Journalists’ Roundtable: Arizona Horizon Debates and more

It’s Friday, and that means it’s time for the Journalists’ Roundtable. Guests this week are Ray Stern of the Arizona Republic & azcentral.com, Bob Christie of the Associated Press and Laurie Roberts of the Arizona Republic & azcentral.com. This week’s topics include:

• Arizona Horizon Clean Elections Debates
• Mark Finchem & Mike Pence
• Legislative session to lift education spending limit
• Secretary of State Race
• Abe Hamadeh’s Father

Why is Mark Finchem Accusing Mike Pence of Staging a Coup?

Laurie Roberts: “Some video has emerged from a speaking engagement of his, I think it was in July, where he explained to an audience that really is wasn’t the MAGA crowd that was attempting any kind of coup or insurrection, it was Vice President Mike Pence. Apparently, as the mob was reaching the Capitol and running through the hallways, and congressmen and vice president were in hiding, the vice president apparently made some calls to the Department of Defense and other places to see if they could get some help here to restore some order. And according to Mr. Finchem, that was counter to what the president wanted and therefore it was tantamount to staging a coup.”

Ray Stern: “Calling the police is a coup? I mean as I understand it, the Department of Justice has the investigation included that Pence’s life was in danger that day, so I think he should’ve called anyone he could.”

Arizona Horizon Clean Elections Debates

Regarding the Superintendent of Public Instruction Debate:

Bob Christie: “[They have] very different viewpoints on a lot of issues. Mr. Horne is a former attorney general and former school’s chief. There’s three general issues that he latched onto. One was test scores. He says they’ve gone down. It’s really hard to look overtime and see because we’ve had three different types of tests over the last decade.”