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      The pro-Trump Arizona fake electors scheme: what’s in the charging document?

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      The indictment against the slate of fake electors in Arizona and the Trump allies who advanced the scheme there includes a host of public statements and private exchanges that show how the group intended to overturn the state’s electoral votes for Joe Biden in 2020.Arizona’s Democratic attorney general, Kris Mayes, announced on Wednesday that a state grand jury charged the 11 false electors and seven others with nine felony counts of fraud, forgery and conspiracy. The indictment from Mayes’s office is sure to be a talking point in this year’s elections, nearly four years after the acts themselves occurred.The case’s net spans more broadly than the slate of fake electors itself, entangling Trump associates who perpetrated the theory that this “alternative” slate could be used by Congress and then vice-president Mike Pence instead of the state’s rightful electors who signed off that Biden won the state.The documents detail the steps taken behind the scenes to push the concept of using electors for Trump to pressure Pence on 6 January 2021. Trump allies, both those charged in Arizona and those who weren’t, were exchanging messages, pressuring elected officials and arranging court cases to benefit the fake electors idea, the indictment shows.And several of the fake electors themselves, by their public statements, intended for their act of signing falsely that they were the state’s true electors to be used by the Trump campaign to disrupt the electoral count and subvert the state’s Biden win.Trump himself is not charged in the Arizona case, though he is listed throughout the indictment as “unindicted co-conspirator 1”, a “former president of the United States who spread false claims of election fraud following the 2020 election”.There were also attempts to add caveats to the language in the documents signed by the fake electors in Arizona to note that they were intended only as a backup plan should judges rule in Trump’s favor, but that did not happen, the indictment alleges.The false electors included two sitting state senators, Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern. It’s not clear how or if the state senate will respond to these charges or if it will affect their legislative actions. The senate Republicans’ spokeswoman told the Guardian she checked with a rules attorney in the chamber, who “verified there is no protocol on such a matter, as people are presumed innocent until proven guilty”.The former Arizona Republican party chair Kelli Ward was charged, as was her husband, Michael. Tyler Bowyer, a Republican national committeeman and Turning Point Action executive, was also charged, as were the other fake electors Jim Lamon, Nancy Cottle, Robert Montgomery, Samuel Moorhead, Lorraine Pellegrino and Gregory Safsten.The Trumpworld figures charged include high-profile allies such as the former New York City mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, the former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, the lawyer John Eastman, the adviser Boris Epshteyn, the attorney Jenna Ellis, the current election integrity counsel for the Republican National Committee, Christina Bobb, and the former Trump campaign operative Mike Roman.In initial documents, the names of Trump allies are redacted, making it somewhat difficult to track who allegedly said what to whom. They are identifiable by their descriptions or other details.Mayes, who won her race by less than 300 votes in 2022, is already in the Republican-led legislature’s crosshairs for this investigation and a host of other issues where she, a Democrat, is at odds with GOP lawmakers. The state house opened a committee to investigate her and her use of the office. The charges are sure to further inflame Republican lawmakers.Hoffman issued a statement saying he was innocent and intended to “vigorously” defend himself against the charges, and that Mayes had weaponized the attorney general’s office for political reasons. “I look forward to the day when I am vindicated of this disgusting political persecution by the judicial process,” he wrote.Kern responded with an “LOL!!” and changed the subject to abortion when a commenter on X said he should resign immediately. The Arizona Republican party put out a statement calling the timing of the indictments “suspiciously convenient and politically motivated” and an example of election interference, a favorite claim of Trump himself in the face of a host of charges.Charlie Kirk, the founder of the rightwing youth organization Turning Point, said he and the organization stand by Bowyer and the others charged.