2024 is almost over and what a year in politics it was!
Political cycles never really end anymore, but we’re reminiscing with our politics desk on the good, the bad and the ugly of this historic election year here in Arizona.
Camryn Sanchez and Wayne Schutsky from KJZZ's politics desk joined The Show to discuss the ups and downs of this year.
Full conversation
LAUREN GILGER: OK, so we had our fair share of ugly, and we'll get to that in Arizona politics this year. But let's start with the good. Camryn, what did you come up with here?
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Well, I thought it was quite nice that we didn't have any election fraud claims this year, at least, not any of the big ones that we had for the past two election cycles in Arizona, which is what we're kind of famous for, quite frankly, especially in Maricopa County. But, I think maybe largely due to the fact that Republicans were so, so successful, it was actually quite quiet afterwards and there was no, you know, for example, giant audit.
GILGER: Yeah, we, and we kind of expected that heading into the election that there would be recounts, there would be really close margins, there would be some controversy.
SANCHEZ: Yeah, we were kind of braced for anything and everything that could happen. I think that, you know, especially if Trump had lost Arizona, then there would have probably been a lot more fallout, but as it stands, there was just sort of a fizzle.
GILGER: OK. Wayne, good.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: The good I would look at is going back to the legislative session. Everyone probably remembers when the Supreme Court allowed the territorial era a near total abortion ban to stand, and then the Legislature ultimately repealed it. Now, I'm looking at that as a good, because it's kind of an example of the legislative process actually working as it's supposed to. There was definitely some ugliness and some fighting on the floor and all that during the process of it happening, but ultimately, what happened is the Supreme Court said, “this law, despite that it might be unpopular, was never repealed. The Legislature, in fact, said we're not repealing it the last time they addressed it, so it's not our job as judges to change that and so it is in effect.”
A lot of people got upset about that. And then it went back to the Legislature where, you know, a few Republicans, T. J. Shope, Shawnna Bolick, a few others joined Democrats to repeal it. And you know, I say that as a good thing because again we had an abortion proposal on the ballot that passed with voters. So, it's an example of the Legislature actually apparently reflecting the will of the voters and doing the work, despite the fact that it was hard, despite the fact that it was, especially for the few Republicans that crossed the aisle, it was unpopular with a lot of their colleagues and a lot of the loudest voices down there. They managed to get some work done that appears to reflect what the voters wanted.
GILGER: Interesting. OK, so let's move on to the bad. Wayne, what did you come up with here? What did you think was particularly bad this election cycle? And you know, pick one or two.
SCHUTSKY: Yeah, I was gonna go with the, like, the overall Democratic campaign strategy. I think Democrats thought they had a really good chance to flip the Legislature, at least one or two chambers, maybe get a tie somewhere. I was among those that thought, at least getting a tie in the Senate, was a real possibility. And as Cameron mentioned, Republicans had a banner year, you know, outside of Ruben Gallego winning a US Senate seat. Republicans really dominated, they won the presidency in Arizona. They Increase their margins at the state Legislature
GILGER: Which no one really expected.
SCHUTSKY: Yeah, no, I mean, I think they thought best case for most Republicans, a lot of pundits thought was that they would keep the current majority, but they actually added a few seats and they won contested congressional races and, to bring it back to my first answer with the abortion topic, I think Democrats maybe overestimated the impact having that abortion rights ballot measure on would have on their chances. I think what happened was, is a lot of people did turn out for that and it did pass overwhelmingly. But, that didn't necessarily translate into votes for Democrats. I think there are moderate Republicans, independents, folks like that who voted for the abortion measure but didn't necessarily, then go and vote for Democratic candidates.
GILGER: Yeah, yeah, OK, so Camryn, the bad.
