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Department of Justice's civil rights division, which warned about potential voter intimidation. Harris, who was sworn into her first term in January, did not speak ahead of the expulsion vote. Immediately afterward, she carried boxes to her car, placed them in her trunk with the help of a handful of supporters and left. "This comes down to the integrity, in my opinion, of this institution and us as leaders," said Rep. David Livingston, a Republican who voted to expel Harris. “The defamatory allegations that Representative Harris invited her guest speaker to make are patently absurd, but there are many people who believe them. They believe the lies, and they continue to threaten retribution because we dispute them," Cano said. "They believe those lies because a State Representative, Liz Harris, platformed and legitimized them in a televised legislative hearing."
Rep. Liz Harris is expelled from the Arizona House. Cue the applause - The Arizona Republic
Rep. Liz Harris is expelled from the Arizona House. Cue the applause.
Posted: Tue, 11 Apr 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Arizona House votes to expel Rep. Liz Harris
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. The swing state has been a hotbed of election denialism and unsuccessful Republican lawsuits contesting results, including a legal action by Kari Lake, who has refused to accept her November defeat in the governor’s race. In a report released Tuesday, the House Ethics Committee says it also found that Harris, a freshman Republican lawmaker from Chandler, later lied when claiming she had no idea that the witness would make such wild accusations. It’s the second time in six years the House has voted to kick out one of its own.
Both Black Tennessee lawmakers have been reinstated after being expelled by GOP
Harris is the first lawmaker to be expelled from the House since 2018 when Rep. Don Shooter (R) was expelled amid sexual harassment allegations. Thaler, for his part, failed to provide answers to key questions about his supposed evidence. After claiming, for example, that a judge had deemed his allegations about bribery in the judicial system to be credible, he refused to provide the court filing showing that this was true. “I can’t tell you why I won’t tell you what it is,” Thaler said in a phone call.
New law on campaign finance reporting takes effect
The hearing that became Harris’ downfall was just the latest in a series of similar events since the start of the year, though it was the first to catch such widespread backlash. The move leaves the southeast Valley’s District 13 seat vacant and trims the Republican advantage in the House to until it is filled. Eighteen Republicans, including Speaker Ben Toma and Majority Leader Leo Biasiucci, joined 28 Democrats in voting to oust Harris. Harris, who was a member of the Municipal Oversight & Elections Committee, had proposed the joint hearing with the Senate Elections Committee. When a member of the Legislature vacates his or her office before their two-year term is up — whether by expulsion, resignation or death — Arizona law calls for a replacement by someone from the same party.
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors will choose from a list of three candidates nominated by the GOP precinct committeemen in her district. Breger also claimed that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints “control[s]” government agencies and was “integral to the laundering activities,” the report said. The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors will choose from a list of three candidates nominated by the Republican precinct committeemen in her district. “It will be perceived as setting the precedent that if you rock the boat too much, you will be expelled,” said Kolodin, who voted against expulsion. Alexander Kolodin, who voted against expulsion, said expelling Harris set a bad precedent because it held her accountable for comments made by a member of the public.
The county’s Board of Supervisors instead selected Republican Julie Willoughby to replace her, despite Republican precinct committee members in her legislative district giving Harris the most votes. At the Feb. 23 hearing, Breger claimed that “bribes and infiltration have been used to affect the outcome” of the 2020 and 2022 elections, and she pointed the finger at state officials such as Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, according to the ethics committee report. The House ethics panel launched an investigation into Harris, prompted by a complaint from a Democratic legislator, after she invited insurance agent Jacqueline Breger to promote a series of unfounded allegations at a televised legislative hearing on elections. At that hearing, Ms. Breger falsely claimed that Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who was elected governor in November, and several other public officials and judges had accepted bribes from the Sinaloa drug cartel. And the panel said even if they believed that Harris did not know of her testimony ahead of time — a contention they rejected — she did nothing during the hearing to stop the nearly 45-minute presentation. Harris had invited Breger, a Scottsdale insurance agent, to speak during a hearing on elections.