“The Arizona Trump electors were doing what they thought was a legally necessary step as part of a wider political and electoral dispute,” Kirk wrote on X. “They acted in the belief that Donald Trump was the true winner of Arizona in the 2020 election. They engaged in no fraud and no deception. In fact, they literally published a press release explaining what they were doing!”Didn’t hedge language despite a warningOf the seven states that saw a similar fake electors scheme, those in Pennsylvania and New Mexico used language that indicated the electors who signed for Trump were contingent on the signers later being certified as the “duly elected and qualified electors” because of court interventions that were outstanding at the time.Arizona’s documents include no such hedge, instead saying the people who signed on claimed to be the “duly elected and qualified electors” for Trump in the state.The indictment claims a Pennsylvania attorney raised concerns about that language on 12 December 2020 and requested adding in the contingency language. After that, “unindicted co-conspirator 4”, who appears to be the scheme’s architect, the attorney Kenneth Chesebro, texted a Trump campaign official to point out the issue.View image in fullscreen“Mike, I think the language at start of certificate should be changed in all states. Let’s look at the language carefully,” Chesebro wrote to a Trump ally, presumably Mike Roman.Chesebro said the hedged language could help prevent the false electors from “possibly facing legal exposure (at the hands of a partisan AG) if they seem to certify that they are currently the valid electors”.“I don’t,” the person responded. After Chesebro offered to help draft the language, the Trump operative responded: “Fuck these guys,” according to the indictment.The pressure campaignTo build the narrative of the case, the indictment walks through Trump and his allies’ intense pressure campaign on the Maricopa county board of supervisors, the state legislature and the governor, all of whom played some role in election oversight.The details here are now publicly well-known – they include calls from the White House and Trump allies to people such as the former House speaker Rusty Bowers and the county supervisor Clint Hickman, as well as a call from the White House to the former governor Doug Ducey on the day he signed off on the certification of votes.Also mentioned is the backlash and ensuing harassment that some of these officials faced from members of their own party for refusing to take part in the efforts to overturn the results.The indictment walks through the various lawsuits the Trump campaign and other state Republicans filed to try to get their claims of election fraud affirmed in court or disrupt the results in some way, none of which succeeded.Ward worked to organize the Trump electors along with others. She expressed concerns that, if there weren’t an appeal filed in one of the election cases contesting results, it “could appear treasonous” to sign on as an alternate slate without any pending court cases. An appeal in one case, Ward v Jackson, was filed in time for the slate to vote on 14 December 2020.One appeal, the indictment notes, was filed quickly as a way to “give legal ‘cover’ for the electors in AZ to ‘vote’” to create their slate, a person labeled as “unindicted co-conspirator 5”, believed to be the Arizona attorney Jack Wilenchik, wrote in an email at the time.As proof of the intent to throw the election to Trump, the indictment mentions meetings between Pence, his staff and someone who appears to be Eastman from contextual clues, where the Trump ally lays out to Pence how he could reject electoral votes from certain states, delay the court and ask state legislatures to instead step in and declare a winner. During a meeting with Pence’s chief counsel, a charged Trump associate “admitted that his plan would lose if it went before the US supreme court”, the indictment says.The indictment also notes a memo written on 23 December 2020 that envisions Pence refusing to count the Biden electors from Arizona and other states with fake slates because there were multiple slates from those places, thus giving Trump a majority of the remaining electoral votes. This memo, other reporting from the Washington Post confirms, was written by Eastman.Pence did not follow through, to the dismay of Trump and his allies.Using their own wordsThe attorney general uses the fake electors’ own words, often displayed publicly on social media platforms, to show their intent was not simply to offer an alternate slate in the face of a potential court order, but to pressure the vice-president and others to use the Trump electors instead.On 14 December 2020, at the state Republican party headquarters, the electors signed on for Trump. The party posted a picture and video of it to X. Ward wrote, “Oh yes we did! We are the electors who represent the legal voters of Arizona! #Trump2020 #MAGA.” The party released a statement on the action that was similar to a template created by Chesebro, the indictment says.The next day, Bowyer, of Turning Point, described the move as giving “potential ground to not accept electors from states with competing electors”, the indictment says.Later that month, the 11 fake electors signed on to a lawsuit against Pence from the Texas congressman Louie Gohmert seeking to have the court declare Pence had the authority to decide which electoral votes to use in states that had multiple slates, according to the indictment.After the Gohmert case was filed, Bowyer wrote on X that the vice-president had the “awesome power” of selecting which slate to use when there were two competing ones, or to select neither.Kern gave an interview to the conspiracy website Epoch Times where he said the dual slates gave Pence the choice to pick one or the other and that would then likely lead to a “contested electoral process” on 6 January.