Another 'Frivolous' Mark Finchem lawsuit bites the dust

If Arizona’s Republican Secretary of State candidate Mark Finchem were a rootin’, tootin’ Looney Tunes cartoon cowboy he would ... wait …

Hold on there, partner.

Arizona’s Republican secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem IS a rootin’, tootin’ Looney Tunes cartoon cowboy.

He’s a loud, grumpy, all-hat-no-cattle live-action sidekick to, say, Yosemite Sam. Just as ornery but even less cunning and competent.

“Frivilous Finchem,” Yosemite might label him after Finchem’s latest failed attempt to round up the rassin’, frassin’ varmints he believes are messin’ with Arizona’s election system, but that he can never quite seem to catch.

Chasing an imaginary election varmint

Mostly because, like Yosemite Sam’s nemesis Bugs Bunny, they ain’t real. They’re imaginary. They do. Not. Exist.

Most recently, a judge ordered Finchem, U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar and former GOP state legislator Anthony Kern to pay $75,000 in attorney’s fees to former Democratic state lawmaker Charlene Fernandez in connection with a frivolous defamation lawsuit they filed against her that the judge said was done “primarily for purposes of harassment.”

Ordered to pay: Judge slams 3 'Stop the Steal' GOP members over lawsuit

This comes on the heels of a different judge tossing a different frivolous lawsuit, this one filed by Finchem and Republican candidate for governor, Kari Lake, which wanted the court to block the use of electronic voting machines in the November election.

The judge in that case was a bit perturbed that Finchem and Lake offered up a case with no actual facts, but only with what the judge called “conjectural allegations.”

He added, "Simply put, plaintiffs have not alleged facts to show that it is plausible that the field is ‘tilted’ here.”

Support for a homophibic antisemite

Attorneys for Maricopa County called the lawsuit “detrimental to the entire elections process” and asked the judge to issue sanctions.

This happened at about the same time it was revealed that Frivolous Finchem and Lake were endorsing a racist, homophobic, antisemitic Republican state Senate candidate in Oklahoma named Jarrin Jackson. (He lost in the primary.)

Lake, very weakly, withdrew her endorsement after the story made national news. (Lake’s cartoon alter ego, by the way, would be a lesser version of Cruella de Vil. More of a Cruella del Camino.)

And while Lake caved on her support for the Oklahoma creep, Finchem not only stuck with the antisemitic loser but took a $5,300 campaign contribution from him.

And why not?

Arizona's big, bad, bogus buckaroo

After all, Finchem is a proud member of the far-right extremist Oath Keepers, whose founder and several members have been charged with seditious conspiracy in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Finchem was at the Capitol that day but says he didn’t enter the building or even get that close. Photographs have him there in his fancy black cowboy hat, even though Finchem is bogus buckaroo born in Detroit.

He is also an election denier, a super spreader of the Big Lie, and he wants to run Arizona’s election system. Fellow Republican state lawmaker Paul Boyer said of Finchem, “Mark is known as the guy that’s probably the dumbest – well, there’s a long list, but one of the dumbest – legislators in the state House.”

This is Arizona.

Giddy up.

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Mark Finchem sees another 'frivolous' lawsuit bite the dust