#Arizona House of Representatives

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jaclyn Lee, Libby Cathey, Isabella Murray, Mike Pappano, and Gina Sunseri at ABC News:

Three Republicans on Wednesday joined Democrats in the Arizona House to vote to repeal the state's controversial 1864 ban on nearly all abortions, which was revived by a court ruling earlier this month and which only includes exceptions to save the life of the pregnant woman.

The final vote was 32-28. "I've known for a while that the votes were there, it just takes a lot of fortitude, a lot of spine," Democratic state Rep. Stephanie Stahl Hamilton, who sponsored the bill, told ABC News' Jaclyn Lee. Hamilton said she had several phone conversations with Republicans the night before the vote and while she would not divulge the details of those conversations, she said it made her cautiously optimistic. "The eyes of the world were watching Arizona, and that's not hyperbole, and so these are decisions that we need to make for people and if you were able to talk to folks in these districts, you would find that this is an issue where they are showing up and representing the people in their district, which is what they were elected to do," Hamilton said. The bill now heads to the state Senate where it could be taken up next week.

[...] The Senate on Wednesday separately conducted a second read of its own abortion ban repeal bill, without objection, setting up a parallel vote -- though that is likely moot now because the House bill has been approved. Two Republican senators have already said they will support the repeal effort, signaling the House bill should pass that chamber and then go to Gov. Katie Hobbs' desk to be signed into law. The repeal of the abortion ban would then take effect 90 days after the end of the legislative session, which must be before June 30.

[...] But leading conservatives like Trump, former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and Senate candidate Kari Lake have touted their general support for abortion restrictions while saying they don't back the 1864 ban.

On Wednesday, the Arizona House of Representatives voted 32-28 to repeal the 1864 near-total abortion ban. 3 Republicans crossed over to vote to repeal, along with all Democrats.

Next stop: the State Senate and then Gov. Katie Hobbs (D)'s desk.

See Also:

The Guardian: Arizona house votes to repeal state’s near-total ban on abortion

[harriswalz4usabybr]

Campaign Videos from Tonight's Down Ballot Strategy Dinner!

Indiana Gubernatorial Candidate - Jennifer McCormick

Montana Gubernatorial Candidate - Ryan Busse

US Congressional Candidate for AZ-6 - Kirsten Engel

US Congressional Candidate for CA-41 - Will Rollins

US Congressional Candidate for MI-8 - Kristen McDonald Rivet

US Senatorial Candidate for Arizona - Ruben Gallego

US Senatorial Candidate for West Virginia - Glenn Elliott

[whenweallvote]

Arizona 🏜️ is one the most tightly-divided swing states in the 2024 elections. Between elected officials and ballot measures, there’s a lot at stake for Arizona voters.

Swipe 👉🏽 to learn more about what Arizona voters may see on their ballots this November.

Don’t let anyone tell you your vote doesn’t count. Voters in Arizona will help determine the future of their state and the country. Make sure you are ready to make your voice heard at weall.vote/register!

[marvelsmostwanted]

Some snippets of good news (sorry for no sources, grabbing things from Twitter here)

• New York and Maryland have passed measures to protect abortion

• Ruben Gallego is projected to defeat Kari Lake for a much-needed Democratic Senate gain in Arizona (replacing Kysten Sinema, who had become an independent)

• Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester will become the first woman and first black person to represent Delaware in the Senate.

• Angela Alsobrooks will become the first black woman to represent Maryland in the Senate.

• ^This is the first time 2 black women have been elected to the US Senate at the same time. Only 3 black women have served in the Senate before them: Carol Moseley Braun, Kamala Harris, and Laphonza Butler, who is a current Senator (D-CA).

*Update:

• Sarah McBride (D-DE) will become the first transgender person to serve in the US House of Representatives.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Tim Murphy at Mother Jones:

Arizona’s fourth legislative district, located in the suburban heart of Maricopa County, might be the ultimate bellwether in the ultimate bellwether state. And this fall, the stakes are impossibly high, not just at the presidential level—where polls show Donald Trump and Kamala Harris in a dead heat—but all the way down the ballot. Republicans control both chambers of the legislature by just one vote. In Arizona, where each legislative district elects two representatives, control of the state house could come down to Democrats’ efforts to flip one seat and hold another in this district that includes parts of Phoenix and Scottsdale.

In their quest to hold onto the legislature, Republicans have turned to a member of a famous Arizona family—Pamela Carter, older sister of the original Wonder Woman, Lynda Carter. On the campaign trail, the candidate Carter has talked up her work as a successful entrepreneur and a record of academic accomplishment, and boasts of having “my family’s full support” for her state house run. But a review of her record and past statements tells a much different story: In contrast to the fourth district’s moderate profile, Carter is a fervently anti-abortion minister who has been “blessed with end-time revelation” and who has made confusing claims about her past. And one notable member of her family is not on board—her famous sister, an advocate for reproductive rights. “On her website, Pam claims to have her ‘family’s full support,'” Lynda Carter said in a statement to Mother Jones. “I have known Pam my entire life, which is why I sadly cannot endorse her for this or any public office.” 

