by admin | Nov 18, 2021 | News and Updates
Another school district scandal went viral last week. This time, it was in Scottsdale. But there’s a good chance that you didn’t hear about it from Arizona’s establishment media. Because once again, they were late to the party.
In case you missed it, last week, a group of mothers discovered Scottsdale Unified School District Governing Board President Jann-Michael Greenburg had access to a secret dossier of parents and other political opposition. But this wasn’t just a collection of social media posts.
The dossier included records of nursing licenses, divorces, mortgages, family trees, bankruptcies, civil and criminal charges, and a slew of other personal information. Allegedly compiled by Jann-Michael’s father, Mark, it also included pictures and videos of the children of his perceived political opposition. And a file on acclaimed radio host James T. Harris also appeared in the dossier.
But there’s even more to the story.
Body camera footage was discovered that shows how Mark Greenburg allegedly filmed parents incognito. And in another video, Mark is shown taking secret bodycam footage of parents on school property while discussing how he hired a private investigator to write down their license plates.
This should’ve been the top news story on every local media outlet in the entire state! The Governing Board President from a major school district in Arizona had access to in-depth background checks on moms—all while his father disguises himself to spy on them regularly.
On Monday, Jann-Michael was removed from his position as board president. (And frankly, he needs to resign immediately.) But it took alternative media to break this scandal wide open.
The Daily Independent, the Arizona Daily Independent, and AZ Free News were all over the story from the beginning. But most of the Arizona establishment media didn’t cover it until days later. A quick search on AZ Central shows that it finally ran a story about the secret dossier on November 13, a couple days after alternative media reported on it.
Of course, this isn’t the first time the corporate media tried to ignore a major scandal in a local school district. Back in July, they stayed mostly silent when Higley Unified School District’s former superintendent Dr. Denise Birdwell was indicted on 18 felony counts related to procurement fraud, misuse of public monies, fraudulent schemes and practices, and more.
What happened in Higley dwarfed pretty much every other K-12 fraud case in the last five years.
But the corporate media couldn’t be bothered to cover it.
You would think that maybe they would’ve learned their lesson. But the establishment media is much more concerned with protecting their own interests than doing real journalism at this point.
Too often, they’d rather twist facts to suit a chosen narrative, and when they can’t do that, they do everything they can to avoid a story completely.
And that’s exactly what’s going on here.
Corporate media wants to protect their narrative that public schools and public school districts are bastions of accountability. And they don’t want to undermine their assault on issues like school choice.
But now, fewer people are trusting the mainstream media. And that’s a good thing. Thankfully, we have some alternative media here in Arizona doing some real journalism.
Help Protect Freedom in Arizona by Joining Our Grassroots Network
Arizona needs to have a unified voice promoting economic freedom and prosperity, and the Free Enterprise Club is committed to making that happen. But we can’t do it alone. We need YOU!
Join our FREE Grassroots Action List to stay up to date on the latest battles against big government and how YOU can help influence crucial bills at the Arizona State Legislature.
by admin | Nov 12, 2021 | Elections, News and Updates
People are fed up. And parents, in particular, are frustrated with school boards across the state. Now, they are starting to speak up. But it’s not just with their voices at local school board meetings. Last week, they spoke up at the ballot box.
Across Maricopa County, multiple bond and override elections were held affecting various school districts. And in a year that didn’t include a midterm or presidential election, you would expect a low-turnout election like this one to benefit the funding proponents.
But the results were very telling.
Most of the bonds and overrides affecting school districts in suburban areas failed. And in many cases, they weren’t even close.
Override continuations were voted down in the Buckeye, Agua Fria, Liberty, and Litchfield school districts while bonds went unapproved in the Higley, Cave Creek, and Queen Creek school districts. A budget increase for the school district in Fountain Hills also failed.
The only suburban areas that were exceptions were Kyrene and Chandler. This must have the left in a tizzy.
For years, teachers’ unions and corporate media, like AZ Central, have pushed the narrative that voters share their belief that schools are underfunded. But this is not true. The Arizona Supreme Court even blew the “underfunded” narrative to pieces in a ruling against Prop 208 back in August. Now, voters appear to be on to their game.
After all, it’s hard to get voters to buy in to more funding when a former superintendent is indicted on 18 counts related to procurement fraud, misuse of public monies, fraudulent schemes and practices, and more. That all happened in Higley—and it went largely ignored by the media. Interestingly enough, Higley had one of the largest gaps in this election, voting down the bond 55% to 45%.
