More Reasons To Not Vote For The Vile Tom Horne

One of the worst individuals ever to hold political office in Arizona is Tom Horne, first as Superintendent of Public Instruction and then as Attorney General. This vile racist’s whole shtick was “anti-brown” hysteria, first with his Anti-Mexican Studies crusade in the Tucson Unified School District, and then more broadly with his anti-immigrant hate mongering.

But Dillon Rosenblatt has more on this vile individual at the Fourth Estate 48 substack, Tom Horne “should be nowhere near schools or children.”

Tom Horne, whose entire campaign for Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction has been marred by his repeated defense of a child molester apparently associated with his campaign, voted against harsher penalties for statutory rape while a state lawmaker and voted twice to reinstate a teacher who resigned in disgrace after students reported him for looking at pornography in the classroom including of minors while superintendent.

Gross. https://t.co/qROZBzXpBr

— Julie Erfle (@erfleuncuffed) September 2, 2022

Horne has been around in state politics for a while. He served in the Arizona Legislature for four years before losing his primary race in 2000 to Dean Martin; served two full terms as state superintendent from 2003-2011; and served one term as state attorney general before losing his primary to Mark Brnovich in 2014.

Horne lost these primaries because of corruption and scandals during his terms of office. Why would any sane person give him a third opportunity at corruption and scandals in office? Because, I assure you, that’s what you are buying if you vote for Tom Horne.

2022 is his first campaign back and he’s hoping to unseat incumbent Kathy Hoffman, the Democrat in the race, to become the state schools chief once again.

This all began when Horne shared an image of disgraced former state lawmaker David Stringer and then pinned it onto his Twitter page thanking him and others for his primary win on August 2. I and others called him out and he subsequently unpinned and deleted the tweet. (Stringer is wearing the hat.)

Yes, that is GOP nominee for Arizona schools chief Tom Horne pinning a tweet saying "thank you" with pedophile/child molester David Stringer in the photo. Horne and Stringer are buddies and Horne's wife was Stringer's attorney. https://t.co/SAGmYyznhY pic.twitter.com/apQ3UzLgo6

— Dillon Rosenblatt (@DillonReedRose) August 3, 2022

I’m not going to repurpose all the reporting out there on Horne and his connection to Stringer, so if you’re behind, check out his interview with AZFamily’s Morgan Loew, his interview on KTAR News’s Gaydos and Chad Show, and this recent write-up detailing Horne’s attempt to distance himself from Stringer by Arizona Republic’s Yana Kunichoff.

My committee has refunded the in-kind contribution by Mr. Stringer. That in-kind donation was the only association he ever had with our committee. He is not involved with our campaign.

— SPI Tom Horne (@RealTomHorne) August 31, 2022

The problem is (and there are many):

1. 1. We have to take Horne at his word since the next campaign finance filing deadline isn’t until October 15 and ballots are mailed October 12.
   2. Stringer ran for Yavapai County Attorney in 2020 — he lost by a lot to Sheila Polk, a Horne adversary — and in that campaign, Stringer used video interviews Horne did on Prescott E-News, where Stringer is the publisher, to aid his campaign against Polk. At the time, I asked Horne if he was endorsing Stringer in that race and he said no but that he was fine with Stringer using him in his ads.

So this isn’t a one-off connection between the two men.

But all that aside, Horne has a less than ideal voting history when it comes to inappropriate situations involving minors predating his public history with Stringer.

The Arizona House of Representatives in 2000 voted on a bill, HB2587 (sexual conduct with a minor), where it would strengthen the penalty for statutory rape of minors over the age of 15, moving it from a class 6 felony to a class 4 felony. It also would have added that if the person committing the act was five years older than the minor, it would be a class 2 felony. Horne voted no on the bill, as did 40 others (including Democrats). The law remains the same as it did back then.

I reached out to Horne three times this week via email, phone and his campaign website, but did not hear back.

I sent him a couple of questions in writing asking him to explain his no vote and if he believes the penalty for statutory rape should be more severe.

Perhaps more egregious for a candidate hoping to oversee K-12 schools in the state, is a vote he made while in that position in 2006.

Horne, while AZ superintendent and a member of the State Board of Education1, voted twice to reinstate the teaching certificate of a high school teacher who resigned in disgrace in 2002 after students reported him for looking at pornography on his classroom computer. But it gets worse.

The teacher, Joseph Richardson, then of Queen Creek High School, admitted in 2006 that part of the pornography he viewed involved minors. He said it was out of “curiosity” not “interest,” according to the minute entry I requested from the Board of Education. The Board met at first to discuss the issue on April 24, 2006 and Horne voted “yes” to reinstate Richardson along with four other board members thus failing to reach the six votes necessary. So the conversation was tabled to bring back in May with all 11 board members present. On the second attempt, Horne again voted to reinstate and this time they had the six votes necessary to proceed. Richardson still has a valid teaching certificate in Arizona, according to the state database.

