Breaking: Maricopa County Supervisor @Steve_Chucri resigns after a recording surfaced of him bashing Board of Supervisors colleagues over the Senate’s election audit
Chucri told conservative activists behind a recall campaign against the supervisors that he thought colleagues @billgatesaz and @jacksellers opposed the audit because they were worried it might show they lost their elections azmirror.com/2021/09/21/chu…
Chucri: I ran in 2012 to bring civility, innovation & a business mindset to government. "I do not want to perpetuate the very problem I ran to eliminate several years ago. While I have had my differences with my colleagues, I have known them to be good, honorable & ethical men."
Chucri says "the political landscape changed for the worst this year."
"The environment is wrought with toxicity - and all civility and decorum no longer seem to have a place. The fixation with the 2020 election results and aftermath have gotten out of control."
Chucri's resignation will be effective Nov. 5
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In @ElectionInnov press call, longtime Republican campaign lawyer Ben Ginsberg says if audit team tomorrow says they can't definitively say who won Maricopa County, "that's a cop-out." He notes that @FannKfann has said audit team had everything it needed.
Ginsberg: “If the Cyber Ninjas report doesn’t produce solid, smoking gun, irrefutable evidence of a fraudulent election with evidence that stands up to scrutiny, that means Trump and his allies have failed.”
This was a "designer audit" by Trump allies that "bypassed all accepted standards," Ginsberg says. “This has to be a smoking gun report. If Trump and his supporters can’t prove it here with the process they designed, then they can’t prove it anywhere.”
In an earlier conversation that was also leaked, Chucri baselessly claimed there were "dead people voting" in the 2020 election
Chucri says he was initially supportive of an audit, but he says he doesn't support the current audit, which he has publicly called a "mockery." The conversation was on March 22, about a week before @FannKfann announced the selection of her controversial audit team.
House is voting on rule change to limit discussion, which restricts Dems' ability to prolong debate with opposition to the budget.
Bowers says it's a response to Dems denying quorum on Tuesday: “It was clear then by the absence of an entire caucus and by actions prior and currently today that procedural obstruction and delay have been instituted in lieu of civility.”
Grantham orders the gallery cleared after people cheer Dems' vocal opposition to the rule change
We won't have a budget vote in the House after all today. Three Republicans (Fillmore, Grantham, Roberts) are gone and the Dems won't come to the floor to deny leadership a quorum. Members can vote remotely, but they still need 31 people there in person for a quorum.
Boyer and Cook both say they're yes votes on the budget now, but at least on the House side, they won't be voting today. And without Townsend, they don't have 16 votes in the Senate.
Bowers: “I would ask us all -- it may really be tough, but could we contemplate growing up and shouldering the responsibility together and think of together more than an individual and pass a budget?”
The Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission is about to begin today's meeting. You can tune in here:
Here's today's agenda. Among other things, they'll be discussing the travel schedule for the IRC's upcoming tour around the state, and hearing a presentation from the state demographer. publicmeetings.az.gov/sites/default/…
State demographer Jim Chang is beginning his presentation
.@jacksellers opens BOS meeting with sharp words for @FannKfann and her audit, which he called “a grift disguised as an audit”
Sellers: “This board is done explaining anything to these people.”
Sellers says the “the ninjas” can’t find the allegedly deleted filed “because they don’t know what they’re doing.”
Count recorder @stephen_richer says county doesn’t have Dominion passwords because they’re not needed to run elections, just like you can run Windows on your PC without the source code