But make no mistake. This election wasn’t just about funding. Parents have gotten sick and tired of school closures, masks on kids, and the way school districts turned their backs on them and their children during the pandemic.
They’re frustrated with school districts that are hiding curriculum while remaining committed to Critical Race Theory and all the rest of the woke culture that has taken over many public schools. And they’re outraged about being labeled “domestic terrorists” just because they pushback on concerns they have with their children’s schools.
While the bond and override elections often get ignored, they should serve as a wake-up call for Red for Ed and the teachers’ unions. But given the echo chamber they operate in—along with the endless cheerleading they get from the media—don’t expect them to make any changes to their radical strategy.
In fact, if the response here is anything like the response to the election in Virginia, they’ll probably just double down on labeling anyone who doesn’t vote the way they want them to as a racist. But that hasn’t proven to be a winning strategy. And if the left doesn’t want to wake up to that reality, maybe more voters will.
Help Protect Freedom in Arizona by Joining Our Grassroots Network
Arizona needs to have a unified voice promoting economic freedom and prosperity, and the Free Enterprise Club is committed to making that happen. But we can’t do it alone. We need YOU!
Join our FREE Grassroots Action List to stay up to date on the latest battles against big government and how YOU can help influence crucial bills at the Arizona State Legislature.
by admin | Nov 9, 2021 | News and Updates
Every 10 years, following the US Census, the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission is tasked with drawing new maps that will determine which district you will be in for the next decade. This process has been playing out for months and last week the Commission approved draft maps for both congressional and legislative districts. These maps can still be changed as commissioners are now accepting public comment which they will use to make final adjustments later this year before approving final maps.
In rural Arizona, the Commission did a fairly good job of keeping communities of interest together, especially given the constraints of the Voting Rights Act and the requirement of equal population. The district lines largely represent the majority of public input that occurred during the first round of community hearings over the summer.
Maricopa County, on the other hand, is a bit of a mess. Take Gilbert, for example, which is split into 5 different Tetris shaped legislative districts and separated into two congressional districts. Areas in Northern Phoenix and Scottsdale seem to be randomly divided, splitting up areas that have shared the same district for decades. In the West Valley, Sun City and Sun City West are split on the Congressional map even though most public comments were from citizens asking to keep those communities together.
For one Democrat commissioner, she saw “a lot of partisan balance” under a previous draft map and has made it clear that competitiveness should be the top issue considered by the IRC. Most of her requested changes to date have been to ignore geographic compactness, communities of interest and most public input and work to draw maps that make it easier for Democrats to compete.
Thankfully, the independent chair responded that partisan balance is not one of the 6 constitutional criteria, and that she wants to maximize representation for communities of interest.
As a reminder, the 6 criteria the Commission must follow in the Arizona Constitution, are:
- Compliance with the US Constitution and United States voting rights act
- Equal population
- Compactness
- Communities of Interest
- To the extent practicable, use visible geographic features and borders
- To the extent practicable, competitive districts should be favored where to do so would create no significant detriment to the other goals.
This is critical. In 2010, competitiveness was favored over all other goals, and that is represented in the maps we have been under for the past 10 years. But the clear directive of the Constitution is to favor competitiveness only if it would create no significant detriment to other goals. Breaking up the Sun City area and splitting Gilbert into 5 different legislative districts is a significant detriment to the constitutional goal of keeping communities of interest intact.
The bottom line is that the current maps still need some work. The good news is that the draft maps ARE NOT the final maps, and there is still time for citizens throughout Arizona to let the commission know what they need to fix (and what they have gotten right). The next round of public hearings are beginning this week, and will continue through December 3rd.
We need your help to fix these maps!
Be a part of our Redistricting Strategic Teams and email Rhonda at rhonda@azfree.org. Being on the RST teams will get you all the information you need to help you formulate your comments and hone in your talking points. Let’s FIX these maps!
Public comments can be made to the IRC by emailing: IRCADMIN@AZDOA.GOV
The IRC has published the listening tour/public/virtual hearings for the state. CLICK HERE FOR THE IRC SCHEDULE
by admin | Nov 4, 2021 | News and Updates
Devastating. That’s how it felt earlier this week when the Arizona Supreme Court upheld the trial court’s ruling in Arizona School Boards Association v. State of Arizona. This decision strikes down critical reforms contained in a series of Budget Reconciliation Bills passed by lawmakers and signed by Governor Ducey earlier this year.
And it’s a big blow to the people of Arizona.
