Just about the only 2022 Arizona Republican loser who’s not still litigating the election is Blake Masters, who lost the U.S. Senate race to Mark Kelly. Gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, Secretary of State candidate Mark Finchem, and Attorney General hopeful Abe Hamadeh are all still playing the courts, attempting to overturn their defeat. All three have filed multiple lawsuits and they’ve lost them all, with their attorneys occasionally sanctioned for filing frivolous BS.
So, this week:
Hamadeh filed another challenge to AG Kris Mayes’s narrow victory, claiming she is “usurping” the office. Hamadeh’s problem is that recounts affirmed Mayes’s victory and the courts already rejected his earlier lawsuits and appeals. Hamadeh’s newest challenge isn’t serious; it’s simply another grift, a way to stay newsworthy as he raises money for a congressional run.
Mark Finchem, the Oath Keeper boob who said if he were elected Secretary of State no Arizona Democrat would ever win another race, was taken to the woodshed again this week. Given all of his court rebuffs and sanctions, Finchem’s ass should be very sore by now. Democrat Adrian Fontes beat Finchem by a shit-ton in 2022, but that didn’t stop him from filing baseless lawsuits that went nowhere. His last challenge was so evidence-free that yesterday the Arizona State Bar not only fined Finchem’s inexperienced lawyer but ordered him to the time-out corner.
An attorney who represented former Republican lawmaker Mark Finchem in an election contest that baselessly claimed fraud has been sanctioned and ordered to retire for at least one year.
Previously I discussed the defamation lawsuit that Stephen Richer, a Republican election official, filed against Kari Lake last March. She did essentially what Rudy Giuliani did to Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman, when he defamed the two election workers, resulting in MAGA threats that put their lives in danger. Lake baselessly blamed her loss to Katie Hobbs on Richer, accusing him of monkeying with election machines, and the threats and violence that followed upended Richer’s world.
Knowing she’s playing a losing hand (and Giuliani is $148 million poorer), Lake’s lawyers filed a challenge to Richer’s lawsuit, arguing she has a First Amendment right to express her views, but in December a judge ruled the case can go forward. Lake filed another challenge to that decision with the Arizona Court of Appeals, but yesterday
The appeals court on Wednesday declined to take up Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Kari Lake’s request to overturn a lower court judge’s decision not to dismiss Richer’s case.
Please proceed with your dumbfuckery, Republican losers, it’s working so well. They can say whatever crazy crap they want at their rallies and on their grifting websites, but in court no one’s buying their fact-free conspiracy bull. Voters should do the same this year with Hamadeh and Lake on the ballot again.