House Committee Approves Retaliatory Bill To Divide Up Maricopa County Into Four Counties

Update to Fake GQP Elector Rep. Jake Hoffman And Eight Other Trump Sycophants Want To Divide Up Maricopa County Into Four Counties.

The Sedition Party actually went through with it: the House Government and Elections Committee approved the bill on Wednesday in a 7-6 party-line vote with Republicans in favor. Republican lawmakers want to split Maricopa County in 4:

Maricopa County would be split into four smaller pieces under legislation advanced Wednesday by Republicans in the Arizona House.

With 65% of the Arizona’s population and more people than half the U.S. states, Maricopa County is becoming too big to be efficiently managed, said Rep. Jake Hoffman, the Queen Creek Republican who sponsored the bill.

But Democrats suspect the legislation is really motivated by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors’ refusal to go along with former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

“This is about putting more chips on the roulette table so you can win your bet,” said Rep. Lorenzo Sierra, an Avondale Democrat. “One of these three counties, I’m sure, would decertify this election in a heartbeat.”

Hoffman said his proposal would provide for a better local government and allow the four smaller counties to focus more on regional needs.

“If we don’t allow for the formation of new counties that are more reflective, more representative, more accountable to the people, we will be kicking ourselves in 30, 40, 50 years that we never did this,” Hoffman said. “And it is much easier to do it now than it will be then.”

He said it’s “pure conspiracy theory” and “laughable” to suggest his proposal is motivated by the election.

No, what is laughable is that this fake GQP elector coup plotter has any interest in good government legislation. Why is anyone in the media treating this traitor to his country as a serious person? Call him out.

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors is controlled 4-1 by Republicans, but the board enraged Trump and segments of the GOP for defending the integrity of the 2020 vote count, which the former president falsely claims was rigged.

Hoffman is one of the Legislature’s staunchest supporters of GOP bills to change election laws. He is also among 11 Republicans who would have voted for Trump in the Electoral College if he’d won Arizona. All 11 Trump electors signed a document falsely claiming to represent Arizona’s electoral votes.

Maricopa County has just under 4.5 million people and is the fourth largest in the nation after Los Angeles County; Cook County, Illinois, which includes Chicago; and Harris County, Texas, which includes Houston.

Arizona last created a new county in the 1980s, when La Paz split from Yuma, a [financial disaster] that left the new county without a sufficient tax base to cover its expenses.

It's *almost* like economic factors weren't considered at all and this really isn't about anything other than pure politics https://t.co/EtOLujO0Fb

— Jim Small (@JimSmall) February 16, 2022

Under Hoffman’s proposal, Central Phoenix, Guadalupe, Tempe, Glendale and Avondale would remain Maricopa County. North Phoenix, the suburbs and outlying areas would be split into three new counties: Hohokam, Mogollon and O’odham.

After a transition period, each would have its own county functions including a court system, elections department and public health agency along with its own elected officials including a board of supervisors, county attorney, sheriff and recorder. Maricopa County’s existing debts and assets would be divided proportionally.

Note: All of these county positions typically pay far better than a state legislator’s salary, and they are fully vested in the state pension system after only five years. These are Pols looking to create new, lucrative paying jobs for themselves after they leave the legislature. They are effectively gerrymandering the new counties so that they can run in a “safe” GQP county, increasing their chances of being elected to a better paying job out of sheer GQP tribalism. These extremists know that they cannot get elected county-wide in the current configuration of Maricopa County.

Rep. Sarah Liguori, D-Phoenix, said the three new counties would lean toward Republicans while Democrats would be overwhelmingly concentrated in one district.

Caught wind of a Republican-backed bill to split Maricopa County into four new counties. Here's a look at what it would do, politically. pic.twitter.com/EbKdoecozb

— Leon Sit (@politicsmaps) February 8, 2022

Eddie Cook, the Republican assessor in Maricopa County, said his office has plans in place to grow with the county and won’t have trouble handling its current or future workload. The assessor values properties for tax purposes.