This past July, Arizona lawmakers took important steps to protect our state from more COVID mandates and government overreach. Among the laws passed were bans on:
-
- A county, city, or town from issuing COVID ordinances that impact private businesses, schools, churches, or other private entities, including mask mandates.
- K-12 schools from requiring vaccines with an emergency use authorization for in-person attendance.
- The state and any city, town, or county from establishing COVID vaccine passports or requiring COVID vaccines.
- Public universities and community colleges from mandating COVID vaccines and vaccine passports.
- A city, town, county, school board, or charter school from mandating students and teachers to be vaccinated or wear masks.
But COVID wasn’t the only thing these Budget Reconciliation Bills addressed. With children around the country being taught that by virtue of their race, they are inherently racist, state lawmakers also banned the teaching of Critical Race Theory in public schools. And rightfully so. Our country was founded on the principle of equal dignity of every person as an individual. That’s why Critical Race Theory has no place anywhere in our nation, especially in our schools.
Now, the Arizona Supreme Court has struck down these important reforms on procedural grounds. And by doing so, it has created even more uncertainty and frustration in our state during a period of time that has already had plenty of challenges and confusion.
But make no mistake, while this ruling is devastating, it will not stop the battle over these critical issues. There’s just too much at stake.
Vaccine mandates are one of the most extreme infringements on both businesses and individual rights in U.S. history. And they have already caused staffing shortages that have left hospitals overwhelmed and jeopardized public safety at a time when violent crime is on the rise.
Masks mandates have been one of the most contentious issues since the pandemic first hit. And masks on kids have been even worse, possibly causing psychological harm with no study to back them up.
And parents are catching on to what’s going on in their children’s schools. Now, they are fed up with public school districts hiding curriculum while attempting to indoctrinate their children in dangerous ideologies.
That’s why the Arizona Free Enterprise Club is urging both the state legislature and Governor Ducey to immediately address the critical reforms that the Supreme court struck down. They must exhaust every option possible, including special session, to protect Arizonans from more COVID mandates and the bigoted teachings of Critical Race Theory.
Because if the uncertainty and frustration caused by these issues are allowed to continue, it would be the most devastating news of all.
Help Protect Freedom in Arizona by Joining Our Grassroots Network
Arizona needs to have a unified voice promoting economic freedom and prosperity, and the Free Enterprise Club is committed to making that happen. But we can’t do it alone. We need YOU!
Join our FREE Grassroots Action List to stay up to date on the latest battles against big government and how YOU can help influence crucial bills at the Arizona State Legislature.
by admin | Oct 28, 2021 | News and Updates, Tax
Invest in Arizona wants you to believe that they ran a grassroots campaign. But that notion is absurd. And you don’t need to look very far to find out.
Recently, the political committee filed its campaign finance report. And lo and behold, what does it show? That the National Education Association (NEA) and Stand for Children, two out-of-state special interest groups, purchased the referendum against historic tax cuts that Republicans delivered earlier this year.
Just look at the numbers. In Quarter 3, Invest in Arizona received just over $16,000 from individual donors. Now, compare that to the nearly $2.4 million it received from the NEA and the more than $2.3 million it received in cash, goods, and services from Stand for Children.
That’s more than $4.5 million—basically their entire budget—with the overwhelming majority spent on gathering signatures.
So much for “grassroots,” eh?
Of course, Stand for Children is trying to claim that its money came from its Phoenix office. But these groups can’t be trusted. In 2020, Stand for Children was funding Invest in Ed from its headquarters in Portland, Oregon, which the Club pointed out here and here. But now we’re supposed to believe that its Phoenix office miraculously developed the ability to start writing 7-figure checks to fund Invest in Arizona?
Either the Phoenix chapter became a fundraising behemoth overnight, or more than likely, the Portland headquarters has been laundering their money to a Phoenix address..
But that’s not even the worst part.
In order to buy their way onto the ballot, these out-of-state special interest groups flooded the streets with hundreds of paid circulators to gather signatures. And you probably won’t be surprised to find out that many of them weren’t following the law. Some failed to fully and properly register with the Secretary of State. Some did not correctly disclose their assigned circulator registration numbers. And some were felons.
That’s right. Invest in Arizona used convicted felons whose civil rights had not been fully restored to circulate its ballot measure.
For all these reasons, the signatures they gathered illegally should be void. That’s why the Arizona Free Enterprise Club filed a lawsuit last week to challenge the validity of over half the signatures Invest in Arizona submitted to the Secretary of State.
