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☆ Arizona suburb sues the city of Scottsdale for cutting off its water supply
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-17 | by ( Emma Newburger | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

A saguaro-cactus lined road where new homes are being built in in Rio Verde Foothills, Arizona, on January 7, 2023. An Arizona suburb has filed a lawsuit against the city of Scottsdale after the city cut off the community from its municipal water supply amid extreme drought conditions and declining water levels in the Colorado River. In the lawsuit, filed Thursday in Maricopa County Superior Court, residents in the unincorporated community of Rio Verde Foothills are seeking an injunction against Scottsdale to force the city to resume water services. The dispute comes after the federal government last year announced unprecedented water cuts in Arizona due to water shortages along the Colorado River. Earlier this month, hundreds of homes outside of Scottsdale could no longer access water from the city, leaving residents with no reliable source of water.

Arizona Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs is taking the state’s child protective services agency in a radically different direction in the wake of a ProPublica-NBC News investigation into the racial disparities that have plagued the child welfare system here. This week, Hobbs, a Democrat, announced that she has selected Matthew Stewart, a Black community advocate, as the new head of Arizona’s Department of Child Safety. Arizona’s child welfare system has long disproportionately investigated Black families. After leaving DCS, Stewart formed the community organization Our Sister Our Brother, which has fought the department for more equitable treatment of Black and also low-income parents. Child welfare experts in the state and families affected by the system praised Stewart’s selection, though some wondered how much change he could bring about even in DCS’ top position.

☆ America's democracy survived Trump in 2022. But what about 2023?
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-30 | by ( Tara Setmayer | Tara Setmayer Is A Resident Scholar At The University Of Virginia Center For Politics | A Senior Adviser At The Lincoln Project. She Is A Former Gop Congressional Communications Director. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

That led hundreds of election deniers to run for offices across the country in 2022. But in 2022, American democracy became an issue outside the political norm for voters’ consideration. But it wasn’t just the outcome of the election that signaled that our democracy was still holding on in 2022. Thankfully, the majority of them did, with the exception of professional election deniers like Kari Lake, who lost the Arizona governor’s race to Katie Hobbs. Not since the tumultuous political climate of the 1930s has American democracy faced such a perilous era.

☆ Trump's lawyers keep getting slammed for filing conspiratorial lawsuits. Here are the 16 sanctioned so far.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-27 | by ( Jacob Shamsian | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

Lawyers representing Trump keep getting sanctioned by courts. Sixteen different lawyers have been sanctioned over failed lawsuits brought on the former president's behalf. Many of Trump's lawyers, even if they are not sanctioned, end up needing lawyers of their own to ward off the worst consequences. Still, as many 16 lawyers have been personally sanctioned because of their work for Trump, and Insider has compiled a list. The least successful, however, was a sprawling lawsuit Trump filed against Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, and several other figures linked to Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign.

☆ Arizona governor-elect asks court to sanction election denier Lake
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-26 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Dec 26 (Reuters) - Arizona's Democratic Governor-elect Katie Hobbs asked a court on Monday to sanction defeated Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake over her failed effort to overturn the state's election results. Hobbs joined a motion by Maricopa County for sanctions on Lake and her attorneys in which the county's deputy attorney Thomas P. Liddy wrote Lake filed a "groundless" lawsuit for a "frivolous pursuit," court documents showed. Her suit claimed "hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots infected the election" in Maricopa, the state's most populous county. In a separate court filing, Hobbs also asked the Superior Court in Maricopa County to award her over $600,000 to compensate for fees and expenses accrued in defending against Lake's lawsuit. Lake was one of the most prominent of the Trump-aligned Republican candidates who lost battleground state races in the midterm elections.

Three buses coming from Texas dropped off about 140 recent migrants — including babies and young children — near Vice President Kamala Harris’ residence in Washington, D.C. in historically frigid temperatures on Saturday evening. But immigration activists said Saturday’s incident was particularly cruel because of the freezing temperatures in Washington, D.C., and because of the fact that it occurred on Christmas Eve. Madhvi Bahl, an organizer with the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network, confirmed the arrival of the migrants on Saturday to NBC News. The buses dropped the migrants near Harris’ residence at the Naval Observatory. There have been several instances of migrants being dropped off outside, or near, Harris’ residence.