Did any of you MAGA/QAnon cultists supposedly so concerned about “groomers” and child sexual traffickers know this when you voted for Tom Horne in the GQP primary? Well you do now!

The final vote was 6-5, meaning if Superintendent Horne had voted no, Richardson would not be allowed to teach.

Here’s an excerpt from the May 22, 20062 meeting:

Mr. Richardson added regarding the more severe finding was the fact that he looked at pictures of minors, various things that were sexually oriented with minors but that this was because of curiosity and not because he had a special interest in those areas, but that his curiosity was strong at that point. He added that he is disgusted with his actions and thoughts that he had at that time. Mr. Richardson stated that he understood that this is a severe case and the responsibility that the Board has to make sure we have good, qualified teachers and asked for a second chance. He added that if the members felt he really should not teach, he would understand that, as well.

Mr. Richardson stated that he did know it was unprofessional and that he did recognize at the time that it was wrong so he was very careful not to allow anyone else to see what he was doing.

Despite Richardson’s own testimony, Horne argued that there wasn’t any minors involved in the pornography citing a Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office3 report that said the same thing. He also claimed that anything Richardson did was “inadvertent.”

Mr. Horne added that he thought that if there were inappropriate materials viewed on the computer partly it was inadvertent as Mr. Richardson was seeking something else and other things came as a result. Mr. Horne added that Mr. Richardson wasn’t seeking inappropriate materials.

Again, Richardson admitted to looking at inappropriate pictures of minors “only on 4 or 5 or 6 occasions4 in the classroom,” but Horne still argued otherwise. It’s similar to Stringer pleading guilty in 1983, but Horne continuing to argue Stringer is innocent, except this time he’s willing to believe the police report.

Kinda makes you wonder what Tom Horne’s internet viewing habits were, doesn’t it? Eeew! Remember he is running for Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Kathy Hoffman, the current superintendent and Democratic nominee, told Fourth Estate 48, “Tom Horne has a pattern of not just excusing the inexcusable, but rewarding it. He should be nowhere near schools or children.”

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Footnotes

1

The position of state superintendent entitles that person to sit on the Board of Education as one of the eleven members.

2

The East Valley Tribune covered the meeting at the time which notes Horne kind of brushing off the issue and deferring to others to inform his decision compared to a poignant quote from another Board of Ed member who voted no. ASU President Michael Crow was on the board at the time and voted no.

3

Joe Arpaio was the sheriff at the time. Arpaio recently endorsed Horne for superintendent.

4

Uh “only??” Any number greater than zero is not okay.

And let’s not forget the scandals when he was last in office as attorney general. 5 weird details from the Tom Horne saga:

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne has been under fire for more than a year. The FBI and multiple employees have alleged that he broke campaign-finance laws, among other indiscretions. And the details just keep getting weirder. Consider:

Tom Horne allegedly keeps a white three-ring binder behind his desk labeled “border patrol” on the spine, but its contents have nothing to do with immigration. According to an affidavit signed by former employee Sarah Beattie, the binder actually contains a list of past donors that Horne would call daily from his office to raise money for his campaign. Horne’s office denies the allegations, saying the binder was stored but never used at the office.

Tom Horne asked employee Carmen Chenal, with whom he is alleged to have had an extramarital affair, to try on an $8 million ring at a jewelry store he was scoping out on his lunch hour in October 2013 as a possible venue for a campaign fund-raiser. That’s according to an affidavit signed by former employee Sarah Beattie, who claims she was asked to take a picture of the ring on Chenal’s finger.

Tom Horne’s staff received a memo from a March 27 meeting on his campaign strategy that listed these as the top four items to increase his chances of winning: “Win Court case” against him on charges that he violated campaign-finance laws, “Get s–t together,” “Raise money” and “Run ideological race.”

Tom Horne was set to play Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” on the piano during a May 13 fundraiser headlined by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, actor Steven Seagal [a Putin Puppet now living in Russia to escape crypto fine] and former state Sen. Russell Pearce.

Tom Horne didn’t own the car he was driving when he backed into a white Range Rover at his alleged lover’s apartment. According a Phoenix Police report and FBI agents who witnessed the March 2012 accident, Horne left his office in a gold Jaguar. He parked the car and got into the driver’s seat of a black Volkswagen Passat owned by employee Linnea Heap, who had loaned it to Horne’s alleged mistress, Carmen Chenal. Horne did not leave a note for the owner of the Range Rover but paid to have a scratch fixed on Heap’s Passat.

This guy is one creepy old Dude.