Pamela Carter has offered an inconsistent accounting of her educational background. Her page at Ballotpedia states that she “earned a master’s degree in Communications and Biblical studies and attended Arizona State University,” which a spokesperson for the elections site confirmed was based on an informational survey that was “verified by the candidate.” “I was raised in Scottsdale, went right here to Arcadia High, ASU, and I just love our city,” she said on a podcast in 2022. This is technically true. Carter did attend ASU, and she does also have a master’s degree. But the reality of her resume is a bit more complicated. According to an ASU spokesperson, Carter was at one point enrolled at the university, but did not graduate. Instead, according to her LinkedIn page and other interviews, she attended an unspecified bible college in Kansas City, Missouri, and later received a master’s degree in “communications and media studies” from the Primus University of Theology, a Phoenix-based institution that affirms in its mission statement that “life begins at conception.” (One of the prerequisites for admission is that you order a copy of the founder’s book.) Primus, which aims to prepare its students “for their Ministry calling,” is not accredited by any agency recognized by the Department of Education. Instead, it cites the approval of the University Accreditation Association, which evaluates institutions on their adherence to “biblical truths.” Its degree programs are “designed for the specific and singular purpose of qualifying individuals for Christian Ministry.” But Carter has also described that degree differently in different contexts. Her campaign website during her unsuccessful 2022 campaign for Scottsdale city council said she held a “Master’s Degree in Business and Communications,” a claim she also repeated that year in an interview on a local podcast. In another video that year, she boasted of having a “master’s degree in theology, as well as in mass communications.” A current campaign biography states that “I received my master’s degree in Communications and Biblical studies.”

Carter, who did not respond to requests for comment, has leaned into her biography during her run for office, arguing that her business experiences give her an advantage in the political realm. Foremost among those ventures was Jon Cole Systems, a gym she once owned with her ex-husband, the powerlifter Jon Cole. Newspaper ads for the fitness center sometimes featured Lynda Carter, touting the benefits of Cole’s “TOTAL WOMAN” workout program. 

“It was the largest [gym] in the nation at the time,” Pamela Carter boasted in a 2022 interview, in which she suggested that working people struggling to find housing in Scottsdale needed to hustle as hard as she had when she owned two homes and was helping to run the business in the 1970s.

For a few years, the gym was a major success, with clients such as the Green Bay Packers and members of the Phoenix Suns. But it soon went downhill. The company pursued Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1982, and was sold for $60,000 the next year, according to an Arizona Republic report in 1983. The couple divorced around the same time. After the gym business fell through, Carter went on to a long career as a Christian wellness influencer, pitching the gospel alongside weight-loss and nutrition tips. She moved to California and hosted a fitness show called “Get in Shape with Pamela Carter” (on the Trinity Broadcasting Network) and another program on CBN called “Fit for Life.”

[...]

Carter was not just pitching products, though. She was selling a very particular kind of theology, rooted in a desire to see the United States “united for Jesus,” and a belief that modern-day prophets—like herself—were transmitting revelations from God. A biography at the ministry stated that Carter “is very passionate about her love for the Lord and has been blessed with end-time revelation of His desire for His bride.” (The full revelation was available for purchase for $25.) She talked frequently about building influence on the “Media mountain” and said in 2011 that she was part of “God’s media army…to be raised up for such a time as this, to take possession of the arts, the entertainment media, the internet.” The term is often used by proponents of a Christian nationalist movement sometimes called the New Apostolic Reformation and a belief its adherents subscribe to known as Seven Mountains Dominionism, which aims to take gain influence over the seven spheres (or “mountains”) of government, education, media, family, entertainment, religion, and business.

In response to a candidate questionnaire from the city of Scottsdale two years ago, Carter said she had “been involved…as a volunteer” with three churches or organizations, all of which had ties to the NAR. They included Intercessors for America, a national prayer organization that warns that “there is an Enemy of our souls and our nation who orchestrates a coordinated battle plan that is discernible and beatable with spiritual weapons.”  Another group she touted her work with was the Kansas City-based International House of Prayer, whose founding pastor, Mike Bickle, was dismissed last year amid allegations of sexual abuse. The church, where worship services have run 24/7 since 1999, has “been criticized by some pastors for what they describe as unorthodox theology and a cultish atmosphere, charges that Mr. Bickle rejects,” the New York Times reported in 2011. (In response to a Kansas City Star investigation into Bickle earlier this year, the organization emphasized that his alleged abuse predated the church’s creation, while Bickle has admitted to “inappropriate behavior” but not “the more intense sexual activities that some are suggesting.”) Long before he was forced out, Bickle had courted controversy with his assertions from the pulpit that Oprah was a forerunner of the Antichrist and that God sent Hitler to kill Jewish people because they wouldn’t accept Christianity.