☆ Migrants dropped near home of Vice President Kamala Harris on frigid Christmas Eve
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-25 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Local organizers in Washington say three buses of recent migrant families arrived from Texas near the home in record-setting cold on Christmas Eve. Three buses of recent migrant families arrived from Texas near the home of Vice President Kamala Harris in the record-setting cold on Christmas Eve. Local organizers had expected the buses to arrive Sunday but found out Saturday that the group would get to Washington early, Laborde said. It was the coldest Christmas Eve on record for Washington, according to the Washington Post. Laborde said employees had blankets ready for the people who arrived on Christmas Eve and moved them quickly onto waiting buses for a ride to an area church.

☆ Kari Lake loses suit over her defeat in Arizona governor’s race
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-24 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

In a decision Saturday, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson, who was appointed by then-Republican Gov. While most of the other election deniers around the country conceded after losing their races in November, Lake has not. Lawyers for Lake focused on problems with ballot printers at some polling places in Maricopa County, home to more than 60% of Arizona’s voters. The defective printers produced ballots that were too light to be read by the on-site tabulators at polling places. Earlier on Friday, another judge dismissed Republican Abraham Hamadeh’s challenge of results in his race against Democrat Kris Mayes for Arizona attorney general.

☆ Kari Lake loses lawsuit over her defeat in Arizona governor’s race
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-24 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Republican candidate for Arizona Governor Kari Lake speaks at the Republican Party of Arizona's 2022 U.S. midterm elections night rally in Scottsdale, Arizona, U.S., November 8, 2022. In a decision Saturday, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson, who was appointed by then-Republican Gov. While most of the other election deniers around the country conceded after losing their races in November, Lake has not. The defective printers produced ballots that were too light to be read by the on-site tabulators at polling places. Earlier on Friday, another judge dismissed Republican Abraham Hamadeh's challenge of results in his race against Democrat Kris Mayes for Arizona attorney general.

Doug Ducey has agreed to dismantle a makeshift border wall that triggered a lawsuit by the federal government and rankled environmentalists. The agreement comes one week after federal officials filed a lawsuit against Ducey’s administration saying the border project was illegally built on federal land. Protesters spent weeks camping in freezing temperatures along the border wall, and had vowed to stay there until the containers were removed. Karamargin said the assurance from federal officials paved the way for Ducey to agree to remove the shipping containers. The shipping container project cost Arizona at least $82 million, Karamargin said.

☆ Republicans boost outgoing Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey as a potential challenger to Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema in 2024
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-18 | by ( John L. Dorman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Republicans hope that outgoing Arizona Gov. "I hope that he'll get in," Utah Sen. Mitt Romney told The Hill of a potential Ducey candidacy. Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, told The Hill that Ducey would be "excellent candidate." This year, Arizona Republicans nominated venture capitalist Blake Masters as their Senate nominee, but he went on to lose to Kelly by 5 points last month. "He's not our only chance, but he's probably our best chance," an Arizona-based Republican operative told The Hill of Ducey.

After a two-week standoff between protesters and construction crews building a border wall made of shipping containers, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Arizona, accusing it of trespassing on federal land. "Arizona has unlawfully and without authority failed to remove the shipping containers from lands owned by the United States or over which the United States holds easements, thereby damaging the United States," the complaint reads. In August, Ducey issued an executive order directing the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs to fill gaps in the existing border wall in Yuma County using shipping containers. Important waterways are being damaged or altered by the placement of shipping containers on land that serves as important habitats and crossings, including for endangered species, he said. "Under the Clean Water Act, they have created a dam with those shipping containers and it just looks like a junkyard now."

☆ DOJ sues Arizona for placing shipping containers at the border
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Taylor Romine | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —The federal government is suing Arizona for placing shipping containers at the border as a temporary wall, according to court documents filed Wednesday. Doug Ducey, a Republican, issued an executive order telling the state’s Department of Emergency and Military Affairs to use shipping containers to fill in gaps along the border, and did so without official permits or authorization, CNN previously reported. The federal government has been battling with the state ever since to get the containers removed, according to the lawsuit. “Not only has Arizona refused to halt its trespasses and remove the shipping containers from federal lands, but it has indicated that it will continue to trespass on federal lands and install additional shipping containers,” the lawsuit states. “Arizona stands ready to cooperate with the federal government on construction of a border wall and always has been,” the letter from Ducey’s office said.

