Journalist’s Roundtable: 1-29-21: AZ GOP Fiasco, Overriding electoral votes, Sinema filibuster

Kelli Ward was re-elected as the chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party. Now, concerns over the integrity of that election are being raised. This topic and more are covered on the Journalists’ Roundtable with Laurie Roberts from The Arizona Republic and Luige del Puerto from Arizona Capitol Times.

This week’s Journalists’ Roundtable covered:

• AZ GOP Election Fiasco
• State GOP Losing Members
• Push to override electoral votes
• Sinema supports Filibuster
• Legislature vs. Governor

AZ GOP Election Fiasco

Laurie Roberts: “You just can’t make this stuff up. This is the party and the party chairwoman, Kelli Ward, that has spent two and half months screaming about stopping the steal of the presidential election in Arizona and demanding an audit. Now, all of a sudden, she was re-elected, narrowly, I believe, last weekend at the party’s convention. There have since been questions about errors made in that election, specifically, with another party’s position. Of course, it calls into question the whole election if you get one wrong. Her opponent in that race has called for an audit of the party’s election so that he can know if the elections were done with integrity or not. Kelli Ward has flat out said no, the final results are in. So it’s audits for thee, just not for me.”

Luige del Puerto: “The person who’s asking for an audit, the person who ran against Kelli Ward, has made it clear that he does not think an audit will overturn the results of the party elections but he believes it needs to be done so people can have integrity in the outcome of that election. It’s all quite interesting given Kelli Ward’s position on the 2020 election results.”

Sinema supports Filibuster

Luige del Puerto: “I think she has always been in support of the filibuster. So, what’s happening is her reaffirming her support of this tradition in the U.S. Senate. I think what’s happening is Kyrsten Sinema strongly believes that this filibuster serves a purpose and it does serve the U.S. Senate well and there’s no reason to bypass it or put it aside just so you can get your legislation done quicker or faster.”

Laurie Roberts: “I think she’s being absolutely true to her credentials which is if you have the filibuster it gives the minority party some power. It requires the majority party to come to the minority party and try to work out some sort of compromise. Of course, that requires the minority party to be people of good will and good faith that they will actually negotiate and there lies the problem that we’ve seen. I think the American people are getting more fed up with this. I don’t think Sinema is wrong for doing what she’s doing. If  the Republicans take that stance of no way, no how, we don’t believe that election was fair, I think it’s going to cause them problems in the year to come.”