“It’s going to be just a nice constitutional lesson for all of America to see,” Kern said, according to the indictment. A couple days later, Kern called on state leaders to bring an emergency legislative session to “decertify” the Biden electors, then convene a grand jury to investigate election fraud claims. He also was at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.The day before the insurrection, Hoffman wrote to Pence and asked him to delay certification and get clarity from the legislature over which slate was “proper and accurate”.Based on their statements and machinations behind the scenes, the indictment concludes that the defendants “deceived the public with false claims of election fraud in order to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency, to keep Unindicted Coconspirator 1 in office against the will of Arizona’s voters, and deprive Arizona voters of their right to vote and have their votes counted”. More

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      Arizona Republicans Who Supported Repealing an Abortion Ban Face Blowback

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      On social media, Arizona lawmakers are accused of being baby killers, cowards and traitors.State Representative Matt Gress, a Republican in a moderate slice of Phoenix, was in line at his neighborhood coffee shop on Thursday when a customer stopped and thanked him for voting to repeal an 1864 law that bans abortion in Arizona.“I know you’re taking some heat,” he told Mr. Gress.More than some.Shortly after the repeal bill squeaked through the Arizona House on Wednesday with support from every Democrat, as well as Mr. Gress and two other Republicans, anti-abortion activists denounced Mr. Gress on social media as a baby killer, coward and traitor. The Republican House speaker booted Mr. Gress off a spending committee. And some Democrats dismissed his stance as a bid to appease swing voters furious over the ban during an election year.In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Gress said that he was trying to chart a middle path through a wrenching debate over abortion that has consumed Arizona politics in the two weeks since the State Supreme Court revived the Civil War-era ban.“There are extremes on both ends here,” he said. “To go from abortion being legal and constitutionally protected to nearly a complete ban overnight is not something that the electorate is going to be OK with.”Mr. Gress, 35, a former teacher and school-board member, worked as a budget director under Arizona’s previous governor, the Republican Doug Ducey. He was first elected in 2022 to represent a swath of Phoenix and Scottsdale that spreads from middle-class neighborhoods through strip malls, desert parks and wealthy gated communities.He speaks with the measured cadences of someone who has appeared on plenty of news programs, and had focused his attention on homelessness and teacher pay before abortion erupted into an all-consuming legislative battle.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Arizona Charges Giuliani and Other Trump Allies in Election Interference Case

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      Those charged included Boris Epshteyn, a top legal strategist for Donald Trump, and fake electors who acted on Mr. Trump’s behalf in Arizona after the 2020 election.Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mark Meadows, and a number of others who advised Donald J. Trump during the 2020 election were indicted in Arizona on Wednesday, along with all of the fake electors who acted on Mr. Trump’s behalf there to try to keep him in power despite his loss in the state.Boris Epshteyn, one of Mr. Trump’s top legal strategists, was also among those indicted, a complication for Mr. Trump’s defense in the criminal trial that began this week in Manhattan over hush money payments made to a porn star, Stormy Daniels.The indictment includes conspiracy, fraud and forgery charges, related to alleged attempts by the defendants to change the 2020 election results. Arizona is the fourth swing state to bring an elections case involving the activities of the Trump campaign in 2020, but only the second after Georgia to go beyond the fake electors whom the campaign deployed in swing states lost by Mr. Trump. The former president, who is seeking another term, was also named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Arizona case. “I understand for some of you today didn’t come fast enough, and I know I’ll be criticized by others for conducting this investigation at all,” Kris Mayes, Arizona’s Democratic attorney general, said in a recorded statement. “But as I have stated before and will say here again today, I will not allow American democracy to be undermined. It’s too important.”Read the Arizona Election IndictmentArizona on Wednesday indicted Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mark Meadows and a number of others who advised Donald J. Trump during the 2020 election, as well as the fake electors who acted on Mr. Trump’s behalf to try to keep him in power despite his loss in the state. Here is the indictment.Read Document 58 pagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Read the Arizona Election Indictment

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      13-301, 13-302, 13-303, 13-304, 13-701, 13-702, 13-703, 13-801, 13-804, 13-811,
      13-2313, and 13-2314.
