Horne won’t protect Arizona kids. The Republican candidate for state superintendent, Tom Horne, has received intense public backlash for his association with disgraced former lawmaker David Stringer, who was charged with child sex crimes and has a history of making racist remarks. Horne has gone out of his way to defend Stringer. The half-hearted attempts by his campaign to distance himself are too little and too late. It was also reported on Friday that Horne repeatedly voted to reinstate a teacher who resigned for looking at pornographic content of a minor while in the classroom, and voted against harsher penalties for statutory rape. So far, the rest of the AZGOP has been silent.
Blake Masters (flip) flops. Blake Masters is pathetically trying to lie about his MAGA agenda to appeal to the majority of Arizonans who don’t share his values, and get elected. During the primary, Masters campaigned on a nationwide abortion ban, said that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, and referenced the racist Great Replacement theory that Democrats are “importing” immigrants as part of his immigration platform. Now, the Masters team is scrubbing his website and attempting (and failing) to moderate publicly, because they know that Arizonans won’t support this dangerous agenda. Sure enough, Masters is behind in the polls and in campaign fundraising, even despite the massive checks Big Tech billionaire Peter Thiel has written to fund his campaign.
ICYMI: The Arizona Supreme Court silenced voters, blocking a critical ballot measure that would have made voting more accessible for Arizonans. Organizers collected about 475,000 signatures for the Arizona Free and Fair Elections Act, double the required amount, yet the Ducey-stacked court voided over 280,000 of them. If the ballot measure had passed, it would have established same-day voter registration, as well as established protections for our elections in light of attacks by Republicans, preventing them from running partisan audits, restoring the permanent early voting list, and prohibiting the state Legislature from overturning federal election results.
A message from the King family. Watch this video from the family of Martin Luther King Jr. on the importance of voting during this critical time in our country.
Phochella is a community arts and culture music festival, focused on joy, activating youth of color, and celebrating the power of the vote. Join us and Fuerte Arts Movement, One Arizona, and Arizona AANHPI for Equity on September 24th, from 4:30 pm to midnight at Rancho Ochoa in Laveen!