KJZZ’s Friday NewsCap revisits some of the biggest stories of the week from Arizona and beyond.
To talk about a lawsuit trying to force a U.S. House swearing-in, new entrants into Congressional races and more, The Show sat down with Paul Bentz of HighGround and Democratic strategist Tony Cani.
Conversation highlights
MARK BRODIE: Tony, let me start with you. AG Chris Mayes threatened to sue House Speaker Mike Johnson for not swearing in Adelita Grijalva, the representative-elect. Now she has done it. Grijalva is a party to that suit as well. Does this speed things up at all, do you think?
TONY CANI: I don’t know if it’s going to speed things up, but it’s a way to be like, “Hey, look, this is real. I know this is like a game that you’re playing in Washington, D.C., but this is having a real impact on the people of Arizona.”
And so the attorney general, when she threatened to sue, it’s a hope that maybe that would be something that would push the speaker to actually do the ceremony ... to take the “elect” out of Congresswoman-elect Grijalva’s title. ...
He’s used so many different excuses about the reason why he’s not doing this. And of course, most people are saying that it’s because of the Epstein files and all that kind of stuff. He’s not negotiating with Democrats right now.
I don’t know what he’s doing. ... He’s got plenty of time. I wish he would just do this. He’s also being asked a lot of questions about this. If he just did this swearing in, this would stop being an issue. And so it is really frustrating.
Just do it. Give give the, the voters in that district representation so that they have an office that they can call, like all those regular things. It’s pretty frustrating from my perspective.
BRODIE: Paul, one of the interesting things is there seems to be some debate about what Rep.-elect Grijalva can actually do. She’s saying, “I don’t have an email, I don’t have access to databases. I finally got keys to the office, but I’m not really sure. I can’t hire staff.”
And Speaker Johnson’s like, “You should be doing all that stuff anyway. Don’t make TikTok videos. Help your constituents.” She’s saying, “I can’t.”
PAUL BENTZ: ... She’s following the rules here. And if he’s saying she should do it and she should do all the things that a congresswoman would do, why wouldn’t they just swear her? This is why people are fed up with Washington. This is when we talk about the swamp that we’re allegedly supposedly draining, you’ve got a Republican saying that they don’t want to swear this individual in.
And it’s this whole notion that you can’t give an inch on anything. So you’ve got larger negotiations going on, you’ve got the budget bills, you’ve got the shutdown. And it leaks all the way down to a swearing in of a rightly elected person who wants to get in and do their job. It's just, this is why people are fed up with Washington.
This is why people are fed up. And there’s people cheering, I’m sure, because of the hyperpartisan nature of the way things go. But this only makes things worse. It doesn’t make anything better.
BRODIE: I wonder, Tony, if looking at this sort of in a cynical political lens in some way, does this maybe help Rep.-elect Grijalva? If nothing else, she’s kind of a household name now. Whereas maybe if she had just been elected in a special election in Tucson to succeed her father, maybe people across the country wouldn’t know who she was.
CANI: Yeah, I mean, the least senior, the most junior member of the entire Congress is now getting probably the most media attention that’s positive of any of them. And so from that perspective, it’s true. ... But she doesn’t care about that. She’s even said, “Look, I would like to just have a meeting with the speaker so we can talk this out.”
Like she really legitimately just wants to get to work.
BRODIE: So, Paul, like, how does this end? What’s the endgame here? Is it really like the government has to reopen before she gets sworn in?
And if that goes on for months — I mean, they’re not really negotiating, so who knows how long the shutdown will last? Could she be in this limbo for some really long period of time?
BENTZ: Certainly. And I think that sort of the turnabout is fair play. Sort of reminds me of the filibuster discussion. People want to get rid of it when it’s something that they want and then they want to keep it when they’re trying to fight against something they get. The slow playing of appointments in this case, certainly then there’s a precedent for it if the Democrats come into control and maybe they follow the same rules.
People don’t think long-term about the impact of what they’re doing. People don’t think of the impact of how it’s going to play out when they are maybe not in charge or maybe the next time they need something done.
And in fact, I think swearing her in would be a sign of goodwill towards the Democrats to try to maybe get them to the negotiating table or get them to maybe at least have a discussion. But no. It’s like everything right now, every little bit, just anytime you can twist the knife ... they’re just seeming to try to find a way to do it at this point.
BRODIE: And yet there are still people who want to serve in Congress. We saw this week, Paul, two Republicans getting into races. Let’s start with CD1. That is the seat that Congressman David Schweikert is leaving to run for governor. Gina Swoboda, she’d been rumored to be jumping into this race. She made it official this week.
She, of course, is the chair of the state Republican Party, but she’s also not seemingly universally beloved by all members of the party.
BENTZ: Right. CD1 is one of our very competitive districts. It’s going to be a tough race. Two cycles ago, Schweikert only won it by about 2,000 votes. In the presidential cycle, he actually won it by about three times as much. But every race, it’s a very competitive district.
