Tim Steller's column: Tucson Sen. Wadsack's overreactions serve opponents

Sometimes it looks like state Sen. Justine Wadsack is working for the people trying to recall her from office.

Since talk of a recall began in March, Wadsack has been lashing out against those involved in the recall effort and other critics.

Unable or unwilling to resist responding to critics online, she’s repeatedly accused them of defamation or even “stalking“ her.

In July, she responded sharply to a Twitter account with 0 followers — and therefore almost no visibility — who had criticized her decision to pose for a photo with a gun on the state Capitol grounds.

“It’s funny how you all can lie and defame me, and that’s ok by your standards,” Wadsack wrote. “But it makes you crazy when I fight back & correct you in order to defend my character.”

While Wadsack has been slapping back at random critics who come her way, she has also been winning accolades from fellow Republicans, who tend to think she’s done a great job in her first session. They named her the top GOP freshman senator of the year.

But Wadsack can’t resist her critics. A Realtor by profession, she has gone so far as to complain to the employer of a woman who started the recall. That woman, Tina Kilcullen, later lost her position with Tierra Antigua Realty, where she had been an agent.

The upshot for Wadsack is that now she’s facing two ethics complaints against her at the Arizona Association of Realtors, in addition to the recall effort and next year’s looming primary and general election campaigns.

Nevertheless, she often flexes a persecution complex online. She posted a cryptic couplet on Twitter July 21: “I’m patient until I’m not/I like you till I don’t”

Her critics in the recall effort responded by saying that Wadsack should grow up. “This isn’t high school. You are in the state government.”

Longshot recall effort

The recall is a longshot because it requires collecting almost 31,000 valid signatures from Legislative District 17 voters in 120 days. Collecting that many valid signatures may mean collecting at least 40,000 total signatures in order to account for invalid ones.

It’s a big challenge that volunteers have been pursuing at libraries and parks for months now. The effort ends Sept. 5.

But Kilcullen got Wadsack’s attention well before the recall, in July 2022, during the primary-election campaign, when Kilcullen posted an online comment that made fun of Wadsack’s name. Wadsack subsequently texted Kilcullen about it, but Kilcullen declined to respond.

By March of this year, Wadsack had excited Republican supporters but angered others by introducing bills dealing with drag shows, banning allegedly inappropriate books in schools and rousting homeless people, among other hot-button cultural issues.

That’s when the recall got rolling, inspired by anger over those bills. It’s also when Wadsack started contacting Kimberly Clifton, the designated broker at Tierra Antigua, complaining about Kilcullen.

Clifton, who is also serving a term as president of the Tucson Association of Realtors, detailed the March 21 conversation in a July 13 letter.

“I spoke with Ms. Wadsack who was extremely upset with my agent Tina Kilcullen regarding one or more social media posts and stated that I needed to immediately require my agent to remove the post.

“Justine stated that this post was in violation since she was a Realtor and it was against the Code of Ethics to speak negatively about a Realtor. I let her know that the post she was referring to did not have anything to do with real estate or her as a Realtor, and this was out of my scope as the Designated Broker.”

Tierra Antigua ended its relationship with Kilcullen later last month. It wasn’t exactly a firing, because agents generally don’t work as employees for their brokerages. But it was nonetheless a big blow to Kilcullen.

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“It’s a lot of work to change brokers,” she told me. “It’s not just a click of a button and you’re done.”

When I reached her Friday, Clifton said Wadsack’s call was not the direct cause of the separation from Kilcullen.

“That call did not create the decision that we are not a match,” she said.

But the ongoing drama over Wadsack’s anger at Kilcullen clearly had an effect, especially after it led to a conservative Facebook group calling for a boycott of Tierra Antigua.

“I am not in this fight, however I’ve been drug into it by both sides,” Clifton said. “This is not my circus, and I feel very saddened that I’m in the middle of it.”

Ethics accusation fly

While it was Wadsack who was complaining that Kilcullen had violated Realtor ethics, it was Kilcullen who ended up filing an ethics complaint against Wadsack to the Arizona Association of Realtors.

The basis of complaint, Kilcullen told me, was that “She called making fake allegations to my broker in an attempt to get me in trouble.”

The effect has been that Wadsack has spent time answering a complaint that would not have been filed if she had not contacted Kilcullen’s boss in the first place.

Wadsack said in a July 26 email to Tierra Antigua: “Since my initial encounter with Ms. Kilcullen, I have tried to focus on my work and prioritize my time to serve the people who elected me, rather than defend myself from her constant character assassination attempts while in legislative session. Now, I find myself wasting more of my time protecting my good name from a woman who clearly wishes me harm.”

To be clear, the Realtors are a private organization that real estate agents may join. You can be a licensed real estate agent without being a Realtor and you can violate Realtor ethics without losing your state real estate license.

Now Wadsack is facing two complaints at the Arizona Association of Realtors. Two years ago, Aaron Parkey, another local real-estate professional, filed a complaint against Wadsack that is similar to Kilcullen’s — that political disagreements led Wadsack to complain about him to his boss, costing him his association with that broker.

Parkey and Wadsack were tied up in a lawsuit for two years — Parkey filed it against her and others, then Wadsack countersued. What’s left of their conflict now, though, is this ethics complaint, which Parkey told me would be heard Aug. 29.

“She’s weaponized cancel culture for her own benefit and goes after people’s living by lying,” Parkey said.

Harassment, bad judgment

Wadsack, who has asked me not to contact her by cell phone, did not answer a set of questions I emailed her and the the Senate GOP spokeswoman. She and her supporters, of course, see this very differently. Wadsack has correctly pointed out that Kilcullen used an email signature that included her Tierra Antigua affiliation while sending out communications about the recall effort.

Wadsack is right, I think, that mixing your professional affiliation and political activism is a bad idea. While Kilcullen told me she has no regrets about what she’s posted about Wadsack, I also think jokes about Wadsack’s name or appearance are low and unnecessary.

Wadsack, though, tends to lump it all together as “harassment,” “defamation” or “stalking.” As she said in one response to Kilcullen’s complaint, “Between Tina and FireFighterDev [the nickname of another online critic] I’m constantly harassed.”

What she needs to understand, though, is that this is part of the job, especially for a legislator trying to turn controversial ideas into law. Receiving criticism and moving on without lashing out is a key skill for the job, one that Wadsack has shown she lacks.

Going further and using her position to go after a critic’s job shows especially bad judgment. Ironic that it took a recall against her for Wadsack to highlight flaws that further justify the recall effort.