Journalists’ Roundtable: 02-19-21: Senate vs. Maricopa County, Boyer vs. fellow republicans

Time now for the Journalists’ Roundtable, this week the states senates continued fight with Maricopa County over an election audit, along with other activity at the state capitol. Guests include Maria Polletta from the Arizona Republic and Jeremy Duda from the Arizona Mirror.

This weeks Journalists’ Roundtable covered:

• Senate vs. Maricopa County
• Boyer vs. Fellow Republicans
• Voucher Expansion Bill
• No Ethics Probe of Finchem

Senate vs. Maricopa County

Maria Polletta: “So obviously this saga has been going on for months now starting in December I believe with the subpoenas from the senate, um at this point the Board Supervisors has turned over some elections materials but are arguing that they won’t give some other pieces of what the senate requested or demanded rather like uh images of voter ballots because its against the law. They want the court to step in and say one way or another whether they have to do that. We had a very dramatic vote regarding to hold them in contempt and possibly jail the supervisors. Um Senator Paul Boyer cast the deciding vote there, one of the if not the only more moderate republicans left in the senate, um so thats where we stand currently, we did not have our supervisors jailed but uh this is far from over.”

Jeremy Duda: “Sure, uh, you know the senate, Senator Fan and Warren Peterson the chairman of the judiciary committee have been very admit throughout this whole process that the senate does have the authority, does have the legal power to demand the you know ballots and election machines and all that, that there’re demanding but a judge still has to decide that the counties challenging that they’ll hear arguments next Thursday, I think kind of begrudgingly the judge didn’t want to have to be the decider on this but their kind of hedging their bets to in case the judge does say agree with the county and say they don’t have to turn that over they are working on passing legislation that would very expressly give the legislature that power and say they can investigate anything they want, they can very specifically  ask for those materials and that did pass in 16-14, Senator Boyer did not uh, go against his colleagues on this one, I think um, he has said you know despite the fact he voted against the contempt resolution he has said you know I do think we have the power to do this audit, I think this audit should happen, that issue he said you know he wanted to let the kind of process work its way through the legal process, there wasn’t a lot of comment on it but he did for that and it passed 16-14.”

Boyer vs. Fellow Republicans

Maria Polletta: “I don’t know that its necessalry surprising because as Jeremy was saying its less immediate, I mean its not that far in the future presently depending on what happens but in you know  explaining his more contentious vote when he broke with the Republican caucus on the initial vote on holding them in contempt he talked about this was a vote for patience this was a vote to allow for a little  more time for the parties to hopefully work this out amicably so I took it as that following vote as sort of a backup plan if what he’s hoping happen doesn’t happen.”

Jeremy Duda: