Arizona House Republicans Expel One of Their Own The New York Times

Table Of Content

• Courts and lawmakers act on transgender kids’ rights
• Arizona House Rep. Liz Harris ousted for violating ethics rules
• Role Spreading Multiple Conspiracies Following the 2020 Election
• Ethics Allegation for Dishonest Non Disclosure
• How will Harris get replaced, and who picks the replacement?
• Grand jury indicts two Cochise County supervisors on felony charges tied to election canvass delays

When Hobbs, a Democrat, won the governorship in November, Harris said she would not vote for anything unless there was a revote of the 2022 election. The expulsion in Arizona follows the expulsions — for different reasons — of two Black lawmakers in Tennessee. Democrats Justin J. Pearson and Justin Jones were kicked out by a Republican supermajority after the pair — alongside Rep. Gloria Johnson, who is white — led a protest from the House floor calling for reforms to gun laws. It's the second time in six years the House has voted to kick out one of its own. The notable move to expel Harris, who's pushed baseless claims about the 2020 and 2022 elections, comes as members of the state's Republican Party have in recent years led Arizona to become a hive of election denialism. Barton asked the House Ethics Committee to rebuke the complaint from Republicans and accused them of attempting to equate the actions from De Los Santos and Ortiz to people who were present at the January 6, 2021 U.S.

Courts and lawmakers act on transgender kids’ rights

Harris represented one of the most competitive legislative districts in the state in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler. Both parties had been anticipating she would face a difficult reelection campaign next year. Critics described Ms. Breger’s more than 40-minute presentation as a publicity stunt and said that Ms. Harris knew ahead of time that it would be laden with wild and baseless conspiracy theories.

Arizona House Rep. Liz Harris ousted for violating ethics rules

It just comes down to that simple principle,” said Rep. David Livingston, a Republican from Peoria. On Tuesday, the House Ethics Committee released a report saying Harris broke ethics rules when she invited a guest that made unsubstantiated claims at a February joint committee hearing. Harris, formerly R-District 13 in the East Valley, was expelled after a legislative ethics committee report found she damaged "the institutional integrity of the House" after she invited Jacqueline Breger to publicly speak before a group of lawmakers.

Role Spreading Multiple Conspiracies Following the 2020 Election

The ethics report also found that Harris lied to the panel when she claimed she had no idea Breger would make such wild accusations. That was problematic enough to merit the ethics investigation and expulsion, according to House Speaker Ben Toma, a Republican and one of the lawmakers falsely accused of criminal activity. A bipartisan, two-thirds majority of the GOP-led House voted Wednesday to kick out Liz Harris, a freshman lawmaker from Chandler, a suburb of Phoenix. This Chandler far-right Republican first surfaced in public view during the bad old days of the Arizona Senate’s now-infamous Cyber Ninja Audit, when she ran an absurd door knocking “canvass” and claimed to have found massive fraud in the 2020 election. A prominent supporter of discredited election conspiracies, she was also found by the House Ethics Committee to have engaged in "disorderly behavior" in violation of the chamber’s rules. All Democrats and most Republicans voted to expel Harris, getting the necessary two-thirds of the House to pass the resolution.

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Her removal came less than a week after Tennessee Republicans voted to expel two Black Democrats, a decision that made that state a new front in the battle for the future of American democracy. There are many people I look up to, but I would have to say that President Abraham Lincoln is at the top of the list. Up until recent events, President Lincoln led this country through its toughest times. He was born into poverty, he self-educated himself, and despite all odds against him he eventually became one of the most memorable Presidents of the United States. His famous speech, the Gettysburg Address, became such a historic event that often it is part of today's 5th grade curriculum to be memorized! The themes of that speech hold true value to me - equal rights, liberty, nationalism, republicanism and democracy.

How will Harris get replaced, and who picks the replacement?

The expulsion vote took effect immediately, leaving a vacancy in the state house. Republican Precinct Committee members in District 13 will now select three Republican finalists to fill Harris’ seat. I think that the decision to expel,I know that there are a lot of precinct committeemen that are not happy with it,” said Sen. J.D. Mesnard, a Republican from Harris’ district. The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors will select one of the three finalists to serve the remainder of Harris’ term in office. They’re widely shared among right wing media figures and carry the imprimatur of an official legislative proceeding. Harris narrowly won her election in 2022 in a swing district in Phoenix’s suburbs.

Gilbert insurance agent Jacqueline Breger also claimed during the February hearing that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints “controls” the government and played a key role in money laundering schemes. A bipartisan, two-thirds majority of the House voted Wednesday to kick out Harris, an election-denying freshman lawmaker from Chandler, a suburb of Phoenix. PHOENIX - The Arizona House has voted to expel Republican state lawmaker Liz Harris.

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On April 12, 2023, Harris was expelled from the Republican-controlled legislature for inviting a speaker who promulgated conspiracy theories before a joint hearing of the House and Senate elections committees. PHOENIX – The Arizona House voted to expel Republican Rep. Liz Harris on Wednesday for letting a witness make wide-ranging accusations of bribery during a February hearing about election reforms. Arizona Republican lawmakers have given wide leeway for people claiming to be election experts to share unsubstantiated or disproven claims in hearings at the Capitol. But GOP legislative leaders raced to distance themselves from Breger’s claims and pin blame on Harris.

But a video of her testimony exploded on the internet in the days following the hearing. As Harris left, the now ex-lawmaker called the ethics report "a lie," and said "God knows the truth." Prior to her expulsion, Harris represented the state's 13th Legislative District, which covers a portion of the East Valley. The Speaker of the State House, Republican Ben Toma, said Harris' expulsion is necessary, and taht she was held accountable for bad behavior. The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors will choose from a list of three candidates nominated by the GOP precinct committeemen in her district. A prominent supporter of discredited election conspiracies, she was also found by the House Ethics Committee to have engaged in “disorderly behavior” in violation of the chamber’s rules.

The move leaves the southeast Valley’s District 13 seat vacant and trims the Republican advantage in the House to until it is filled. Ballotpedia features 486,894 encyclopedic articles written and curated by our professional staff of editors, writers, and researchers. In one of the text messages, Breger told Harris she was “trying to think of something that won’t raise a red flag” when naming her presentation, a sign that Harris knew of the extreme allegations the presenter would bring up.

PHOENIX - Expelled Republican lawmaker Liz Harris will not be sent back to the Arizona House of Representatives, Maricopa County officials announced on May 5. Rep. Travis Grantham, a Gilbert Republican serving on the Ethics Committee, said the panel’s conclusions made him “sick to my stomach,” but he stood by the factual evidence that showed Harris lied to the panel. On April 11, the House Ethics Committee issued a report saying Harris broke a rule during an election presentation. The final vote on Wednesday was 46 to 13, with 18 Republicans joining the 28 Democrats in approving the expulsion. Harris, elected for the first time in 2022, made a controversial name for herself early by announcing she would not cast her vote on any bill unless the 2022 election was redone. She issued the statement on Instagram and her campaign website saying in part "it has become obvious that we need to hold a new election immediately."

The fact that they were presented before Republican lawmakers in their official capacity at the state Capitol — Democrats on the committees boycotted the hearing — gave the accusations enough credibility to spread. Legislative District 13 precinct committee members nominated Liz Harris, Julie Willoughby and Steve Steele in two rounds of voting at their meeting April 17. But she likely would have little chance of winning the approval of the supervisors and Sellers, a harsh critic of the state Senate's partisan audit of the 2020 election who called the effort in 2021 an "adventure in never-never land." The secretary of state will "immediately" notify the chair of the appropriate party, which in this case would be GOP Party Chair Jeff DeWit.