[...] In that interview, Carter, who served that year as an advisor to the Trump campaign in the state, said she had acted as a prayer “intercessor” while working as a paid poll worker in Arizona. “I was dancing around, I had so much joy in just praying over every person that came in, you know, it was so fun,” she said. “But there’s also a lot of corruption I saw—not at the poll where I was working but at the election facility—and we just have to really watch and pray, watch and pray, and then you can cut that off in the spirit and then report it.”

[...] The district offers a glimpse of how reproductive rights is playing at the ballot box in a highly competitive area. Christine Marsh, the district’s Democratic state senator, won her election in 2022 by a little more than 1,000 votes by relentlessly linking a Republican incumbent to the state legislature’s 15-week abortion ban. The current Republican state representative, Matt Gress, was one of three members of his party to break ranks and vote to repeal Arizona’s 1864 abortion ban, which offered no exceptions even for cases of rape. A recent Fox News survey found that supporters of an abortion-rights ballot initiative in Arizona outnumber opponents by roughly three-to-one—and 50-percent of Republicans said they approved. Carter, though, has sung a different tune. 

Pamela Carter, the sister of Lynda Carter (who played Wonder Woman on the Wonder Woman show), is running for a State House seat in Arizona. Lynda is not backing her, citing Pamela’s anti-abortion views.

Read the full story at Mother Jones.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Molly Sprayregen at LGBTQ Nation:

The Arizona House’s speaker, Ben Toma (R), has punished Democrats for hosting a Drag Story Hour by banning the entire party from using House meeting rooms. The story hour took place on April 30 in the House basement and was hosted by nonbinary Rep. Lorena Austin (D) in partnership with Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona.

On X, Toma claimed that Austin “deliberately misled House leadership to reserve a conference room to host a drag story hour with Planned Parenthood” and that “use of House facilities for radical activism to promote dangerously perverse ideology will not be tolerated while I am Speaker.” “As a result,” he concluded, “I’ve ordered that Democrats have lost the privilege of accessing House meeting rooms until trust can be restored.” The Arizona Senate Republicans posted video of the event, along with a warning that it may not be suitable for children, despite the fact that nothing in the video is inappropriate. The post claimed the event was meant to “encourage parents to transition their kids.” “Your taxpayer dollars are hard at work to push child indoctrination and woke ideology onto our citizens. The madness must stop.” The video, however, merely shows a person in drag reading about trans activism and telling adults to listen to their children when they tell them who they are.

Arizona House Speaker Ben Toma (R) let his dragphobia out by punishing the entire House Democratic caucus, such as barring them from using House meeting rooms.

This is all because of a Drag Queen Story Hour hosted by State Rep. Lorena Austin (D).

See Also:

PinkNews: Arizona House Democrats blocked from using meeting rooms after Drag Story Hour held: ‘Disgusting abuse of power’

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Arit John and Cheri Mossburg at CNN:

CNN — 

The Republican-controlled Arizona House of Representatives once again failed to advance a repeal of the state’s 160-year-old abortion ban Wednesday, days after the state Supreme Court roiled state politics by reviving the law. The vote is a blow to reproductive rights as well as GOP candidates in competitive races, who have been scrambling to distance themselves from the court’s decision. Republicans facing competitive races in the state, including former President Donald Trump and US Senate candidate Kari Lake, called on the GOP-controlled legislature to work with Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs to take a more moderate path. On Wednesday, following two attempts to discuss a bill that would repeal Arizona’s 1864 ban on abortions, lawmakers voted not to discuss the measure on the House floor. The representatives’ votes were evenly split, with the chair making the tie-breaking decision. The bill itself was not brought up for a vote. “The last thing we should be doing today is rushing a bill through the legislative process to repeal a law that has been enacted and affirmed by the legislature several times,” House Speaker Ben Toma said during debate.

If the 1864 law were repealed, Arizona would revert back to a 15-week abortion restriction signed into law in 2022 by then-Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican. The state court delayed enforcement of the ban for at least 14 days to allow plaintiffs to challenge it, meaning abortions are still allowed in the state. The ban prohibits the procedure except to save the life of the pregnant person and threatens providers with prison sentences between two and five years. If the 1864 law goes into effect, Arizona would join 14 states that have passed near total abortion bans, some with no exceptions for victims of rape or incest. State lawmakers last week ended a House session early to block an effort to repeal the abortion ban. And on Monday, House Republicans’ general counsel laid out a strategy to defeat or dilute the impact of a potential abortion rights ballot initiative in a leaked memo.

Shame on the Arizona GOP lawmakers for voting against a bill that would repeal its draconian 1864 anti-abortion law.

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