Republicans within the Arizona Home of Representatives misplaced their slim majority when Rep. Liz Harris was expelled from the chamber final week, and it doesn’t appear to be the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors is in any hurry to nominate her substitute.
Harris, an election-denying
Republican from Chandler, was expelled from her seat representing
Legislative District 13 final week for inviting a lady who unfold unfounded prison allegations throughout a elections committee presentation after which mendacity about her prior information of the presentation to the Home Ethics Committee.
On April 17, the GOP precinct committeemen from Legislative District 13 gathered for a prolonged assembly throughout which they nominated three candidates
for Harris’ substitute. Harris was nominated, as was Julie Willoughby,
who ran as a staff with Harris and completed third within the November
election, and Harris ally Steve Steele.
Whereas Harris supporters have known as
for her reinstatement — a few of them even protested exterior of Monday’s
assembly of committeemen — it’s unlikely that Maricopa County supervisors
will appoint her to the seat.
Harris has been an outspoken critic of elections
in Maricopa County since 2020 and the supervisors have been blamed, at
least partially, for his or her perceived lack of oversight in these elections,
one thing the supervisors have regularly defended themselves towards.
The precinct committeemen have
already forwarded their nominees for Harris’ seat to the supervisors.
Whereas state regulation requires the committeemen to make their nominations
inside 5 days, the supervisors don’t have a deadline for appointing a
nominee.
The board of supervisors will meet on
April 24, however there is no such thing as a plan to nominate Harris’ substitute throughout
that assembly, in accordance with a press assertion from the county.
As an alternative they plan to seek the advice of with
their authorized counsel to reply any questions they may have and to get
steerage on the appointment course of. The county has not introduced a date
for when it plans to vote on the appointment. The board can also be
contemplating nominees for Legislative District 26, the place Raquel Teran
resigned from the Senate to run for Congress.
“In line with how the Board has
approached different appointments of this nature, members plan to conduct
background checks and interviews previous to taking any motion,” Maricopa
County mentioned in a press release.
The board has not mentioned when it plans to satisfy to vote on filling both legislative emptiness.