Political Notebook: Arizona GOP chair fights Jan. 6 committee subpoena

The chair of the Arizona GOP and her husband are fighting a subpoena issued by the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol.

Kelli Ward and Michael Ward filed suit in U.S. District Court on Tuesday, asking for a judge to quash the subpoena seeking telephone records for a phone number they use. The Wards are both osteopathic physicians and cite, in part, the privacy of patients as a reason not to provide the records.

The committee, chaired by U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, has been issuing subpoenas and taking depositions for months as it investigates the Jan. 6, 2021, attempt to stop the confirmation of the 2020 general election results.

On Jan. 28, the committee announced it had issued subpoenas to 14 people as it investigates slates of “alternate electors” sent to Congress in an effort to overturn the election results and put Donald Trump back in office.

Michael and Kelli Ward were both among the official GOP electors whose names would have been sent to Congress had Trump won Arizona. They were also on a slate of alternate electors for Trump sent to Congress.

However, neither was on the list of 14 people whose documents and testimony were subpoenaed by the committee last week. The chair and secretary of alternate-elector slates from seven states were subpoenaed. In Arizona, the chair was Nancy Cottle and the secretary was Loraine Pellegrino.

Thompson said in a written statement: “The Select Committee is seeking information about attempts in multiple states to overturn the results of the 2020 election, including the planning and coordination of efforts to send false slates of electors to the National Archives. We believe the individuals we have subpoenaed today have information about how these so-called alternate electors met and who was behind that scheme.”

Although the Wards don’t know for certain why their phone records were subpoenaed, they say in the lawsuit they suspect it is because of the investigation of alternate-elector slates.

“It is public knowledge that Republicans sent a competing slate of electors from Arizona. Thus, it is highly likely here that the subpoena is being used for a purpose or purposes well outside of the legitimate Congressional subpoena power, whether for the personal aggrandizement of investigators, and/or to punish those investigated, and/or or to expose for the sake of exposure,” the lawsuit says.

They contend that the subpoena is overbroad and violates their First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and association.

Candidates visit “Tuscon”

It has been a big week for the most annoying misspelling in Tucson: Tuscon.

Two candidates for statewide office, one of them a former Tucsonan, blundered into the common mistake on Twitter last week.

First, Jim Lamon, a candidate for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate, made the mistaken spelling. It came, awkwardly, in a tweet announcing the opening of his new Tucson office.

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“Today was a huge day for the Lamon Campaign,” said the tweet posted Saturday. “I had the chance to sit down at a round table with Hispanic business owners in Tuscon to listen to their needs as hard-working entrepreneurs, & we hosted the grand opening for our Tuscon office.”

Yes, Tucson was misspelled twice.

I pointed it out to Lamon via Twitter, saying “Spelling ‘Tucson’ right is the first step toward winning it.” A bit snarky in retrospect. And Laurie Roberts, columnist for the Arizona Republic, pointed out my tweet.

Lamon responded: “I admit my errors .. it’s been corrected. Now back to the important issues I am addressing in this race and soon in US Senate...”

But this was not the end of Tuscon-gate. The next Tuscon tweet came from a shocking source — former Tucson City Council member Rodney Glassman. A Democrat when in Tucson, he lives in the Phoenix area now and is running for the GOP nomination for attorney general.

His campaign’s tweet started, “TUSCON, AZ.” It went on, “I’m on the campaign trail visiting with Southern Arizona business leaders who value our natural resources. As AG I’ll protect Arizonans’ from the government and fight to uphold our Second Amendment rights.”

That tweet was deleted quickly and replaced with one that correctly spelled the name of our fair city. However, the faulty use of an apostrophe (“Arizonans’ “) remained.

Samara Klar, an associate professor of government and public policy at the UA, responded satirically to the kerfuffle, writing: “Tucson is a city that should be experienced, not a word that should be spelled.”

Cochise voter charged

The Arizona Attorney General’s Office has accused a woman with voting the ballot of her “recently deceased” mother in the 2020 general election.

Krista Michelle Conner, 55, faces felony charges of illegal voting and perjury, the attorney general’s office said in a news release. She’s accused of signing her mother’s ballot envelope.

Conner is not a registered voter in Cochise County, county recorder David Stevens said Thursday. Her mother, Caroline Jeanne Sullivan, was a registered Republican.

Conner has a court date in Cochise County on Feb. 7.