It’s clear that these groups are upset that Prop 208 was put on its deathbed by the Arizona Supreme Court back in August. And now, they want to stick it to the people of Arizona by trying to stop them from receiving some much-needed tax relief.
Invest in Arizona is making a farce of the referendum process. It was never intended to be used by Washington, D.C. teachers’ unions that disapprove of the decisions made by Arizona lawmakers. And while the fate of Invest in Arizona’s astroturf referendum is still unclear, the Club will not be deterred from fighting back against out-of-state special interest groups that parachute into our state trying to buy our ballot box.
Help Protect Freedom in Arizona by Joining Our Grassroots Network
Arizona needs to have a unified voice promoting economic freedom and prosperity, and the Free Enterprise Club is committed to making that happen. But we can’t do it alone. We need YOU!
Join our FREE Grassroots Action List to stay up to date on the latest battles against big government and how YOU can help influence crucial bills at the Arizona State Legislature.
by admin | Oct 26, 2021 | Elections, News and Updates
When lawmakers fought to pass SB1485 earlier this year, legislation designed to clean up Arizona’s early voter list, the radical left and mainstream media went ballistic. Their attacks against the bill were relentless, ill-informed, and unhinged. Not only did they argue that mail-in voter fraud really isn’t a problem, they declared that any attempt at stopping ballots being mailed to ineligible voters is nothing short of Jim Crow.
It didn’t matter to them the stories that almost everyone has heard or experienced personally. Like the story of a sitting US Congressman who received a mail-in ballot for his mother who had passed away 10 years ago.
Or how in one case, a voter’s cousin moved out of the country in 2011. The county was notified of the move, and no ballot was received in 2012 or 2014. Then in 2016, ballots started arriving once again. Not only had her cousin moved 5 years prior and informed the county, but she had also only ever voted in person and wasn’t on PEVL. And despite additional notifications that her cousin had moved, another ballot was received in 2018 and for this year’s local election.
State Representative Travis Grantham received one in the mail too – for his sister who hasn’t lived here for 15 years and votes in California.
Why would anyone be OK with a mail-in voting system that is this sloppy? Even for those skeptical about the concerns of voter fraud, the sheer waste of taxpayer money associated with sending ballots to ineligible voters is reason enough to merit reform and stop the abuse.
Yet incredibly, the response from election officials has been to shrug their shoulders. For them, it doesn’t matter if a ballot is sent to the wrong address because someone would have to willfully commit a crime and forge the voter’s signature. Did you catch that? Creating opportunities for fraud isn’t a big deal because we have laws on the books against fraud.
Following that logic, everyone should rest at ease and get rid of their home security systems. Haven’t they heard? Breaking and entering is already illegal. No need to have alarms and deterrents because an individual would have to willfully commit a crime to break into their home.
The notion that we don’t need mechanisms in place to deter voter fraud is tantamount to believing that our elections should be conducted on the honor system. No proof of citizenship? No problem, just check a box on our voter registration form. We will believe that you’re a US Citizen. No ID to vote? Don’t worry, we trust that you are who you say you are.
It’s a laughable response to a serious problem. And the fact that voters have witnessed this problem during this off-year all-mail election lines up perfectly with one of the Audit Report findings. Over 23,000 early ballots were mailed to and cast by individuals who had moved prior to the ballots even being sent by the county.
That’s why maintaining clean and current voter rolls is imperative, and it’s why the Audit Report included it repetitively as a recommendation to lawmakers. Ballots would not be mailed to ineligible voters if the voter rolls were clean and up to date.
Additionally, lawmakers need to look at the statutes authorizing these ballot-by-mail elections. Every election must allow for an in-person voting option. An all-mail election is voter suppression, suppressing the votes of citizens who do not trust voting by mail, prefer to vote in person, or perhaps cannot even receive and send mail or have unreliable mail service.
Arizonans don’t want honor system voting. We want an election system that is both accessible and secure – where it is easy to vote and hard to cheat. We want to trust that voter rolls are clean, and that fraud is deterred and punished when it does occur.
Help Protect Freedom in Arizona by Joining Our Grassroots Network
Arizona needs to have a unified voice promoting economic freedom and prosperity, and the Free Enterprise Club is committed to making that happen. But we can’t do it alone. We need YOU!
Join our FREE Grassroots Action List to stay up to date on the latest battles against big government and how YOU can help influence crucial bills at the Arizona State Legislature.
Recent Comments