Year: 2018

Republicans jockeying for McCain’s senate seat when Jon Kyl resigns

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The Washington Post today takes a look at the senate seat speculation in Arizona. With McCain’s replacement likely to leave, GOP is split over appointing this year’s loser in Senate race:

Days after the midterm election, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey spoke privately about a sensitive topic with far-reaching implications — the Senate seat that John McCain held for three decades before his death in August.

Jon Kyl, the former senator Ducey appointed to replace McCain, made no promises about serving beyond this year. Most of his fellow Republicans are convinced he will not return in 2019 and Ducey will once again have to appoint a senator.

In a telephone call confirmed by two people familiar with the conversation, McConnell (R-Ky.) told Ducey: If there is an opening, consider appointing Martha McSally, the Republican congresswoman who came up short in her bid for Arizona’s other Senate seat this year.

On the call with Ducey, McConnell said McSally would make a great senator and noted there was a lot of support for her in the party. Ducey listened but made no commitments, according to the people familiar with the conversation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a discussion that was not publicized.

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Arizona Justice Clint Bolick has an ‘Abe Fortas problem’ with his judicial ethics

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On Sunday, The Arizona Republic ran a profile puff piece on Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery. Bill Montgomery: The son of a smuggler becomes Maricopa County’s controversial prosecutor.

I found the timing of this puff piece curious: why is the mouthpiece of the Arizona Republican Party suddenly promoting Bill Montgomery? I had heard a rumor circulating that Montgomery was under consideration for appointment to John McCain’s Senate seat after Jon Kyl resigns in the coming weeks to return to his more lucrative lobbyist career, but no one could confirm this rumor for me.

Well, that changed on Tuesday. The muckraking Phoenix New Times reported Arizona Supreme Court Justice Urged Governor to Tap Bill Montgomery for Senate:

Arizona Supreme Court Associate Justice Clint Bolick urged Governor Doug Ducey to appoint Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery to the U.S. Senate two days after the death of John McCain.

In text messages obtained by Phoenix New Times under state public records law, Bolick wrote to Ducey on August 27, asking him to tap the polarizing Republican prosecutor for McCain’s Senate seat.

“I hope you will consider Bill Montgomery, one of the few who could fill Sen. McCain’s shoes,” Bolick wrote. “He is respected by everyone, supported by all parts of the GOP, yet unfailingly conservative. Wicked smart, principled, West Point, very modest beginnings, young enough to be there for a long time. Can work across the aisle.”

“Bill has not asked me to do this; to the contrary it would require an appeal to his sense of duty,” Bolick added.

Bolick described Montgomery as “conservative to my libertarian yet there are few I respect more, very much in the mold of [former U.S. Senator] Jon Kyl.”

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Maricopa Democratic Chair Steve Slugocki on the End of One-Party Rule

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Maricopa County Democratic Party Chair Steven Slugocki

The 2018 Midterm elections were good for the Democrats in Arizona, especially if you were a woman in a state or citywide race whose first or last name began with a “K.” With the final results now determined, Kyrsten Sinema (United States Senate), Katie Hobbs (Secretary of State), Kathy Hoffman (Superintendent of Public Instruction), and Sandra Kennedy (Corporation Commission) emerged victorious in their statewide races. With a first-place showing in the initial round of the Phoenix Mayoral Race, Kate Gallego seems well positioned to win the runoff election in March over Daniel Valenzuela. Democrats also gained four seats in the Arizona State House making that chamber the closest between the two parties since 1966. Many Democrats also performed well in races for local school boards, judgeships, justice of the peace, and local constables.

Maricopa County Democratic Party Chair Steve Slugocki, in the middle of preparing for the annual reorganization elections for the county party, offered his perspective on the 2018 election results and where the party will go from here. The questions and responses are below:

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Obstruction of justice in plain sight: ‘all the president’s men’ are lying to the FBI and Special Counsel (Updated)

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Back in September, George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign adviser, was sentenced on Friday to 14 days in prison for lying to the F.B.I. about his contacts with Russian intermediaries during the 2016 presidential race. George Papadopoulos, Ex-Trump Adviser, Is Sentenced to 14 Days in Jail:

Prosecutors argued that Mr. Papadopoulos’s repeated lies during a January 2017 interview with investigators hampered the Russia investigation at a critical moment. In part because Mr. Papadopoulos misled the authorities, prosecutors said in court papers, they failed to arrest a London-based professor — suspected of being a Russian operative — before he left the United States in February 2017, never to return.

Andrew D. Goldstein, a prosecutor on Mr. Mueller’s team, told the judge that because Mr. Papadopoulos lied, investigators were forced into a painstaking monthslong examination of 100,000 emails and other communications to establish how Russian intermediaries tried to use him as a channel to the Trump campaign. Even after he pleaded guilty, Mr. Goldstein said, Mr. Papadopoulos made only “begrudging efforts to cooperate.”

Judge Randolph D. Moss said that Mr. Papadopoulos deserved a stiffer sentence because he had impeded an investigation of “grave national importance.”

On Monday, Ex-Trump campaign adviser Papadopoulos reports to prison: Former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos began serving his two-week prison sentence on Monday after a judge rejected his last-minute bid to remain free.

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BENNUVAL! Stories and Science of Space at the Fox Theater

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“Join OSIRIS-REx lead scientist Dante Lauretta, College of Humanities faculty, artists, musicians and special guests for a night celebrating the spirit of human curiosity, culture and knowledge, from the ancient myths of the stars to the modern scientific exploration of our universe.

As OSIRIS-REx approaches the asteroid Bennu, a family-friendly variety show explores how space unites science and the humanities.

Learn how folk tales inspire the space missions that are searching for answers to how the universe began. Sit back and enjoy an out-of-this-world, family-friendly show 

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1, 6 PM

Fox Tucson Theatre, 17 W. Congress St.

Doors open at 5 pm

PURCHASE TICKETS 

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