A couple of days after the latest revelations that families enrolled in the Empowerment Scholarship Account Welfare for the Wealthy Private School Voucher Scam Program have been getting away with questionable purchases under $2,000 of working and middle class taxpayer money for items like lingerie, diamond rings, and above ground pools, 12 News Muckraking Reporter Craig Harris held an exclusive interview with Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes on what actions her office will take towards these apparent abusers of the one billion dollar program.
Arizona’s Attorney General has already earned a positive reputation of going after ESA grifters, including those who created phantom-ghost students.
Talking to Harris, a “livid” Attorney General Mayes, critical of Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne’s decision to process these reimbursements $2,000 or under with no questions asked and the allowance for ESA families to hoard $444 million dollars for post school expenses, said:
“I think that every Arizona taxpayer has every right to be demanding what in the hell is going on inside both the ESA program, but also the Department of Education tonight?”
“The legislature, and especially in particular the Republicans in the legislature, because they’re the ones that allowed us to get to this point where taxpayer money is being used for diamonds and lingerie, and all of the other things that you mentioned…I was outraged. We intend to ask Tom Horne some hard questions about this. We have a public monies investigation into the ESA program, and this is only going to ramp that up. I would also say that litigation is on the table based on your reporting.”
“Now that we know that this money has been spent on diamonds, you have to ask the question. Could somebody go spend 250 000 on a down payment on a house? There are so few guidelines around this program.”
“We have the ability to investigate and enforce the law as well. This scandal is all could ultimately crater the entire program, and that would be catastrophic for those families who really need it.”
In Harris’s report, Horne, a possible target of an Attorney General investigation, blamed the legislature (run by his own party) and Governor Katie Hobbs (who has called for reforms of the ESA program,) for not giving his Department more staff to better scrutinize these reimbursement requests.
He also claimed that his ESA team has “recovered” $622,000 in fraudulent expenses from 197 applicants, about one percent of the requests and 400 of the ESA accounts have been suspended.
While Mayes indicated investigations were coming and Horne was boasting that his office was uncovering and stopping the fraud and abuse, MAGA zealots Arizona State Republican Senator Jake ‘Troll Farm’ Hoffman and former legislator Liz Harris called on State Republican Party Chair Gina Swoboda to resign.
Her sin.
Calling on an audit on ESA expenses.
In reporting from KJZZ, Hoffman and Harris, aghast at their Party Chair speaking in favor of fiscal prudence and accountability at the expense of their plutocratic top one percent and White Nationalist home school base, said in a joint statement:
“Gina Swoboda’s recent Katie Hobbs-style attacks on Arizona’s signature school choice program are deeply troubling and a gift horse for Democrats in the 2026 election. Arizona Republican grassroots deserve a Chairman who fights for their conservative values, not one that parrots the liberal media talking points to attack school choice.”
In response to the Swoboda comments favoring audits of ESA expenses, Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs posted:
“Republicans, independents and Democrats agree: the ESA entitlement program needs accountability. Arizona taxpayers should not have their hard-earned money wasted on diamond rings and lingerie. I’m ready to work across the aisle to get it done.”
On Mayes comments and MAGA Republicans avoiding reality by eating their own, Democratic Senate Leader Priya Sundareshan commented to Blog for Arizona:
“We are so thankful to have an Attorney General in Kris Mayes who is vigilant about guarding our public tax dollars and upholding the guarantees in the AZ Constitution of appropriate funding of public education. This revelation of just how wasteful and fraudulent the universal ESA voucher program is underlines the need to investigate it thoroughly and institute safeguards against the improper spending it enables.
We are glad to see even Republicans recognize the waste enabled by the current voucher program, and this intraparty fight shows how extreme Legislative Republicans are in clinging to a wasteful and fraudulent program.”
Democratic House Leader Oscar De Los Santos also commented to Blog for Arizona:
“Republican politicians are running scared and hiding from their constituents, refusing to answer why they’re allowing taxpayer dollars to be spent on diamond rings and lingerie. I’m grateful to have Attorney General Mayes in office — someone who actually gives a damn about protecting taxpayer dollars, upholding the rule of law, and who is unafraid to go after fraudsters.”
Dr. Teresa Leyba Ruiz, Democratic Candidate to replace Tom Horne as Superintendent, offered to the Blog:
“On behalf of the 65% of Arizonans who voted against the ESA program, I’d like to thank AG Mayes for trying to protect us—the taxpayers. The vast majority of us did not consent to having our dollars go towards other people’s vacations.
Republicans deliberately built this voucher mess over decades, and now they’re fighting each other over who holds the bag? There’s no honor among thieves or co-conspirators. If they speak out against this waste, fraud, and abuse, they will be primaried. Their allegiance isn’t to the public; it’s to protecting each other.”
Tyler Kowch, the Communications Manager for Save Our Schools Arizona, relayed to the Blog:
“We are grateful that Attorney General Mayes is standing up to the rampant waste, fraud, and abuse in the ESA voucher program. Like we warned in 2022 when the legislature was debating this expansion, the total lack of accountability in the program leaves it wide open to bad actors. Legislative Republicans calling for their state party chair’s resignation for merely suggesting that some guardrails may be necessary shows just how completely out of touch they are. They should follow the lead of their constituents, 80% of whom believe that the voucher schools should be held to the same standards as our public schools.”
Discover more from Blog for Arizona
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Thanks to our investigative journalism, our public advocacy organizations, our elected public servants like Attorney General Mayes and others, the majority of Arizona families and children who attend public school may yet see justice and equal resources. But it will only happen if all of us get behind their efforts and bring out enough voters to change the way we fund our schools here in Arizona and across the nation. Government, like everything else, is only as good as the people who have the power to make the right decisions and make them happen.