Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward has long been given a warm, even enthusiastic, welcome at the Pima County Republican Club weekly meetings.
In the past, those at the GOP meetings mostly cheered her on as she challenged Sen. John McCain for his seat in 2016 and fought with then-Rep. Martha McSally for the Republican nomination in the Senate special election in 2018.
On Tuesday afternoon, however, some Republicans were there to tell the former state senator that she had betrayed the Republican Party by endorsing a plan to increase the state's sales tax, with the estimated half-a-billion dollars going to public education every year.
The private club, which usually brings in at least 30 people to their midtown luncheons, expanded into another room at the Sabbar Shrine Temple to accommodate a large turn-out to see Ward speak.
For her part, Ward went to great lengths to discuss the issue, answering multiple questions from the audience and trying to explain that her support was for a Republican plan to refer the matter to the voters.
Voters should decide the issue, and a Republican-backed proposal is better than no proposal at all.
Republicans, she argued, need to be at the table when it comes to a plan for increased school funding.
"It doesn't mean we have to support this tax increase," Ward said. "It means that we have to talk about the education plan from the Republican perspective."
She would later tell the crowd of about 65 people that the current Republican proposal, introduced by Republican state Sen. Sylvia Allen, was mostly dead on arrival.
And even if the bill moves forward, she'd fight it because she doesn't support tax increases, Ward said.
The chairwoman theorized that there should be a Republican-backed plan for education funding in 2020 on the ballot, saying she was confident that a copy of the Invest in Ed ballot measure would again go before voters next year.
"My biggest nightmare is that we lose the legislature in 2020" Ward said.
She says that then Republicans would have wished a true Republican proposal was on the ballot in 2020.
But some in the crowd were not convinced and criticized Ward for giving the proposal any support.
The harshest criticism may have come from former state Sen. Frank Antenori, who lives in Cochise County but opted to attend the meeting in midtown Tucson.
He said Ward should have never gotten involved.
“I think this a mistake, Kelli,” Antenori said. “You are creating issues that divide the party.”
Antenori talked about how some Republicans took control of the legislature more than a decade ago by focusing on specific priorities.
"We didn't run on education or raising taxes. We ran on cutting spending, holding government accountable, getting government under control and balancing the budget. We ran on Republican issues and uniting our base, energized our base and got out the vote.
"I want to remind everyone that while Barack Obama was elected President in 2008, we were elected to the legislature," Antenori said.