The secretary of state will "immediately" notify the chair of the appropriate party, which in this case would be GOP Party Chair Jeff DeWit. After the chair receives that notice, the chair or a designee must inform the precinct committee members in the departing lawmaker's district of the vacancy. Harris was elected by voters in Legislative District 13, which includes much of Chandler and part of Gilbert. 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.
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. 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." Arizona Republican leaders spoke out against the Breger incident in the days following, with House Speaker Ben Toma and Senate President Warren Petersen, pinning the blame for the presentation on Harris.
Maricopa County appoints Julie Willoughby to House seat following Liz Harris' expulsion - KTAR.com
Maricopa County appoints Julie Willoughby to House seat following Liz Harris' expulsion.
Posted: Fri, 05 May 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
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. Thaler alleged, without reliable evidence, that two women working on behalf of the Sinaloa cartel used fraudulent mortgage documents to launder money to a wide range of officials, both Republicans and Democrats. Online sleuths discovered the women Thaler accused of facilitating the fraud were his ex-wife and her mother.
The expulsion “gives credit to these awful allegations and makes her a martyr for them”, she said. Before she joined the legislature, Harris gained notoriety for her involvement in election denialism. After the 2020 election, she led an unsanctioned canvass of voters, which was then debunked by elections experts. 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.
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. In the governor’s race last year, Republican Kari Lake repeatedly promoted false claims of election fraud and later failed in a legal battle challenging her loss to Hobbs. Two years earlier, President Donald Trump and his allies pushed election fraud claims in the state, prompting a Republican-led review of ballots in Maricopa County. House members expelled Harris on a bipartisan vote of (with one Democrat home sick and not voting). Her ouster followed a House Ethics Committee investigation that found she committed "disorderly behavior." The joint elections hearing came after Harris voted against a Republican-led budget plan, and Republican leaders allowed the hearing as a way to get Harris to change her vote on the budget.
The Arizona House of Representatives on Wednesday expelled a Republican lawmaker who organized a presentation making unsubstantiated accusations that a wide range of politicians, judges and public officials of both parties took bribes from a Mexican drug cartel. HuffPost reported on the false bribery allegations last month, based on extensive interviews with the witness and her boyfriend and investigative partner. The pair, John Thaler and Jacqueline Breger, accused Thaler’s ex-wife of falsifying signatures on countless housing deeds and other official documents as a method of laundering bribe money from Mexican drug cartels to Arizona public officials. Breger testified during an elections hearing in the legislature; Thaler lives outside of the state, claiming to HuffPost and others that he did not feel safe in Arizona. The committee's report said Harris knew the person she invited to a legislative hearing in February would accuse her colleagues of criminal activity, that she took steps to hide it from House leaders ahead of time and then misled the committee investigating her actions. The committee’s report said Harris knew the person she invited to a legislative hearing in February would accuse her colleagues of criminal activity, that she took steps to hide it from House leaders ahead of time and then misled the committee investigating her actions.
“The truth is on my side,” Harris said before the vote, the Arizona Republic reported. 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. It needed a minimum of 40 votes, two-thirds of the GOP-controlled House, to pass. State Rep. Alex Kolodin, who voted against Harris' expulsion, told NBC News that while Breger's presentation was "improper," he wanted to respect the voters. The Tennessee Legislature last week expelled two Black Democrats, Justin Jones and Justin J. Pearson, for protesting gun violence.
The committee found Harris knew of the bribery claims ahead of the hearing and did not comply with internal deadlines to show any presentations to House leaders, which could have flagged the presentation as out of bounds. 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. They’re widely shared among right wing media figures and carry the imprimatur of an official legislative proceeding. Harris’ actions violated House Rule No. 1, which prohibits members from engaging in disorderly behavior, according to the ethics panel, which further concluded that Harris had damaged the institutional integrity of the House. “Harris engaged in disorderly behavior in violation of House Rule 1, thereby eroding the public trust in the legislative process,” the resolution calling for her expulsion read. “Each member could make up their own mind on whether or not Representative Harris did in fact, not only perpetrate this to begin with, but then contradict herself numerous times during the ethics hearing process,” said Toma, one of the 46 lawmakers who voted to expel Harris.
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