      COUNT 7
      FORGERY, A CLASS FOUR FELONY
      From on or about November 3, 2020 and continuing through on or about
      January 6, 2021, with intent to defraud, KELLI WARD (001), TYLER BOWYER
      (002), NANCY COTTLE (003), JACOB HOFFMAN (004), ANTHONY KERN (005),
      JAMES LAMON (006), ROBERT MONTGOMERY (007), SAMUEL MOORHEAD
      (008), LORRAINE PELLEGRINO (009), GREGORY SAFSTEN (010), MICHAEL WARD
      (011),
      falsely made, completed or altered a written instrument and/or
      offered or presented, whether accepted or not, a forged instrument or one that
      contained false information, to wit: one of two certificates of votes for President
      Donald J. Trump and Vice President Michael Pence, filed by the Arizona
      Republican electors with the Archivist of the United States, involving, but not
      limited to, the acts described in Section II, in violation of A.R.S. §§ 13-2002(A)(1) &
      (A)(3), 13-301, 13-302, 13-303, 13-304, 13-701, 13-702, 13-703, 13-801, 13-804,
      13-811, 13-2313, and 13-2314.
      10
      110 More

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      Arizona grand jury indicts Trump allies including Giuliani over 2020 fake elector scheme

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      An Arizona grand jury has charged 18 people involved in the scheme to create a slate of false electors for Donald Trump, including 11 people who served as those fake electors and seven Trump allies who aided the scheme.Kris Mayes, Arizona’s Democratic attorney general, announced the charges on Wednesday, and said the 11 fake electors had been charged with felonies for fraud, forgery and conspiracy.Beyond the fake electors themselves, high-profile Trump affiliates have been charged with aiding in the scheme: Mark Meadows, John Eastman, Boris Epshteyn, Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Christina Bobb and Mike Roman.Those charged over their roles as false electors include two sitting lawmakers, state senators Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern. The former Arizona Republican party chair Kelli Ward and her husband, Michael Ward, have been charged, as has Tyler Bowyer, a Republican national committeeman and Turning Point USA executive, and Jim Lamon, who ran for US Senate in 2022. The others charged in the fake electors scheme are Nancy Cottle, Robert Montgomery, Samuel Moorhead, Lorraine Pellegrino and Gregory Safsten.The indictment says: “In Arizona, and the United States, the people elected Joseph Biden as president on November 3 2020. Unwilling to accept this fact, defendants and unindicted co-conspirators schemed to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency to keep unindicted co-conspirator 1 in office against the will of Arizona’s voters. This scheme would have deprived Arizona voters of their right to vote and have their votes counted.”Biden won Arizona by more than 10,000 votes, a close margin in the typically red state that immediately prompted allegations of voter fraud that persist to this day. The state has remained a hotbed of election denialism, despite losses for Republicans who embraced election-fraud lies at the state level.Trump has not been charged in the Arizona case.The indictment refers to Trump himself as “unindicted co-conspirator 1” throughout, noting how the former president schemed to keep himself in office, and how those around him, even those who believed he lost, aided this effort.Some involved have claimed they signed on as an alternate slate of electors in case court decisions came down in Trump’s favor, so they would have a backup group that could be certified by Congress should Trump prevail.But, the indictment says, the defendants intended for these false votes to pressure former vice-president Mike Pence into rejecting the slate of accurate electors for Joe Biden during the electoral college vote-counting on 6 January 2021. Pence did not declare Trump the winner, use these fake electoral votes, or otherwise delay the official count.Arizona’s charges are the latest turn in the fake electors saga. Seven states saw similar schemes, but two states – New Mexico and Pennsylvania – hedged their language in their documents enough to prevent prosecution.Democratic attorneys general in Michigan and Nevada have indicted Republican fake electors in their respective states. In Georgia, three of 16 fake electors were indicted as part of a wide-ranging racketeering indictment against Trump and allies. The remaining were given immunity for helping in the district attorney’s investigation.In Wisconsin, the fake electors acknowledged Biden’s win as a way to settle a civil lawsuit over the issue.Mayes’ investigation fell behind other states because she narrowly won office in 2022, and her predecessor, Republican Mark Brnovich, had not pursued the line of inquiry. She had confirmed the investigation in early 2023.The investigation – along with a host of other disagreements – have put Mayes at odds with Arizona’s Republican-led legislature, which started a committee to investigate Mayes and her office over concerns she was working beyond her authority as attorney general.In a video on Wednesday, Mayes said the investigation was “thorough and professional” and would provide justice for the plot to overturn the state’s electoral votes.“I understand for some of you today didn’t come fast enough, and I know I’ll be criticized by others for conducting this investigation at all,” she said. “I will not allow American democracy to be undermined – it’s too important.”Hugo Lowell and Sam Levine contributed reporting More

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      Arizona house votes to repeal near-total ban on abortion