It’s unclear if the bill has enough support to pass the pass the full House and Senate, which are controlled narrowly by Republicans.

On this point, the Arizona Mirror adds, Top Republican casts doubt on plan to break up Maricopa County:

A proposal to split up Maricopa County got unanimous Republican backing in a House of Representatives committee, but doesn’t have the support of the most important GOP vote in the chamber — House Speaker Rusty Bowers.

Bowers is skeptical about House Bill 2787, which would carve Maricopa County into four new counties. He called the proposal a “cumbersome thing” that will need a lot of work and time.

Bowers expressed consternation about the lack of input from Maricopa County officials and the “enormous amount of change and expenditure and building new facilities” that would be required in a short amount of time. He wouldn’t say whether he’ll block the bill from coming up for a vote on the House floor, and even left the door open to supporting a future dismantling of the county.

But for now, there are too many unanswered questions for his liking.

Without the Speaker’s vote, the bill fails on a tie vote in the House (I suspect it will fail by a wider margin).

The measure is moving through the House at the same time the Senate is advancing a bill that would expand the number of members on the boards of supervisors in Maricopa and Pima Counties.

“A Maricopa County supervisor represents more (people) than a member of the U.S. House of Representatives,” Sen. J.D. Mesnard, who is sponsoring the bill, said at a hearing late last month. “That does not seem right to me.”

His bill would expand the number of supervisors in a county over 1 million from five to seven, and counties above 3 million would have nine. The only two counties affected are Pima, which would go to seven members, and Maricopa, which would go to nine board members.

Craig Sullivan, executive director of the state county supervisors association, said most of what counties do are directly implementing state law.

“We don’t have expansive legislative authority,” Sullivan said. He also noted that most services are provided at the city level and 93% of Maricopa County’s residents live in cities.

Laurie Roberts of The Republic writes, GOP election temper tantrum drags on, this time with a plan to split Maricopa County:

Hang onto your wallets, people.

The Republican-controlled Arizona Legislature continues its retribution tour, moving one step closer on Wednesday to dividing Maricopa County into four pieces and dividing you from your money in the form of increased taxes.

With an actual straight face, Rep. Jake Hoffman said his bill – which would strip the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors of their power – has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the supervisors refused to decertify the 2020 election.

Or that the supervisors poked gaping holes in every conspiracy theory offered up by the Senate’s ninja auditors.

“Any attempt to paint this as retaliation or retribution toward the county is pure conspiracy theory … ,” Hoffman, R-Queen Creek, told the House Government and Elections Committee during Wednesday’s hearing on his bill. “To say that this has anything to do with the election is laughable and nothing more than a conspiracy theory.”

How can we trust what Hoffman says?

And to suggest that we should take anything Jake Hoffman says at face value is, as laughs goes, a belly buster.

Hoffman is the guy who ran an internet troll farm in the months leading up to the 2020 election, hiring teenagers to blanket the internet with fake posts on conservative talking points and baseless conspiracy theories aimed at getting Donald Trump reelected.

He is one of the state’s now-infamous fake electors, avowing in December 2020 that he had been duly elected by Arizona voters to cast one of Arizona’s 11 electoral votes for Trump.

He’s the guy who on Jan. 5, 2021, sent an email to a White House staffer, containing an “urgent letter” to be passed along to then-Vice President Mike Pence. The email, obtained by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, implored Pence to “delay the certification of the election results and instead seek clarification from the Arizona legislature as to which slate of Presidential Electors are proper and accurate.”

See, Rep. Jake Hoffman Letter To VP Mike Pence Shows Fake Electors Scheme Being Put In Motion (Updated).

And now he’s the guy who has proposed splitting up Maricopa County.

But it’s not political, he assures us, and it’s not payback to the Republican-run Maricopa County Board of Supervisors who refused to go along with the canard that Trump was robbed.

