Arizona GOP continues eating its own in defense of Kari Lake and MAGA mania

The Arizona Republican Party continues its ambitious campaign to win back a Senate seat, hold onto its tenuous grip on the state Legislature and maintain control of Maricopa County.

Or not.

Instead, the grassroots activists who form the backbone of the party in this swing state seem far more interested in feasting on a steady diet of their own.

It’s almost easier, at this point, to count the Republican elected officials who haven’t been censured by the far-right Kari Lake loons who have seized control of the once-Grand Old Party.

Republican lawmakers were censured

This spring, they censured the 18 Republican legislators who voted to expel then-Rep. Liz Harris, R-Chandler, from the Arizona House.

In some legislative districts, the precinct committee members even voted to expel two other Republicans who sided with Harris but found that she violated the chamber’s ethical rules.

Harris was one of the Legislature’s most ardent election deniers, ousted in April for her part in a crazy scheme to publicly accuse Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs and others of secretly working for a Mexican drug cartel.

Every one of those censured GOP lawmakers is a staunch conservative, Republican voters having long ago purged the Legislature of any lingering moderates.

Suddenly, with their vote to expel Harris, they became swamp rats, one and all.

Grassroots workers in Legislative District 23 even censured their own Rep. Michelle Pena, a Yuma Republican whose unexpected win last year in a heavily Democratic district allowed Republicans to hang onto their oh-so-slim one-vote control of the House.

Now, the foot soldiers of Pena’s own party have declared that she’s unfit to serve.

Then they targeted the county attorney

As, apparently, are the four Republicans on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, all of whom have been widely censured for declining to reappoint Harris after her expulsion.

By summer, Republicans were serving up Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell.

The Maricopa County Republican Committee’s Executive Guidance Committee voted in June to censure Mitchell for daring to seek sanctions against Kari Lake — for trying to hold the failed gubernatorial candidate accountable for using the courts to further a false narrative that the election was stolen.Mitchell is a veteran law-and-order prosecutor, a conservative Republican of the increasingly rare variety who elevate fact over conspiracy theory.

In other words, she’s electable.

In fact, she won handily last year — as did several other traditional Republicans who ran statewide — while Lake and the rest of the Trump-endorsed slate went down to defeat, griping that the fix was in.

Now the party’s brain trust seems intent on ousting Mitchell in next year’s primary, leaving Democrats to salivate over the prospect of seizing control of the third largest public prosecutorial agency in the nation.

But wait, there’s more.

Next up on the plate: Stephen Richer

Now serving: Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer.

On Monday evening, the geniuses over in Legislative District 2 (north Phoenix) censured Richer for daring to become fed up with the death threats against his family after Lake’s constant, coast-to-coast cries that he engaged in criminal activity to sabotage last year’s election. (Without, of course, the evidence to back up her charge.)

As he explained when he sued her in June, “Slinging mud is fair game, but Arizona law and the First Amendment draw a line at defamation.”

On Monday, the Republican activists in LD 2 drew the line on Richer, calling for his ouster.

In one of the many whereases in their censure resolution, they justify Lake’s slander, as if it was mere criticism and not an outright accusation that he’s a criminal.

“The precedent set by Recorder Stephen Richer in filing his frivolous lawsuit is that the speech of private citizens criticizing the acts of government and officials that enabled such actions, either directly or passively, is a blatant assault on the 1st Amendment and creates more distrust from citizens in his ability to oversee elections,” they wrote.

Of course, these fine Republican activists go on to assure us that “Republican Party values condemn all acts and threats of violence.”

Kari Lake's pal orchestrated the censure

Presumably, that would include the Texas creeper who earlier this month was sent to federal prison for calling for the “mass shooting of poll workers” and threatening both Richer and Deputy Maricopa County Attorney Tom Liddy. Liddy, as chief of the civil litigation division, successfully defended the county against Lake’s election challenge.

Twice.

“Someone needs to get these people AND their children,” Frederick Francis Goltz wrote on far-right social media sites. “The children are the most important message to send.”

Another view: Another idiot faces prison for believing Lake

LD 2’s censure of Richer for daring to defend his family is just the latest boon to Democrats, who unlike the Republicans are fully focused on winning in 2024 and would dearly love to face yet another MAGA nominee.

It was masterminded by Merissa Hamilton, who pronounced the censure of Richer a win against “tyranny.”

Apparently, the First Amendment right to speak freely now also guarantees a right to be free from any consequences of your speech.

At least, in the view of Hamilton and her sponsor, Lake.

Let's purify the ranks into irrelevance

Hamilton largely disappeared from public view after she was trounced in her 2020 campaign for Phoenix mayor. But Lake elevated her to executive director of her Save Arizona Fund in May, charging her with getting out the vote in 2024.

These days, Hamilton seems to spend most of her time targeting fellow Republicans — the ones who are insufficiently supportive of Lake.Determined, along with the rest of the MAGA crowd, to purify the party’s ranks.

Even to the point of irrelevance.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @LaurieRoberts.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona Republicans continue to eat their own in defense of Kari Lake