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      Lawmakers in the Arizona house have voted to repeal a controversial 1864 law banning nearly all abortions, amid mounting pressure from the state’s Republicans.Three Republicans joined in with all 29 Democrats on Wednesday to support the repeal of the law, which predates Arizona’s statehood and provides no exceptions for rape or incest.The move follows weeks of effort in the state legislature to address an issue that put Republicans on the defensive in a battleground state for the presidential election. The measure will now head to the state senate, where it is expected to pass, and then to the governor’s desk.The Arizona supreme court earlier this month concluded the state can enforce a long-dormant law that permits abortions only to save the pregnant patient’s life. The ruling suggested doctors could be prosecuted under the law, first approved in 1864, and anyone who assists in an abortion could face two to five years in prison.The ruling put enormous pressure on Republicans in the state, who on the one hand are under fire from some conservatives in their base who firmly support the abortion ban, and from swing voters who strongly oppose the measure and will decide crucial races including the presidency, the US Senate and the GOP’s control of the legislature.Some prominent Republicans, including the GOP candidate for Senate, Kari Lake, have come out against the ban. But Republicans in the statehouse so far have blocked efforts by Democratic lawmakers to repeal the law.A week ago, one Republican in the Arizona house joined 29 Democrats to bring the repeal measure to a vote, but the effort failed twice on 30-30 votes. Democrats hoped one more Republican would cross party lines on Wednesday so that the repeal bill can be brought up for a vote. There appears to be enough support for repeal in the Arizona senate.Meanwhile, the office of the Arizona attorney general, Kris Mayes, on Tuesday asked the state supreme court to reconsider its decision, the Arizona Republic reported.View image in fullscreenOn Wednesday, dozens of people gathered outside the state capitol before the House and Senate were scheduled to meet, many of them carrying signs or wearing shirts showing their opposition to abortion rights.The civil war-era law had been blocked since the US supreme court’s 1973 Roe v Wade decision guaranteed the constitutional right to an abortion nationwide.After Roe v Wade was overturned in June 2022, the then Arizona attorney general, Mark Brnovich, a Republican, persuaded a state judge that the 1864 ban could be enforced. Still, the law has not actually been enforced while the case makes its way through the courts. Mayes urged the state’s highest court not to revive the law.Mayes has said the earliest the law could be enforced was 8 June, though the anti-abortion group defending the ban, the Alliance Defending Freedom, maintains county prosecutors can begin enforcing it once the supreme court’s decision becomes final, which is expected to occur this week.If the proposed repeal is signed into law by the Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs, a 2022 statute banning the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy would become the prevailing abortion law.Many abortion providers in the state have vowed to continue providing the procedure until the ban goes into effect. In neighboring California, providers are gearing up to treat Arizona patients seeking abortion care when the ban goes into effect. The California governor, Gavin Newsom, announced on Wednesday he’s introducing a proposal that would allow Arizona doctors to perform abortions for their clients in California. The change would only apply to doctors licensed in good standing in Arizona and their patients, and last through the end of November.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionView image in fullscreenThe battle over abortion access in Arizona will ultimately be decided in November. Abortion rights advocates are pushing an effort to ask Arizona voters to create a constitutional right to abortion. They have collected about 500,000 signatures, more than the almost 384,000 needed to put it on the ballot.The proposed constitutional amendment would guarantee abortion rights until a fetus could survive outside the womb, typically around 24 weeks. It also would allow later abortions to save the parent’s life, or to protect her physical or mental health.Republican lawmakers, in turn, are considering putting one or more competing abortion proposals on the November ballot.A leaked planning document outlined the approaches being considered by house Republicans, such as codifying existing abortion regulations, proposing a 14-week ban that would be “disguised as a 15-week law” because it would allow abortions until the beginning of the 15th week, and a measure that would prohibit abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, before many people know they are pregnant.House Republicans have not yet publicly released any such proposed ballot measures.Reproductive rights advocates say the issue has mobilized voters and report that people are seeking out signature-gatherers and asking about locations where their friends and family can sign to put abortion access on the ballot.“I’ve had women come up with three kids, and they’re signing. And I tell them, moms are the most important signature here, because they understand what this issue is, and what pregnancy does to the body, what pregnancy does to your life,” Susan Anthony, who has been gathering signatures in Arizona, told the Guardian.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      ‘Have you signed yet?’: Arizona activists battle to overturn near-total abortion ban