It was one of the things that Democrats really focused on when they did redistricting is they gave up some power in some other districts and made them even redder to make this one a little bit more competitive long term. I had said at the time that by the end of the decade it would be a Democratic seat. That was the goal. I’m not sure in this cycle, the way things are right now with registration and whatnot, if that’s going to happen.
... But she did get Trump’s endorsement. So I think that’s huge for her in the primary and certainly makes her the frontrunner. But she’s also spoken out on things like ESAs and others that are actually pretty reasonable approaches to things.
And that doesn’t necessarily make her popular with some of the base.
BRODIE: Is she somebody who clears the field for Republicans?
BENTZ: I don’t think any of these open seats are going to have a clear field. I think in this environment right now, we didn’t get the 10th congressional district following the census, so there is this increased desire — I always say we talked about rearranging the deck chairs. The 10th district would have done that.
We don’t have that. So between the CD1 spot open and the CD5 open, I think we’re going to see a lot of Republicans jump in to try to jockey for position, because it’s as close to an open spot as you’re going to get.
BRODIE: Yeah. So, Tony, if you are any of the number of Democrats running in CD1, you see Gina Swoboda jump in. What is going through your mind?
CANI: Well, I think they probably are thinking about the fact that the Trump endorsement is something that is powerful in making it so she might get through that primary. Of course, he has endorsed multiple people in competitive races recently, so maybe he will do that again. And so either way, though, you’re looking at the fact that, OK, they’re going to have now a messy primary the way that potentially we are going to have a competitive primary.
And so there’s a hope that they’re going to tear each other down on the Republican side enough and try to go farther and farther and farther right — the way that you see is happening in the governor’s race — in order to appeal to President Trump in a district where that really won’t be helped at all.
And so from that regard, it’s like, OK, good. Why don’t you guys have this little Trump fight over there on the side — especially when his popularity is so bad, especially on the economy right now. And we’re going to just focus on trying to run a good campaign so that you can get someone to represent you who cares about you and not President Trump only.
BRODIE: Tony, do you think that the Democratic field in that race is set at this point?
CANI: ... I think so. But anybody could jump in at any time, and we’re seeing that. And one thing that I think you saw from the last cycle is that when there is this sort of really large field, kind of anybody can win.
BRODIE: You don’t need a huge majority to win.
CANI: Yeah. And I think, especially right now, where Democrats are really looking for leadership and looking for people who are willing to fight, I think that people might be open to other candidates.
... One of the things when it comes to this is like, is there somebody who’s courageous enough to decide to jump in now instead of waiting for another opportunity? And if somebody’s been thinking like, “I want to run for Congress,” this is a good opportunity.
And so I haven’t heard anything, but I would not be surprised if somebody else jumped in.
BENTZ: I think people from both sides are thinking about it. There’s a lot of thinking, calling, looking around. I get calls from people, “What do you think?” ... When it’s an open seat, especially in that sort of area where there’s a lot of wealth, where there’s been a longtime congressman, so that it hasn’t been competitive more recently, I think people look at that as an opportunity.
I see why Democrats would think it’s a good opportunity. I don’t know if this is the right cycle for that. Midterms generally benefit Republicans. But that said, it’s as open as it’s going to be. So I think a lot of people are going to seriously consider it.
BRODIE: Well so Paul, you’d mentioned how Swoboda has the Trump endorsement, and Tony pointed out correctly that President Trump does have a habit at times of endorsing multiple candidates in the same race. We see it in the governor’s GOP primary.
I wonder though, in that district, how much weight does a Trump endorsement carry, maybe relative to some of the other districts in the state?
BENTZ: In the primary, quite a bit still. I mean, it’s a big chunk of Scottsdale. It’s very, very conservative leaning. We see the Scottsdale mayor won on a pretty conservative platform. I think it really helps in the primary. In the general election, it’s going to be more difficult. CD1 is also home to several of our swing legislative districts.
It’s well exercised. A lot of ground game in those areas. A lot of very attentive people on both sides and a proven list of sort of crossover Republicans and independents, who have willing to pick and choose. But Swoboda is a little bit different ... in that this is not the MAGA candidate. I mean, they’re going to paint her as that, but she doesn’t have that same MAGA credential despite being very successful for Trump and others.
BRODIE: It’s interesting because for a long time, David Schweikert, rightly or wrongly, was sort of seen as tiptoeing this line between MAGA and not. And here you’re kind of describing Gina Swoboda the same way. She has the Trump endorsement but has also kind of ticked off some of the MAGA voters.
BENTZ: Right. And I think there certainly will be another candidate that tries to harness that at a minimum. They typically can’t help themselves. There will probably be more than one of those types that jump in together and fight against one another. We’ve seen that in multiple races in that general area.
So I expect that to be the same this time around as well. Swoboda being not only Trump endorsed — and you’re right. And look at the Masters vs. Hamadeh race and others. There’s been multiple endorsements. Certainly a chance of that. But her getting it early, I think, will really help her in this case.
