mayes has also been sworn in as our new Attorney General over Abe Hamadeh. Pinal County discovered hundreds of new votes for Abe Hamadeh.
- Kris Mayes has selected her deputy AG, Daniel Barr. Mr Barr works for the DNC law firm Perkins Coie that was the Clinton’s law firm for many years. Mr Barr also represented Mayes in Abe Hamadeh’s Mohave County Superior Court lawsuit contesting the mid-term election. Former Assistant AG and head of the Election Integrity Unit, Jennifer Wright, has indicated a possible law violation. She alleges that “DNC attorney [Marc] Elias’s former colleague” Daniel Barr has been “conducting business on behalf of the AG” while representing Kris Mayes as a private citizen in Abe Hamadeh’s lawsuit. Barr has filed a notice of withdrawal from representing private citizen Kris Mayes in the Abe Hamadeh Election Contest in Mohave County; however, he already has an active email address in the Arizona AG office (Daniel.barr@azag.gov).
Keep AZ Free 2023, Capital Lawn Event
- You can join our legislatures to kickoff the 2023 legislative session and support keeping AZ Free on Wednesday January 18th from 11am to 1pm on the Capital Lawn. 1700 W. Washington Street, Phoenix, AZ 85007
Federal House of Representatives, 118th Congress, First week
- After 5 days and 15 votes, Kevin McCarthy was elected as the Speaker of the House. This also allowed him to be sworn in and subsequently, McCarthy performed the swearing in all of the newly-elected House of Representatives, giving Republicans the majority in the House.
- McCarthy negotiated the votes for his Speakership (this is where true Democracy happened) with 20 Republicans who opposed him giving into the following concessions which of course most must be voted on with the entire House:
- A single lawmaker can make a motion to elect a new speaker if they do not believe he is doing his job. This of course is how the House was run for decades before Nancy Pelosi eliminated that rule. This rule was included in the rules package passed by the House earlier this week.
- Term limits
- Adopted a budget resolution that balances the budget in 10 years with a cap on fiscal spending in 2024 to FY 2022 levels.
- McCarthy also agreed to reject any negotiations on spending with the Senate until they pass their own spending bills.
- There will be no increase in the debt limit without spending cuts or other fiscal reforms
- He will set up a committee to examine the weaponization of government against US citizens, and
- No bill will be brought to the floor for a vote until at least 72 hours has passed. (Pelosi gave 24 hours for the 4,000+ page, $1.7T Omnibus spending package that was passed in December).
Action for all of us Please – As always, the GIT team asks that we all continue to pray for our elected leaders and our state. While our elections did not result in the Faith, Family and Freedom candidates that we had hoped would be leading our state, we must put our faith in the One who is truly in Control. Please pray for God to move in the hearts of our elected officials and may we all rejoice in the revival He surely has planned. Truth shall prevail.