☆ Opinion: Arizona governor’s border wall of crates is ‘wildly ineffective’
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( ) edition.cnn.com time to read: 1 min

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☆ Arizona Gov. Ducey ordered stacked shipping containers with razor wire to be used as a makeshift border wall over federal objections
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-11 | by ( Katie Balevic | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Doug Ducey has ordered shipping containers be used as a border wall. Governor-elect Katie Hobbs said the barrier is "not effective" and called for cooperation with the federal government. Doug Ducey has ordered empty shipping containers to be stacked on top of one another and topped with razor wire as a makeshift border wall, in the face of federal objections. In August, Ducey ordered the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs to use the containers to secure gaps along the state's southern border, particularly near Yuma, according to CNN. "I think what we need to do is look at how we can cooperate with the federal government on border security issues," Hobbs said.

Put another way, more Black children in metro Phoenix will go through a child maltreatment investigation than won’t. Almost all described a system so omnipresent among Black families that it has created a kind of communitywide dread: of that next knock on the door, of that next warrantless search of their home. Many Black families first moved there as a result of redlining and racial covenants that blocked them from renting or owning property elsewhere. In Maricopa County, Black children experienced child welfare investigations at one of the highest rates among large counties nationally, and nearly three times the rate of their white peers, from 2015 to 2019. But throughout the country, investigations were more pervasive among Black families.

☆ Maricopa County report rebuffs claims by Republicans who sowed doubt on election integrity
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-28 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Summer-Concepcion-Byline-Jm.Jpg | Summer Concepcion | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

Officials in Arizona's largest county are blaming prominent Republicans for sowing doubt about a secure alternative for voters who encountered malfunctioning vote tabulation machines on Election Day. Maricopa County issued a report on the voting glitches Sunday, a day before it is set certify the results of the November election and a week after the state's Republican attorney general's office demanded answers on widespread voting machine glitches on Election Day. Some GOP politicians and pundits swiftly seized on those issues to push misleading or false information. Lake, who lost to Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, attacked Maricopa County officials over both the technical issues on Election Day and the prolonged vote count. Last week, Maricopa County confirmed that Bill Gates, the chairman of the county’s board of supervisors, had been moved to an undisclosed location for his safety following threats on social media related to the midterm elections.

☆ Republicans in one Arizona county refuse to certify election results
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-28 | by ( Ned Parker | Linda So | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

-Republican officials who have embraced voter fraud theories resisted certifying the midterm election results in one Arizona county on Monday, defying a state deadline and setting the stage for a legal battle. REUTERS/Jim UrquhartoIn Cochise County, a conservative stronghold in southeastern Arizona, the two Republican members of the three-person board of supervisors voted to postpone certifying the county’s election results. On Monday, the Mohave board ultimately certified its election results but also criticized Maricopa’s performance. Arizona law requires counties to certify election results by Nov. 28, ahead of the state’s certification on Dec. 5. “In the last year, it’s become an unprecedented dereliction of duty for county officials to violate their oaths of office and refuse to certify election results, citing ‘gut feelings’ or alleged problems in jurisdictions other than their own,” Becker said.

☆ In Arizona, election deniers refuse to back down
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-28 | by ( Ned Parker | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

FILE PHOTO: Supporters of Republican candidate for Arizona Governor Kari Lake and Republican U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters protest outside the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center as vote counting continues inside, in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S., November 12, 2022. The defeat of Lake and other election deniers was seen as a powerful rebuke of candidates who echoed Trump’s myths of a stolen election. Republican activists urged voters not to use the secure box on Election Day, according to Maricopa County officials. Maricopa County on Sunday released a report detailing voter numbers by location on Election Day and was scheduled to certify election results on Monday. DELAYS IN CERTIFICATIONElsewhere in Arizona, two conservative counties, Mohave and Cochise, do not plan to certify election results until Monday, the final day to formally do so, following pressure by election deniers.

