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January 30, 2024

AZGOP’s new chair took $15k per month from the taxpayers to ‘consult’ the state senate on securing elections, only to produce nothing

By Olivia Murray

Last week I wrote a blog on an “explosive” audio recording that featured Jeff DeWit, the chair of the Arizona Republican Party (before he promptly resigned in disgrace), attempting to bribe Kari Lake out of the senate race with a cushy corporate position and money from shadowy figures somewhere on the east coast—the revelation was only “explosive” to some because, for those of us who’ve had firsthand experience dealing with the AZGOP, it really was not surprising at all.

The chair of the state party leading the charge to derail the America First (and Arizona first) movement? This is nothing out of the ordinary; DeWit’s predecessor, Kelli Ward, repeatedly undermined and sabotaged the grassroots, all to aid and abet Martha McSally in handing over another federal seat to Democrats.

The chair of the state party protecting the interests of the political establishment? Again, we’d just been through this with Kelli Ward, who “imploded” when confronted about the fact that she had no plans to force governor Doug Ducey to end the Covid “emergency” he was using to tyrannize the people of Arizona. To add another level to the betrayal, at the time Ward refused to take any action against Ducey, he’d recently certified the 2020 presidential election results for Joe Biden, despite the endless evidence that things had gone awry.

The chair of the state party sabotaging election integrity and the will of the people? I’ll say it one more time… Kelli Ward. (Ward herself signed off on the “accuracy” of the machines after Maricopa County GOP Chair Linda Brickman cited a “problem” with Maricopa County’s handling of the presidential election.)

DeWit’s resignation on January 24th came at a rather fortuitous time because the party had its annual “mandatory meeting” on the books for this past weekend. On Saturday, party members elected a new chair, a woman by the name of Gina Swoboda.

I hate to be the reliable cynic or the bearer of bad news, but… the Arizona GOP is still firmly under the control of the same Uniparty politics that controlled DeWit… so prepare yourself for more of the same from the Grand Canyon state come election time. This is only the tip of the iceberg with Swoboda, but see the post to X below from someone with a strong opinion about what happened:

If that agreement lasted through last year’s legislative session, that means Swodoba raked in as much as $60,000 in consulting fees from the Arizona taxpayers, and what did she produce? Well, don’t shoot the messenger, but it appears that she produced absolutely nothing.

Civil servants spend our hard-earned cash like it’s Monopoly money—I mean, seriously, how does a legislator justify consultants anyway? Ask the people what they want. You need to pay a third party to tell you how to do your job best? Seems like you just proved how unnecessary you, and your role, really are. Secondly, $15k a month? Those are real dollars, that we the people actually earned through legitimate work, only to have confiscated by the state, to fork over in cushy government contract work. What a sick joke.

Yet, aside from the great offense that this is all on its own, there’s additional context that makes it so much worse. First of all, as you can see in the post above, the legislators already had a bill that would have secured elections… in 2022! It was known as HB2289, or the “One Day, One Vote” bill, and it was put forth by a group of patriots in Arizona, who didn’t siphon $15k a month from the taxpayers for their genuine civil service. HB2289 eliminated mail-in ballots (except for the military and the disabled), required paper ballots and valid voter ID, and prohibited machines. In fact, one of the men who helped author the bill, Steve Daniels, actually ran against DeWit last year for the Arizona GOP Chair seat, but the Uniparty made sure to subvert anyone who would have secured elections from ever holding such position in the party. As involved and concerned citizens, they did the work for the legislators, free of cost, so there was no excuse, just one expectation: the legislators do their job, and secure elections. Unsurprisingly, the latter shirked their duty. When 2023 rolled around, instead of running the bill again, they hired Swodoba, to get ideas. Give me a break.

Oh, and here’s Swoboda promoting the idea of mail-in ballots, ostensibly to avoid any disasters on election day… but for someone who’s a purported “election integrity expert,” why would you promote the very thing that cost Trump the election, a system most vulnerable to fraud, and proven to have been exploited? Securing elections isn’t anything cosmic, they just love to act like it is, so they have an excuse… to never secure elections. Argentina just showed how elections can be conducted on paper, in-person, on one day. It’s election DAY, not election season.

And how could I forget? Here’s Katie Hobbs, praising Swodoba as a “great” employee; a worker so “great” that Hobbs kept her on when Hobbs became the Secretary of State, a position from which she managed the 2020 presidential race, as well as her own gubernatorial race against Kari Lake:

I would say that’s a bit of a “red flag” when Hobbs heaps praise on your election work.

But, but, but… Swoboda has President Trump’s endorsement, and Kari Lake’s, and she’s been promoted on Charlie Kirk’s podcast, along with Steven Bannon! (As a reminder John McCain, Martha McSally, and Doug Ducey, all received Trump endorsements, and how’d that turn out?)

Uniparty Republicans’ threshold for a “win” is so low, and their resistance to the discomfort of the danger exposed by the canary in the coalmine is so strong, they’ll seemingly go for anything but a strong conservative. First Ward, then DeWit, and now... Swoboda.

Image from X.

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