Be afraid. Be very afraid…because American Democracy in Arizona and across the nation is in peril if the 52 percent of the 2020 Election denying Trump Republican candidates throughout the country gain power after the November 8, 2022 elections.
That was the theme at a roundtable to preserve Democracy held at the Arizona Carpenters Union Hall in Phoenix this afternoon (September 9, 2022.) that featured Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar and Democratic Secretary of State Nominee Adrian Fontes.
The other panelists included End Citizens United/Let America Vote President Tiffany Muller, Teresa Mabry of the Arizona Democracy Resource Center, and former United States Attorney Mark Kokanovich.
Moderating the brief event, Senator Klobuchar, who had been at an earlier event to support Arizona Attorney General Democratic Nominee Kris Mayes, praised Fontes as “a leader in place who believes in Democracy” and reminded the attendees about his and Secretary (and Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate) Katie Hobbs’s courage in withstanding threats toward them and their families by the dangerous Trump Republican extremists when they did the right thing for Democracy in 2020.
Mentioning the danger to Democracy and the Republic, especially after the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court Ruling, Klobuchar rightly asserted “the threat to our democracy is still real,” saying that what the dangerous Trump Republican extremists tried to do on January 6, 2021 (where all the panelists reminded the audience that GOP Secretary of State Nominee Mark Finchem was there with the other aspiring insurrectionists-domestic terrorists,) they were still trying to do, like the Fascists and Nazi’s in the 1930’s, by subverting the right to vote in state governments through the legislative process.
She reminded everyone that 18 State Legislatures had passed 34 restrictive voting laws. Included in those new restrictions were Georgia’s forbidding voter registration drives before run-off elections, Texas getting rid of most drop boxes, and Arizona’s doing away with the Permanent Early Voting List (PEVL,) a tool Mr. Finchem has utilized on multiple occasions.
Quoting Georgia Senator Raphel Warnock, Ms. Klobuchar said, “some people don’t want some people to vote.” She then stated that if people are legally entitled to vote, they should and it should be easy to do so.
Saying the election is a chance to protect Democracy and build on the progress of the legislative successes of the Biden/Harris Administration (Infrastructure, Inflation Reduction Act, historic investments in green energy, prescription drug benefit, CHIPS, gun safety, and Burn Pit to help veterans,) the Minnesota Senator said that the Congress must pass the Electoral Count Act and Federal Voting Rights legislation.
She finished by telling everyone “I don’t think you want to go backward. With Adrian, you go forward.”
Opening the panel discussion, Senator Klobuchar asked Mr. Fontes what he saw in his role as Secretary of State.
He began by saying the country was at a “critical inflection point” with a pending U.S Supreme Court (involving North Carolina and whether state legislatures have jurisdiction over election results) that in his words would be the “case that may do for voting rights what Dobbs did for abortion” where election reality would be driven by a “state by state tribalism instead of the Constitution.”
Fontes continued by stressing that voters need to be educated on what is at stake (bumper sticker slogans will not suffice) and vote for all local, legislative state, and federal offices on the 2022 ballot to be “a bulwark against the extremism” of the Trump Republicans like Finchem and the other MAGA candidates up and down the electoral slate in order to ensure all areas of Democracy in the state and the country function together.
Former United States Attorney Mark Kokanovich echoed Klobachur and Fontes, stating “the stakes could not be higher. The insurrection is not over. A significant portion of republicans running are election deniers. We need to make it easier to vote.”
Tiffany Mueller advised that the solutions were to get big (especially dark) money out of politics and make it easier to vote. Saying the Secretary of State’s race in Arizona could not be a clearer contrast between the pro-Democracy Fontes and the January 6 insurrectionist attendee Finchem, Mueller said of the Trump extremists, “they want to make sure they have their own people in spots to overturn future elections.”
Teresa Mabry remarked that this Trump extremism is not new to Arizona, noting Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the anti-immigrant SB 1070. Stating that “Democracy always belongs to the people,” Mabry blasted the Ducey Stacked Arizona Supreme Court for fixing the ruling on the Fair Elections Initiative with bogus signature results. She further stated that “there’s no party that is going to save us. WE have to save us. We have to think about the future of what our Arizona looks like. It’s our responsibility to turn out. Every one of these votes and voters counts.”
Klobuchar then shifted the discussion to the undermining effects on Democracy resulting from Citizen’s United.
Mueller noted that $125 million in outside spending in 20 years prior to the Citizen’s decision and $1.6 billion in the ten years since. She also asserted that $1.1 billion was used in the campaign to pack the Supreme Court and overturn Roe v Wade.
She also said that the Citizen’s decision allowed the oil and gas industry to spend Republicans into climate change scientific denialism.
Fontes stressed that the “road through campaign finance goes through the Secretary of State’s office,” saying “If you don’t want people to know where you put your money, then that should say something. We will make every effort to make disclosure easier. You put a lot of sunshine on something it is going to disinfect it.”
Mabry called Citizens United a license for dark money spenders to spread misinformation and lies.
Senator Klobuchar closed the discussion, recounting the frightening ordeal of one of her major aides, Madeline (who was in attendance at today’s discussion), and another staffer called Tommy on January 6, 2021. Both, fearing for their lives at the hands of the insurrectionists (of whom Mr. Finchem was there,) were forced to hide in a closet with only a fork for protection when the insurrectionists-domestic terrorists stormed into the Capitol Halls when Arizona’s electoral count was being challenged.
Klobuchar ended by stating that the “Insurrection started with Arizona. It should end with Arizona when we celebrate Adrian’s victory.”
Please also watch Mr. Fonte’s appearance on Meet the Press last week where he assured Independent voters that he would be a safe, objective umpire of election results if he should become Secretary of State and not a fanatic-chaos-loving extremist like Mr. Finchem.
WATCH: Ariz. Democratic Sec. of State candidate @Adrian_Fontes assures Independent voters Democrats will play by the rules if elected.
"We're just going to call balls and strikes. … Winners win. Losers lose. And then we move on." pic.twitter.com/cGLlHkdkKu
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) September 7, 2022
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