Journalists’ Roundtable: 09-23-22: Secretary of State Debate and more

It’s Friday and that means it’s time for the Journalists’ Roundtable. Joining us tonight for a look into this week’s top stories are Jeremy Duda of Axios Phoenix, Laurie Roberts of the Arizona Republic and azcentral.com and Jim Small of the Arizona Mirror.

This week’s topics include:

• Secretary of State Debate
• Kari Lake’s Recent Announcement
• Katie Hobbs’s Uber Income
• Kelly Ward’s Records

Recent Secretary of State Debate

Laurie Roberts: “It was quite an interesting debate. And for all those people who say ‘there’s no reason to have candidate debates,’ I think this is exhibit one of why you can– you should. Because the contrast between the candidates was jarring almost. Even though those of us who watched this would’ve expected that. On the one hand you had Adrian Fontes, who was calm and collected and measured in his tone and in the things that he had to say. And then on the other side you had Mark Finchem who was, I don’t know, can I use the word insane on this show? He seemed at times unhinged as he through out these conspiracy theories about how the election was stolen.”

Kari Lake’s Recent Announcement

Kari Lake released an ominous text message on Monday saying that she received information about Katie Hobbs that is very incriminating, but wanted to triple check the information before she released it to the public. She then released a video exposé claiming that Katie Hobbs voted against the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Pledge of Allegiance being read in classrooms. It was then realized that Lake misread the bill.

Jim Small: “For ‘Legislating 101,’ you look at a bill and it gives you the text of a current law. Blue stuff in capitals is new stuff, red stuff that’s got a line through it is stuff that they’re taking out, and that’s what you’re voting on. You’re voting on the changes to it, not the existing law. I think this was self-owned because it demonstrated that the candidate and her campaign have no idea even how laws are written and are created.”