Free Republic

Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs has vetoed a bill aimed at strengthening the rights of homeowners looking to evict squatters from their property, despite the bill being passed in bipartisan fashion and as a wave of squatting cases continue to terrify homeowners across the country. The bill, SB 1129, would have permitted a homeowner to request law enforcement to immediately remove a squatter from their property, had the squatter invaded a home and unlawfully claimed a right to live there. Police, acting on an owner’s affidavit, would have had the permission to immediately go in and have someone evicted. But...

An Arizona grand jury has indicted former Donald Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows and lawyer Rudy Giuliani along with 16 others in an election interference case. The indictment released Wednesday names 11 Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely declaring that Donald Trump beat Joe Biden in Arizona in the 2020 presidential election. It shows seven other defendants whose names were not immediately released because they had not yet been served with the charges. The Associated Press was able to determine the identities of the unnamed defendants based on their descriptions in the indictment. One is described as...

A state grand jury in Arizona on Wednesday indicted so-called "fake electors" who backed then-President Donald Trump in 2020, following a sprawling investigation into the alleged efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s win in the presidential election in the state. One month after the 2020 election, 11 Trump supporters convened at the Arizona GOP’s headquarters in Phoenix to sign a certificate claiming to be Arizona’s 11 electors to the Electoral College, though Biden won the state by 10,457 votes and his electors were certified by state officials. The state Republican Party documented the signing of the certificate in a social media...

The Arizona state House has bowed to the pro-abortion mob by approving a measure to repeal the state’s new abortion ban before it ever reached implementation to begin saving babies. With the ban repealed, babies would lose almost all protection in the state. A 15-week abortion ban would go into place that only allows protecting babies up to that point – meaning 90% of more abortions would become legal. The pro-life group Center for Arizona Policy lameted the vote in comments to LifeNews. “Today’s House vote to repeal the pre-Roe law opens the door to great loss of life for...

Republican Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake in an interview with an Idaho media outlet expressed disappointment that her state’s 1864 law banning nearly all abortions is not being enforced, backtracking on comments she made earlier this month when she said the resurrected measure went too far. “The Arizona Supreme Court said this is the law of Arizona. But unfortunately, the people running our state have said we’re not going to enforce it,” Lake said in a video interview with the Idaho Dispatch on Saturday. “We don’t have that law, as much as many of us wish we did,” she added....

Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs has vetoed a bill that would have allowed public schools to post displays of the Ten Commandments while also rejecting another bill that would have defined the term "sex" not to include gender identity. Hobbs vetoed Arizona Senate Bill 1628 last Tuesday, legislation that would have amended state sex discrimination laws and rules to replace the word "gender" with "sex," which emphasizes biological sex at birth and excludes gender identity. The bill, also referred to as the Arizona Women's Bill of Rights, passed Arizona's Republican-controlled Senate in February. Hobbs wrote in a brief letter to...

PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizona judge declares a mistrial Monday in the case of a rancher accused of fatally shooting a Mexican man on his property near the U.S.-Mexico border. George Alan Kelly, 75, was charged with second-degree murder in the Jan. 30, 2023, shooting of Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea, 48, who lived just south of the border in Nogales, Mexico. Kelly recklessly fired nine shots from an AK-47 rifle toward a group of men, including Cuen-Buitimea, about 100 yards (90 meters) away on his cattle ranch, prosecutors said. Kelly has said he fired warning shots in the air, but he didn’t...

Apparently there is an emergency that not enough babies are being killed in California. Never mind that California allows abortions up to birth and funds abortions at taxpayer expense. Now, Governor Gavin Newsom is proposing “emergency” legislation to allow Arizona abortionists to come to California to kill more babies in abortions. The move comes after the Arizona Supreme Court upheld an abortion ban that protects babies from abortions but allows an abortion if needed to save a woman’s life in an emergency. Hence, there is no emergency – because all emergency care is allowed in Arizona for pregnant women, including...

On April 9, the Arizona Supreme Court allowed an 1864 law to be enforced that effectively restricted abortion in all cases except when the life of the mother is in danger. The decision has supercharged the issue of abortion amid an already-contentious election year, forcing Republicans running in the battleground state to address not only the ruling, but the legal status of abortion itself. Conversations with strategists and campaigns reveal that many Republicans are acutely aware of the impact the Arizona Supreme Court’s ruling could have on races up and down the ballot. However, there is no consensus on how...