SANCHEZ: Well, there was an unfortunate glitch that showed up late in the election process, although before the electoral election day that showed that more than 200,000, about 218,000 voters, you know, had been caught up in this thing with their documented proof of citizenship and so there was a kerfuffle about how are we going to address that before the election. Do we have to find a way to prove that all of these people are Arizona residents, are citizens, and it went to court and it was sort of a flurry. So, that's definitely a bad thing because it still has to be addressed, and there was a group that sued to get the names and information of those people, which the secretary of state fought against, out of concern about what was going to happen with that information, and it was eventually released and so now it starts the process of, presumably before the next election, tracking down those people and figuring out, you know, are they Arizona citizens who should be able to vote, and they were allowed to vote, which was probably the most convenient thing that could have happened. But, that was an unfortunate mess to happen right before the election.
GILGER: This was a huge deal and could have been incredibly consequential, right?
SANCHEZ: Yes, it could have been. I mean, if those people hadn't been allowed to vote, 218,000, like that's a giant population in a swing state like Arizona could have changed the outcomes of plenty of races.
GILGER: Yeah, OK, OK, so let's get to my favorite here, probably yours as well. Let's talk about what was a little ugly in Arizona politics this year. I can think of some examples for sure, but let's start with you here, Camryn.
SANCHEZ: I think it's fair to say that it was fairly ugly when Kari Lake revealed that, you know, DeWit had asked her to not run.
GILGER: This was the current, at the time, the head of the state GOP.
SANCHEZ: Yeah, so she never said that it was her who did it, but somebody recorded a conversation between them. He doesn't seem to know that he was being recorded where he was like, you know, “we really don't want you to run, please do something else with your time,” kind of trying to tell her that she shouldn't be the candidate. And you know, she, or someone released that.
And then Jeff DeWit got ousted as the head of the Republican Party, and as a result, they had to to pick a new one, but it was sort of a chaotic messy time with the Republicans and, “who's going to be in charge of this?” and “what do we think of that?” And “was it, you know, right for that recording to be released at all?” “Is it the best thing for transparency?” Etc.
GILGER: Nothing like a secret recording for a little politics. OK, Wayne, what you got ugly here?
SCHUTSKY: Well, I'm going to go back to the state Legislature. We saw a few ethics complaints this year. We saw, despite, as I mentioned, some examples of the legislative process working, there was also something a lot of infighting, a lot of squabbling going on.
We had at the beginning of the year, democrat representative Leezah Sun resigning, after she had an ethics complaint filed against her because she allegedly had threatened to throw a lobbyist off a balcony, she says in jest, at a hotel meeting down in Tucson. There was an ethics hearing filed. Actually, Democrats brought the ethics complaint against her over the allegation. She's a Democrat as well
GILGER: Her own party.
SCHUTSKY: Yeah, yeah, and then she basically resigned before they were about to take a vote to kick her out. So, that was not maybe the best look for the Legislature.
SCHUTSKY: There were other ethics complaints related to the actual abortion repeal debate. Some Democrats had gone on the floor and started yelling “shame” at their Republican colleagues as they blocked some efforts to repeal that abortion law before it eventually was repealed, you know, some Game of Thrones type of imagery there.
GILGER: It got intense.
SCHUTSKY: And then again, ethics complaints are rising that people felt unsafe on the floor and, so despite the fact that that ultimately led to a legislative process that that worked, you know, there was some ugliness, ugliness there and fighting over other contentious topics at the Capitol where we saw kind of people either muttering things under their breath at other colleagues or openly yelling at other colleagues.
There were a lot of examples down there of people maybe not getting along or following the rules of decorum as some of the legislators like to remind us that are supposed to be observed down there.
GILGER: OK, so very quickly, last question for you both. Let's end on a at least a forward looking note here. What are you each looking forward to most in 2025? Like, we will have a new administration in Washington, and an even stronger Republican majority in the state leg. What issues do you anticipate talking a lot about next year?
SCHUTSKY: The end of the legislative session. And I, I say that in jest, but, since I've started covering the Capitol over the past few years, legislative sessions have stretched in like so their breaking point essentially like the end of June when they have to pass a budget, and I, that's not, wasn't the norm. Like the legislative session is supposed to end earlier in the year, get things done and get these people home. And so, I'm actually interested to see whether, the increased Republican majority and the friction with the governor's office increases that, or actually, we go to June again.