It’s all about being more representative?

House Bill 2787 proposes to split the county four ways, gerrymandering the lines to cram Democrats into one county (Maricopa) while allowing Republicans to control the other three:

• • • Maricopa, comprised of much of Phoenix, Tempe and Tolleson.
    • Mogollon, covering north Phoenix and Scottsdale.
    • O’odham, which is now western Maricopa County [with the Palo Verde Nuclear Generator].
    • Hohokam, taking in Mesa, Chandler and Gilbert.

Hoffman says it’s all about being more representative and accountable on issues like water. It’s all about breaking up a growing county that already has too much power, with 65% of the state’s population.

Certainly, it’s about being more expensive, what with having to pay three additional sets of county supervisors and sheriffs, treasurers, assessors, recorders, county attorneys and such – more than 40 new elected officials in all.

That’s not counting new jails and courthouses to be built and existing county assets and debts to be divvied up.

It’d all be worth the extra cost, Hoffman said, to ensure responsive government.

He never bothered to ask the county, Phoenix

Austin Smith, a Republican legislative candidate and one of the few people who Hoffman consulted with about the bill, was also one of the few to testify in support of it. He was asked how it is that Republicans don’t feel represented in a county they control from top to bottom.

“Just because there’s a Republican in that position,” he replied, “doesn’t mean that we’re always going to agree with them.”

Like, say, about an election?

If this was a serious idea born of a desire to make the government work better, it seems to me Hoffman would have consulted with county officials to understand both the benefits and the pitfalls of such a plan. He would have consulted with Phoenix officials to explore the consequences of splitting the city into two counties.

He would have brought in tax experts and public works experts to explain the ramifications of a four-way split.

Instead, Hoffman acknowledged that he talked only to a handful of people in the East and West valleys and a few rural folks. Then he dropped the bill last week, on the last day that bills can be introduced.

What would it cost? Hoffman has no clue

As for what it would cost?

He doesn’t know.

As for the tax implications of forcing each of the four new counties to pay their own way?

He doesn’t know.

As for how to handle complexities like dividing up the county-owned hospital and the county-owned Chase Field?

He doesn’t know.

So naturally, the bill passed on a party line 7-6 vote – with virtually no questions asked by Hoffman’s fellow Republicans. It’ll likely be up to House Speaker Rusty Bowers to put the kibosh yet another bad bill born of his colleagues’ continuing temper tantrum over the election.

Until then, it was left to Democrats to wonder why the so-called party of small government is so hot to do this thing.

Actually, they don’t wonder at all.

“Patriots like (Maricopa County Supervisors) Steve Gallardo, Bill Gates, Jack Sellers and Clint Hickman would not comply with the directive to decertify the Maricopa County election,” Rep. Lorenzo Sierra, D-Avondale said, in voting against the bill. “Folks, this is not about water. This is not about representation. This is about putting more chips on the roulette table so you can win your bet. One of these three counties, I’m sure, would decertify this election in a heartbeat.”

OK, so maybe Hoffman’s bill isn’t about payback.

Maybe it’s, instead, about planning.

You know, for next time he and his pals want to overturn an election.

Who voted for HB 2787?

Voting for the bill were [the usual suspects] Republican Reps. Judy Burges of Skull Valley, Frank Carroll of Sun City, John Fillmore of Apache Junction, Teresa Martinez of Casa Grande, Kevin Payne of Peoria, Jake Hoffman of Queen Creek and John Kavanagh of Fountain Hills.

Voting against the bill were Democratic Reps. Reginald Bolding of Laveen, Alma Hernandez of Tucson, Jennifer Jermaine of Chandler, Sarah Liguori of Phoenix, Lorenzo Sierra of Avondale and Christian Solorio of Phoenix.

The bill now goes to the Rules Committee then onto the full House, which Republicans control 31-29.