The Supreme Court brushed aside a lawsuit Monday from Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake challenging the use of electronic voting machines in Arizona. Lake, who filed the lawsuit during her failed campaign for governor in 2022, challenged whether the state’s electronic voting machines assured “a fair and accurate vote.” Two lower courts dismissed the suit, finding that Lake and former Republican state lawmaker Mark Finchem had not been harmed in a way that allowed them to sue. Calling the precise nature of Lake’s claim “not clear,” the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals said the lawsuit was based on speculative...

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) became the third Republican to co-sponsor a motion to vacate House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) shortly after the House advanced the speaker’s four-pronged foreign aid plan to a final passage vote. Gosar joins Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) in supporting vacating Johnson from the top leadership position after Democrats helped Johnson push a procedural rule vote over the finish line — a sign that certain House Republicans are growing frustrated with the speaker’s leadership. “I have added my name in support of the motion to vacate the Speaker,” Gosar said in a...

A verdict is due imminently in the case of George Alan Kelly, a 75-year-old Arizona rancher accused of fatally shooting an unarmed migrant on his property near the U.S.-Mexican border in January 2023. Illegal migration has surged over the past couple of years, particularly after the end of coronavirus era restrictions. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection figures there were 9.8 million encounters between law enforcement and irregular migrants between October 2019 and January 2024, a figure nearly equal to the population of Michigan. Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has claimed irregular immigration has created a "bloodbath"...

BISBEE, Ariz. — Boots dusty, lungs heaving, Dr. John Wiens searched the boulders of a desolate Arizona mountaintop for the last survivors of a 3-million-year-old lizard population — then said the words that both confirmed his life's work and broke his heart. "They're not there," he said. "It seems like the species is now extinct." The loss of plant and animal species on Earth is happening at a speed never seen in human history, according to the United Nations. That includes the likely extinction of the lizards Wiens has studied for 10 years — the population of Yarrow's spiny lizards...

A top leader of the national conservative group Turning Point Action, which has amplified false claims of election fraud by former president Donald Trump and others, resigned Thursday after being accused of forging voter signatures on official paperwork so that he could run for reelection in the Arizona House. State Rep. Austin Smith (R) — who was senior director at Turning Point Action, the campaign arm of Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA — was accused by a Democratic activist of submitting petition sheets with rows of voter names, addresses and signatures that “bear a striking resemblance” to Smith’s handwriting, according...

As it stands, liberal Arizona voting laws have paved the way for non-citizens, whether they are legal or not, to register for and cast a ballot in the 2024 presidential election. U.S. Air Force master sergeant Nick Kupper, who is one of several state legislature candidates vying for a seat in the Arizona House of Representatives’ District 25. While the voting laws do not affect his run for office, he is gravely concerned about the upcoming presidential race. “In Arizona,” Kupper said, “even if the state can’t verify whether you’re a citizen, people can still assert that they are citizens.”...

Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that women in his state could die from a 123-year-old law that bans nearly all abortions except to save the life of the mother. Partial transcript as follows: MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about what’s happening in your home state of Arizona, as you know the State Court ruled an 1864 Civil War era law can take effect that would criminalize abortion, it’s on hold at the moment, but this is a live issue. Do you have confidence that your state legislators will take action before it...

Several frustrated House Republicans are breaking with congressional norms to boost the primary opponent of House Freedom Caucus chairman Bob Good. The Virginia Republican was one of eight lawmakers who voted to remove their party’s leader, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, in October. McCarthy, who resigned in December, now plans to return the favor. McCarthy, and his friends on the Hill, including House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., have endorsed and fundraised for Good’s primary challenger, state Sen. John McGuire, CNN reported on Sunday. The delayed fallout from the removal of McCarthy forms...

March 29 to April 3; N=600 RV; Trump 44, Biden 38, Other 13

Governor Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) said Friday on ABC’s “The View” that women in her state will die because of the reinstated abortion ban from 1864. Hobbs said, “This is absolutely outrageous, and, you know, we can talk about how crazy it is that a law passed in 1864 by 27 men now controls the lives of millions of Arizona women, but I want to talk about the effect that’s going to have on women in our state.” She added, “I, myself, have personally experienced a miscarriage, losing a pregnancy by miscarriage and the treatment for that is a procedure that...

Senate candidate Kari Lake has made calls to state lawmakers to push for the repeal of Arizona's Civil War-era abortion ban, according to a Republican legislator who spoke about receiving a call from her. The GOP-controlled Legislature is considering its next steps after the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the state's 1864 near-total ban on abortion is enforceable. The Arizona House convenes again Wednesday. Lake's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday evening on her lobbying of state lawmakers. Lake, who has said she opposes the court's ruling, is among the many Arizona Republicans who...