Political Notebook: Tucson protesters seek bigger impact after No Kings rallies

The Oct. 18 No Kings rallies were a high point for some anti-Trump activists, with a half-dozen protests occurring just in the Tucson area, but they also left a lingering question.

What next?

Those who organized the protests locally are looking for something that has greater impact, while a splinter group has been targeting a top local GOP donor personally.

‘What we’re focusing on here in Tucson — and people in other places are going to be focusing on it too — is what we have to get beyond is that people can just show up and stand around with signs,” said Bennett Burke, an organizer and spokesman for a coalition of local organizations.

“There will always be a place for rallying and holding signs, but there has to be more than that.”

People gathered in more than 2,500 demonstrations around the country Oct. 18, with somewhere between 6 million and 7 million attending in total. Organizers considered the turnout a success, as well as the fact that there were no known arrests or significant disturbances at the events.

But an undercurrent of opinion, among Trump opponents, also questioned the utility of the protests.

“Now we’re going to start doing the work of the collaboration, which is to prepare to defend Tucson from the ramping up of ICE activity, from a possible National Guard deployment,” Burke said. “We believe that’s part of a next step beyond No Kings. We have to be mobilizing people all the time.”

A small group of anti-Trump activists has targeted one of Tucson’s most prominent citizens, auto dealer and philanthropist Jim Click. The protesters, who have labeled themselves the “Good Trouble Action Group” have protested at a Click auto dealership, and in late October, took to protesting outside Click’s neighborhood and near his offices on the northeast side.

Eight members of the group were arrested for blocking the entrance to Jim Click Kia on Aug. 27. They began protesting at the corner of East Tanque Verde Road and Camino Principal in October.

Their reasoning? Click is a major financial supporter of Rep. Juan Ciscomani, the Tucson Republican, who is helping Trump assert autocratic control by voting for measures like the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Jim Driscoll, who has organized the protests, said he understands that Click, a longtime Republican megadonor, does not support Trump, but that by funding Ciscomani, he is supporting Trump.

“We’re trying to shine the light of public opinion on Jim Click and try to get him to rethink what he’s doing,” Driscoll said.

Click declined to comment on the protests. The protest near his home was outside the area’s gates on a main street, so it likely did not violate the state’s ban on residential picketing.

Arizona law makes it a class 3 misdemeanor to picket outside a person’s home if “a reasonable person would find the person’s picketing or demonstrating to be harassing, threatening or alarming to a person in the residence.”

Mayor’s fling revealed in NYC

The mayor of South Tucson, Roxanna Valenzuela, had a short-lived romantic relationship with the former mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio, the New York Post reported Tuesday.

The fling began in October but ended relatively soon thereafter, the Post reported.

It apparently contributed to the end of a longer-term relationship that de Blasio was having with Nomiki Konst, a New York City activist who, coincidentally, is also from Tucson. Konst briefly considered a run for Congress here in 2012.

In Tucson and South Tucson, where current and former elected officials’ affairs aren’t usually in the news, the story landed on social media with a splash. But then a natural question arose: So what?

Of the two, only de Blasio is married, and he has long been separated from his wife and dating other women publicly.

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The political consequences are also questionable. Valenzuela is mayor by virtue of being part of the majority bloc on South Tucson’s seven-member city council. It’s the council who appoints the mayor from among the seven members after each election.

In August, Valenzuela and two of her allies survived a recall attempt started by fellow council member Paul Diaz. She’s up for re-election next year, along with allies Brian Flagg and Cesar Aguirre.

Diaz said he doesn’t know of any potential fallout from the Post story. Valenzuela declined to comment when asked about the story on Wednesday.

“I’m not going to comment on this one — I really value my private life,” she said by text.

That’s not something you get as New York City mayor, even after you leave office, apparently.

LD17 candidates line up

A new Republican candidate has thrown his name in to run for state representative in Legislative District 17, and it’s not making the current GOP representative happy.

John Winchester, a former candidate for county supervisor, is running in the district that runs from the northwest side of the Tucson area over the Santa Catalinas and down the east side to Vail.

Winchester, who works as director of government and community engagement for ASU in Southern Arizona, was previously director of the Northwest YMCA branch.

The current representatives in LD 17, which was drawn as a Republican-leaning district by the redistricting commission, are Republican Rachel Keshel and Democrat Kevin Volk. Keshel, who belongs to the party’s right wing, said in a newsletter that she met Winchester and didn’t like what she found.

“Teamwork appears to be out of the question,” Keshel wrote. “As was obvious in our meeting, he is deeply connected to establishment political figures, most likely a moderate vote at best.”

On the Senate side in the same district, Democrat Hunter Holt and Republican Chris King have filed to run. Sen. Vince Leach, who occupies the seat now, announced in September he will not run for re-election.

Kelly joins violence discussion

U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, a Tucson Democrat, joined Republican Sen. John Curtis, of Utah, Wednesday afternoon in a discussion of political violence at Utah Valley University.

That’s the campus where Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA was assassinated on Sept. 10.

The event was hosted by CNN and moderated by Dana Bash.

In the event, Kelly blamed the recent upsurge in large part on social media.

“It is used to divide us. The algorithms, in order to generate revenue, sort of do that, because they feed you information that reinforces an opinion.

“On the other side of that, we’ve got alot of countries out there, adversaries of ours, who use social media platforms in the United States to further divide us as a nation.”

“The Chinese and the Russians, they’ll look for events like what happened here to drive a wedge.”

Kelly and Curtis also revealed they are co-authoring a bill that would remove liability protections from social media companies over harms caused by their algorithms.