☆ Defeated Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake files lawsuit against Maricopa County officials, requesting records about printer issues on Election Day
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-26 | by ( John L. Dorman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Kari Lake filed a public records lawsuit against Maricopa County, Ariz., over the election, per AP. Lake, who ran for governor, has flagged several voting issues as ones that disenfranchised voters. Maricopa, the most populous county in the state, is set to certify its election results on Monday. Lake, a former television journalist, was edged out by Arizona Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in the general election 50.3%-49.7%. But Lake, who has refused to acknowledge Biden's 2020 win in Arizona, has so far declined to concede to Hobbs.

☆ Arizona's Republican governor congratulated his Democratic successor despite her Trump-backed opponent refusing to concede
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-24 | by ( Tom Porter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

This despite Hobbs' GOP opponent Kari Lake refusing to concede the race. Doug Ducey congratulated Democrat Katie Hobbs on Wednesday, after she secured enough votes to succeed him, despite the refusal of her Trump-backed GOP rival, Kari Lake, to accept defeat. Trump famously refused to accept defeat in the state after the 2020 presidential election, and stirred baseless voter fraud allegations. Arizona state election authorities have said there were printing issues with voting machines in around 70 voting centers, but that this did not prevent any voters from casting their ballots. Support for his election fraud "Big Lie" was one of the key criteria Trump used to select the candidates he endorsed in the 2022 midterms.

☆ Fact Check-No evidence Arizona governor-elect talked about ‘turning off voting machines’
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-23 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

There is no evidence that Katie Hobbs, the governor-elect of Arizona, has spoken about “turning off voting machines” to “protect democracy.” An image shared on social media falsely attributes these quotes to Hobbs and some are pointing to them as signs of election fraud in the state. An image purporting to show that Katie Hobbs allegedly said: “Turning Off Voting Machines Was Necessary to Protect Democracy” can be seen (here). The source cited for the quote, “Manta Tribune,” is presented with calligraphy-style typography that can be mistaken as a news agency. Reuters has searched for the quote online using the keywords (www.bit.ly/3AA0Rja) and found two results from humor-based websites (here) and (here). There is no evidence of Katie Hobbs saying that voting machines were turned off to protect democracy, and a spokesperson for Hobbs confirmed to Reuters that the quote has been misattributed.

☆ Maricopa County elections official moved to 'undisclosed location' for his safety following social media threat
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-21 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Summer-Concepcion-Byline-Jm.Jpg | Summer Concepcion | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

A top elections official in Maricopa County, Arizona, has been moved to an undisclosed location for his safety following threats on social media related the midterm elections, the county confirmed to NBC News on Monday. The official, Bill Gates, the chairman of the Maricopa County board of supervisors, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday. Election workers like Gates have experienced a rise in threats following the 2020 election and former President Donald Trump’s election lies. No one has been disenfranchised,” Gates told reporters in downtown Phoenix on Election Day, following reports of equipment problems. “We have hiccups,” Gates told NBC News at the time.

☆ Tom Petty's estate slams Kari Lake, who lost the Arizona governor race, for using his song 'I Won't Back Down' in her campaign: 'This is illegal'
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-19 | by ( Isabella Zavarise | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Tom Petty's estate criticized Kari Lake's campaign for using his song "I Won't Back Down." "This is illegal," the estate tweeted, adding that Lake's campaign used the song without permission. On Thursday, Petty's estate tweeted that the 1989 hit song was "stolen and used without permission or a license to promote Kari Lake's failed campaign." The Arizona Republic reported that Lake's campaign used the song in a YouTube montage of her on the campaign trial that has since been taken down. This wasn't the first time Petty's estate has called out a politician for using the artist's music.

☆ Oh, Trump Believes in Yesterday
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( Karl Rove | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Donald Trump hates not being the center of attention. So on Tuesday he announced a third run for the presidency, even though Republicans rightly worry his announcement will change the Georgia Senate runoff from a referendum on President Biden to one on Mr. Trump. Fox News exit polls in Georgia showed Mr. Trump’s favorables were 44% and his unfavorables 54%, with 45% very unfavorable. Even some of the former president’s supporters hoped he would stay off the stage at least until after the runoff. But seething from the defeat of so many of his endorsed candidates, and agitated that the spotlight was on other potential 2024 GOP contenders, Mr. Trump filed to run hours after one of his favorite candidates, Kari Lake , was declared the loser in the Arizona governor’s race.

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