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      As people streamed into the empanada restaurant, Susan Anthony made eye contact, pointing to her sign that asked whether they were pro-choice.“Have you signed yet?” she asked patrons at the establishment in Mesa, Arizona. She carried a clipboard with petition sheets for a citizen’s initiative, a ballot measure that would put the right to abortion access in the swing state’s constitution.Since the state supreme court ruled on 9 April that lawmakers in Arizona intended to fully ban abortion, the signatures have come in more quickly, Anthony said.“No, but I’d like to.”“I drove here to sign this.”“I’ve been wanting to.”“I’ve signed it, probably multiple times.”“I’m going to tell my friend to come here and sign it.”Starting the day the ruling came down, the Arizona for Abortion Access measure has seen its volunteers grow from about 3,000 to more than 5,000, spokeswoman Dawn Penich said. More than 5,300 small-dollar donors gave money for the first time since the ruling. The group is not giving out a new total update for the number of signatures, but Penich said that volunteers brought in 2,200 signatures to get notarized in one hour at a Phoenix coffee shop.A handful of legislative Republicans have been scrambling since the ruling to try to peel back the outright ban, first passed there in 1864, before Arizona was a state, and instead reaffirm the more recent law, a 15-week ban. In the House, Democrats and a couple of Republicans could again try to force the repeal to a vote this Wednesday, the third attempt in recent weeks.The battle for abortion access in this swing state will ultimately be decided on November’s ballot, where voters will probably face multiple questions. Democrats also hope the issue will turn out enough voters to flip the statehouse blue, and some Republican officials are now worried about how the ruling, which most of them wanted, will affect their political prospects. Those in swing districts and close races, including Donald Trump and the US Senate candidate Kari Lake, have spoken against the ruling despite previously supporting abortion bans.In the house, efforts to move toward repealing the ban have so far failed, while the senate limped forward. A document detailing plans to derail the citizen’s ballot measure, accidentally sent to all lawmakers, floated the idea of sending three separate questions from the legislature directly to voters, bypassing the Democratic governor and confusing the issue at the ballot.In the meantime, the 1864 ban could go into effect as early as 8 June. The Democratic attorney general, Kris Mayes, has said her office will not prosecute providers over abortions at any point. And neighboring California is working to allow Arizona abortion providers a way to get licensed quickly there to assist their patients, anticipating more people will cross state lines for care.Legislature in limboThe abortion access measure would allow abortions without any limitations until the point of fetal viability, and access to abortion after viability if a healthcare provider determines it is needed to protect the patient’s life or physical and mental health.The legislature has several routes it could take: doing nothing, and upholding the 1864 ban; repealing the ban, which would set a 15-week limit as the prevailing law; sending one or more questions to voters to set limits on abortion access.The abortion access measure needs about 384,000 valid signatures from Arizona voters by 3 July to make the ballot and has reported collecting more than 500,000 so far. But the state applies strict scrutiny to citizens’ initiatives, with intense requirements for each signature and the people collecting them. In recent years, groups have sued, at times successfully, to remove signatures for various reasons in attempts to keep measures from reaching the ballot.“We know the Republicans in the next three months are going to do everything in their power to try to take that initiative off the ballot,” the former Democratic lawmaker and congressional candidate Raquel Terán said at an abortion rights rally last Friday. “So we should not count on just half a million – we need to turn in a million signatures or more. Do not stop. We cannot stop, nor take any signature for granted.”Lawmakers do not have to collect any signatures to put their questions to voters, and they don’t need the governor’s approval. Instead, they can vote to send any number of questions to the ballot directly.But to get the repeal up for a vote, some Republican lawmakers would need to vote against their party’s leaders to override normal procedures – and they have so far been unwilling. Republican representative David Cook predicted that could happen this week, telling Phoenix public radio outlet KJZZ that there would be enough votes to alter rules and allow the repeal up for a vote.While a few Republican lawmakers have said they think the ban goes too far, others have held fast to their support for it. The Center for Arizona Policy, an influential state organization responsible for lobbying for strict anti-abortion laws for decades, called on lawmakers to oppose any efforts to repeal the ban.View image in fullscreen“Political posturing for the sake of votes and back-pedalling when faced with hostility only feeds voter cynicism at the cost of human life,” the group said in a statement.The house speaker, Ben Toma, a Republican, has defended the ban and is not in favor of repealing it, despite the potential political consequences. Toma is now running for an open congressional seat in a crowded GOP primary where Trump has already endorsed one of his opponents. Toma is not currently available for interviews.“It comes down to: what do I think is right? What is just? What is ethical? And I have made my decision. And I am not going to change my mind,” he recently told the New York Times.Beyond the repeal machinations, Republicans are trying to figure out what, if anything, they should send to the ballot. The presentation of options, written by the Arizona house Republican general counsel, Linley Wilson, floated three potential ballot referrals:
      A “complementary (not conflicting)” measure that would include policies like only physicians being allowed to perform abortions and parental consent for minors seeking them. This would require the courts to consider it alongside the constitutional access measure.
