PHOENIX — Chandler area Republican Party officials want Liz Harris restored to the legislative seat from which she was just ousted last week.
But whether that’s legally or politically possible remains unclear.
Harris was the top vote getter at a meeting late Monday among the precinct committeemen from the district that includes parts of Chandler and Gilbert to nominate people to fill the vacancy created after the House expelled Harris for violating an ethics rule against “disorderly behavior.”
She got 107 votes of the 153 cast in person and by proxy by the precinct committeemen.
As required by law, the party workers submitted a total of three names to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors which is tentatively scheduled to meet Monday to choose a replacement.
Also tapped was Julie Willoughby, who came in third in the House race last year to Democrat Jennifer Pawlik and Harris. She trailed Harris by 270 votes.
The third name being sent to the supervisors is Steve Steele.
Harris actively encouraged the party workers to support her.
“These people know me,” she told reporters before the meeting.
State law spells out that precinct committeemen from affected legislative district must nominate replacements for vacancies. But aside from the requirement that the nominees be of the same party as the person who previously held the seat, there appears to be nothing specifically addressing whether a person who was removed is eligible to fill the post.
Fellow Republican lawmaker Justin Heap initially had opined in a Twitter post that state law prohibits an expelled member from being reappointed to the same seat. But Heap, who is an attorney, backtracked somewhat.
“I still believe this statement is true,” he wrote.
“However, Arizona law does not expressly prohibit LD 13 PCs from nominating Liz Harris as a candidate to her prior seat,” Heap said. “After review with other attorneys the best we can say is this is a constitutional ‘gray area.’”
Supervisors had not yet received legal advice on their options, said Fields Moseley, spokesman for the supervisors.
Even if it’s legal, the odds of the supervisors selecting Harris are slim at best.
Harris, after losing her legislative race in 2020, was a promoter of theories that the results were flawed. The Chandler real estate agent even conducted what she claimed was a door-to-door canvass of Maricopa County voters and claimed based on her sample that there were more than 173,000 “lost” votes and more than 96,000 “ghost” votes.
And even after winning her 2022 race she continued to claim flaws.
In fact, at one point, even before taking office in January, she threatened to withhold her votes for any legislation unless the state “immediately” holds another election. Harris subsequently backed off after legislative leaders said they have no authority to issue such an order.
Maricopa County supervisors have been on the receiving end of such criticism and have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. And a review they ordered of problems with printers and tallying machines at vote centers on Election Day concluded that the equipment failures were not the result of intentional action by anyone.
But at least one of the other two options may be no more appealing to the supervisors. A video posted on Gab shows Steele and Earl Shafer being interviewed by Harris in June 2021 where they both discuss working with Harris on that discredited door-to-door canvass.
One remaining question is whether the five supervisors, who get to fill the vacancy, can reject the entire list and ask for three other nominees.
That does not appear to be an option. The statute says the board “shall appoint a person from the three nominees submitted.”
Here, too, however, Moseley said there could be no answer from the supervisors until they get legal advice.
But there also is no deadline for the supervisors to act on the nominations. And until they do, there are only 30 House Republicans, one shy of the 31 needed for final action on legislation.
Monday’s meeting itself had a bit of drama.
A majority of the Republican precinct committeemen voted to oust the media from the meeting. But that was reversed after Jeff DeWit, the state party chairman, noted that the requirement for the meeting was spelled out in statute, making closure a potential violation of the state Open Meeting Law.
Harris was ousted after the House voted 46-13 to accept the findings of the House Ethics Committee that she knew that someone she had invited to testify at a joint hearing in February on election integrity was going to present not just false but libelous accusations against lawmakers, judges and even the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, accusing them of being involved in a criminal scheme to rig elections and other crimes. Committee members also concluded that Harris was not being truthful with them about what she knew ahead of time about what Scottsdale insurance agent Jacqueline Breger was going to say.
In separate action Monday, Democrat precinct committeemen from LD 26 which encompasses portions of the near west side of Phoenix nominated State Reps. Cesar Aguilar and Flavio Bravo along with political newcomer Quant’a Crews to replace state Sen. Raquel Teran. She resigned and is running for Congress.
That final decision also belongs to the Maricopa supervisors.
House Minority Leader Andres Cano, D-Tucson, speaks Wednesday during vote to expel Rep. Liz Harris. Video courtesy of Arizona Capitol Television.
