Journalists’ Roundtable on Mark Kelly’s VP prospects and more

On this week’s Journalists’ Roundtable, three local journalists, Wayne Schutsky and Camryn Sanchez of KJZZ Radio, and Mary Jo Pitzl of “The Arizona Republic” and azcentral.com, discussed the following topics:

• Kelly’s VP chances
• Masters: Leaders must be married with children
• Wadsack traffic woes
• Gilbert GOP meeting fracas
• Lake abandoned by Randy Kendrick
• Ruling on abortion measure wording

Mark Kelly is currently in the running for Kamala Harris’ Vice Presidential pick. 

“I think the list is technically at eight, but I think you could probably narrow it a little further than that, and I think he’s one of the legitimate contenders. You know, he checks a lot of boxes; he’s got a great bio, a great story being an astronaut, a veteran coming from a swing state, kind of a more middle-of-the-road Senator from the Democratic Party,” said Schutsky. 

Blake Masters believes political leaders should be married with children. Opponent Abe Hamadeh is not married and doesn’t have children. 

“It’s a five-person race. There are other people that voters could go to who would carry that conservative banner without having to explain why they think that people who don’t have children really don’t deserve to have a voice in our public dialogue,” said Pitzl.  

Republican State Senator Justine Wadsack denied signing a Tucson speeding ticket and called it a political persecution. Wadsack was over the speed limit driving 71 miles per hour in only a 35 mile per hour zone.  

“’Tucson Sentinel’ broke the story that she was pulled over for speeding back in March of this year, and the officer said she was going 71 miles per hour in a 35 zone in Tucson, and she couldn’t be ticketed at the time because legislators have this legislative immunity. But when the session ended, they could do it, and so they contacted her and said, ‘You need to come and sign your citation,’ and she refused,” said Sanchez. 

Democrats aren’t satisfied yet with the ballot language regarding abortion for the publicity pamphlet. This is used in the election. 

“This is the language that goes into the publicity pamphlet that is sent out to every voter in Arizona for the general election, and the legislative council is charged by law to come up with neutral impartial language that defines what these various ballot propositions do. They voted to support language that keeps ‘unborn human beings’ in the bill in the description of what this abortion for all access would do. The Democrats objected and said, ‘You should use “fetus” as the medical term; it’s a technical term,’” said Piztl.