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The Arizona Legislature won’t be able to sic county sheriff’s offices on people who ignore their subpoenas and people who testify at the state Capitol won’t face felony charges if they lie, after Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a bill that GOP lawmakers sent her last month.
The measure would have delegated the power to hold a person in contempt to individual legislators — the Senate president, speaker of the House of Representatives or a committee chairman — instead of requiring a vote by the full chamber.
It also would have required every person who testifies in front of a legislative committee to do so under the penalty of perjury, along with it the prospect of a class four felony and at least two years in prison.
“The bill weaponizes the power of the Legislature in a way that could be used to intimidate Arizonans,” Hobbs wrote in her veto letter.
Additionally, the governor said, the power to hold someone in contempt “is best left to be determined” by the full legislative chambers and not any single legislator.
In 2021, Republicans in the Arizona Senate failed in a vote of 15-15 to find the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in contempt for refusing to comply with wide-ranging subpoenas for election equipment and materials to be used in the Senate’s partisan “audit” of the 2020 presidential election results.
One Republican joined with Democrats to block the proposal.
The last time that bald-faced lies to a legislative committee resulted in significant consequences was in 2023, when then Rep. Liz Harris, a Chandler Republican, was ousted from her seat in a bipartisan vote for lying about her intent when she invited a woman to testify in front of a joint elections committee, knowing she planned to spread wild conspiracy theories.
The woman claimed that various state and local officials from both parties were involved in a housing deed money laundering scheme involving a Mexican drug cartel and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
The vetoed bill, House Bill 2824, passed both the House and the Senate along party lines with only Republicans in favor.
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This post was originally authored and published by Jim Small from AZ Mirror via RSS Feed. Join today to get your news feed on Nationwide Report®.