      A 14-week ban “disguised as a 15-week law” because it would outlaw abortion beyond the beginning of the 15th week of pregnancy. This “dilutes” the votes for the access measure and makes it more likely to fail.
      A “heartbeat protection act” that makes abortion illegal after six weeks unless the mother’s life is at risk, the fetus has an abnormality or the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest.
      These paths change the narrative, Wilson wrote: “Republicans have a plan! And it’s much more reasonable than the (Arizona for Abortion Access) Initiative.” The plan could “pull votes” from the access measure.Energy increases for ballot measureAt the Mesa restaurant, some people stopped by specifically to sign the petition, asking if there were other locations they could send their family and friends to. Some, carrying babies or holding toddlers’ hands, said they had been meaning to sign and took a pen.“I’ve had women come up with three kids, and they’re signing. And I tell them, moms are the most important signature here, because they understand what this issue is, and what pregnancy does to the body, what pregnancy does to your life,” Anthony said.Others avoided eye contact or said they weren’t interested. Some said they weren’t registered to vote or simply didn’t vote. Some days, a person will stroll by and call her a baby killer. Anthony doesn’t engage – she’s not trying to convince the opposition right now; she’s trying to find the people already in favor of abortion rights and get them to sign.After Roe v Wade fell, Anthony, a 69-year-old retiree, made it her life’s mission to get the Arizona abortion access on the ballot. Anthony, a lifelong Democrat, didn’t want to share her political leanings when she first moved to the red state of Arizona in the 1980s. Now she spends her days sitting at tables in restaurants and businesses, even at trailheads to snag hikers before they set off. Some hikers tell her she shouldn’t be there, that they’re just trying to enjoy nature; then others come up and say thank you.Since the ruling this month, the energy has shifted. It’s “night and day”, with people seeking out places to sign the measure, Anthony said. At a shift at a bottle shop, college students posted on social media after signing and got more people to stop by. At a boutique in Scottsdale, in a wealthier area known for business-type Republicans, signers told her, this isn’t right, as they added their signature to the petition sheets.The other side is going door to door and rallying at the statehouse, too. When Democrats tried to put the repeal of the 1864 ban up for a vote last week, anti-abortion advocates filled the gallery.At an abortion rights rally last Friday evening hosted by a handful of left-leaning groups, Democratic officials detailed the importance of the ballot measure and voting for their party to take the legislature, win the US Senate seat and go for Joe Biden – a sign that abortion directly on the ballot influences how other races could go.They made clear to a few dozen attendees: the ban is now in place because of Trump’s US supreme court nominees, who overturned Roe vs Wade. The 1864 ban is still in place because Arizona Republicans explicitly voted to keep it there as recently as two years ago. It hasn’t been repealed yet because legislative Republicans have blocked Democrats’ efforts to do so for years.The backlash to the ban has taken aim at Arizona’s supreme court, too, where two justices are up for retention elections. A progressive group, Progress Arizona, is raising money for a campaign to oust the Republican justices Clint Bolick and Kathryn H King.“The fact is, even if we were to repeal this ban, that is not the end of the fight,” the Democratic state representative Oscar de los Santos told the crowd. “This November, we have an election that isn’t merely a choice between two parties: it is a choice between two visions, between freedom and fascism, between hope and hate, between 1864 and 2024.”Anthony hopes she won’t have to gather signatures for abortion access again. She thinks the measure will make it to the ballot this year, and from there, it’s up to the voters. But a lot of other factors are in limbo, like the rights of Arizonans to access abortion care in the state.“I am most concerned at this point by anything that [Republicans] are going to put on there to muddy the waters, to confuse people,” Anthony said. “That’s what I’m concerned with. So I’m anxious to hear from our folks what the strategy will be come 3 July, when we deliver the boxes to the secretary of state. So what happens then? What are we doing then?” More

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      Two Turning Point USA members admit to assaulting queer professor

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      Two employees of a rightwing youth organization who harassed and assaulted a queer professor last year agreed to a diversion program and admitted they were guilty of the acts.Turning Point USA’s Kalen D’Almeida and Braden Ellis accosted the Arizona State University (ASU) professor David Boyles last October, hounding him about his sexuality and the classes he teaches. Boyles is an English instructor and the co-founder of Drag Story Hour Arizona.At one point, D’Almeida pushed Boyles to the ground, bloodying his face. Boyles posted an image of his injuries online at the time, saying his physical injuries were “relatively minor” but that he felt “angry, violated, embarrassed and despairing at the fact that we have come to normalize this kind of harassment and violence” against the LGBTQ+ community.Both D’Almeida and Ellis signed diversion agreements with prosecutors that acknowledge they committed the offenses and enter them into an educational program to avoid convictions, Phoenix TV station 12News reported.D’Almeida, who was charged with misdemeanors for assault, harassment and disorderly conduct, and Ellis, charged with misdemeanor harassment, had previously pleaded not guilty and, in the immediate aftermath of the incident, the organization said Ellis, who works as its cameraman, would pursue charges against Boyles.Boyles told the Guardian he was “disappointed but not surprised” that the county attorney pursued “the lightest possible slap on the wrist” for the Turning Point employees, but that he was gratified to see that “the two hateful losers who stalked, harassed, and assaulted me at my place of work last October have admitted their guilt”.“I hope this incident has made people aware that Turning Point USA does not care about free speech or serious debate but instead trades in hateful and bigoted rhetoric solely to ‘create content’ for their endless tedious podcasts and to stoke fear and violence in the real world,” Boyles said in a statement. “And I hope administrators at Arizona State and other universities will work to protect their LGBTQ+ students, staff, and faculty by no longer indulging and coddling organizations like TPUSA.”Turning Point USA said in a statement that it was “uninvolved in this matter, and the decision on the correct legal course had been left entirely to our reporters and their counsel”.“To be clear, Kalen and Braden have not been found guilty of anything in court. Diversion is a legal tactic where all charges are dismissed, and the language is boilerplate and standard to all such cases,” a TPUSA spokesperson Andrew Kolvet, said. “The fact is our reporters would not be permitted a jury trial for such a low-level misdemeanor, but instead be subject to a bench decision from a judge, Tyler Kissell, who doesn’t even have a law degree, was vice-president of the ASU chapter of Young Democrats, ran for state senate as a Democrat, and whose recent work experience includes teaching pre-school. Given these realities, we entirely understand why they decided to pursue this route.”ASU’s president, Michael Crow, previously condemned the attack on Boyles and has tried to get Turning Point to remove the university’s professors from its “professor watchlist” because it prompted harassment and threats against them.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“We are looking at all of our options now that the TP employees have plead[ed] guilty to their crimes,” Crow said in an email on Tuesday. “This includes direct engagement with TP to see what they are doing with their criminal employees.”Turning Point USA plays a large role in Republican politics, especially in Arizona, where it is based. The group boosted Donald Trump’s candidacy and is aligned with the Maga movement. Its leaders, including founder and executive director Charlie Kirk, are prominent conservative commentators, and it has chapters on college campuses around the country. Multiple Arizona lawmakers have held jobs at the organization over the years, including state representative Austin Smith, who recently resigned from Turning Point after allegations he submitted forged signatures of voters in his petitions to run for re-election.The organization has also clashed with the university community in a few instances, including over an event that brought Kirk and other conservatives to campus to speak. More