On this date in both 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, as well as 2022, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Arizona State Senator Sonny Borrelli, who as a member of the Arizona House of Representatives from 2013-2017, established quite clearly that he does not get along with any Republicans unless they are as rabidly conservative as he is. Remember when CSGOPOTD would talk about former Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, the lady who claimed that illegal immigrants were leaving the bodies of decapitated murder victims in Arizona’s deserts? She seemed like she was an insane conservative, right? Well, Borrelli was in the state legislature when Jan Brewer made a rare good call as a governor, and decided Arizona shouldn’t block the Medicaid expansion because why turn down all the federal money that the state could use? His response was to join the lawsuit of three dozen Republican officials against Gov. Brewer to try and prevent Arizona from expanding Medicaid (full disclosure, the Arizona Supreme Court tossed out that lawsuit).
It wasn’t just Jan Brewer that Sonny Borrelli would go on quixotic endeavors to battle, he also voted for a bill to try and prevent Arizona from enforcing the Affordable Care Act (you can’t nullify federal legislation, Sonny), as well as the fact that he co-sponsored a deranged bill to make gold and silver legal tender in Arizona.
But alas, this sort of arch-conservative mentality is not an outlier for Arizona Republicans. So what brought Sonny Borrelli to our attention? Well, there’s the fact that he was arrested on domestic violence charges back in 2001 for repeatedly punching his wife at the time.
Still, in spite of just being lucky to have won one election, Borrelli decided to make a move at winning a seat on the Arizona State Senate in 2016, challenging Ron Gould in Arizona’s District 5. Well, not so much the challenge, but that Borrelli was caught on tape calling anyone who would bacjk Gould a “c***sucking idiot”:
Now, while it’s not shocking to imagine this is how politicians might feel about their opponents in an election, they probably don’t want it going public.
And yet… in spite of being a lunatic wife-beater who curses like a sailor, Borrelli defeated Gould in that GOP Primary with 53% of the vote. Democrats did not enter a candidate in the general election, and thus, Sonny Borrelli became a state senator.
Thus, he’s been able to use his new place in the state government to sponsor legislation to redefine “rioting” as a form of racketeering (?) vote for legislation to try and eliminate all background checks on firearm purchases (again, you can’t nullify federal law, Sonny) and vote for a bill to try and force physicians performing an abortion to try and revive the fetus if it is viable after the abortion (which, fetuses aren’t viable at 24 weeks, so this one is just a head-scratcher).
Sonny Borrelli even won re-election in 2018, getting to run unopposed in the GOP Primary for his seat, and winning his highly conservative district with 75% of the vote, and the Arizona GOP has decided that a former domestic abuser and hot-tempered lunatic is exactly who they want to serve as the Majority Whip in the Arizona State Senate. And that should tell you everything you need to know about the modern Republican Party.
As Borelli’s career as a State Senator has begun, he has defied any kind of logic in priorities… in the current term, he voted for a bill to declare pornography a “public health crisis”…while simultaneously voting against HIV prevention education] How… how can viewing porn be a threat, but a literal terminal, sexually transmitted disease not be? Well, that’s not the only interesting priorities Sonny Borelli has… he made sure to increase the amount of stipends he could collect for himself.
In his past term in office, Borrelli aimed to subvert democracy in his state and do everything he could to abuse his power and try and harass state officials, including claiming the (also) Republican Attorney General of the state would make “shredded ballots evaporate” as if there was a massive coverup during the Arizona GOP’s sham “audit” of the 2020 election that found no voter fraud, compromised voter information to private sources, and generally embarrassed the entire state. He continually harassed the Arizona A.G., and even after all of Donald Trump’s “Big Lie” was disproven, Sonny Borrelli was still saying they proved it, and that Joe Biden’s win should be “nullified”, which there is no legal process of after someone’s been sworn in as president.
Leading into the general election, he was urging the armed vigilantes who were stalking around ballot drop off boxes to “sniff out fraud”, because of course this fascist douche did that.
Yet he was allowed to run for re-election in 2022 unopposed by anyone inside or outside of his party.
While we’d like to think wasting taxpayer money and compromising their personal information would be something that Borrelli would have been held into account for, we at least know term limits catch up to him in 2026. In the meantime, he’s impotently giving orders he has no authority to have carried out and embodying the GOP’s anti-democracy ideals when he demands Arizona counties remove all voting machines from voting locations.
Again, maybe there should have been another choice.
One Year Ago, November 29th, 2022: Sonny Borelli (AZ)… 2022 Update
Two Years Ago, November 29th, 2021: Sonny Borelli (AZ)… 2021 Update
Three Years Ago, November 29th, 2020: Sonny Borelli (AZ)… 2020 Update
Four Years Ago, November 29th, 2019: Sonny Borelli (AZ)… 2019 Update
Five Years Ago, November 29th, 2018: Sonny Borelli (AZ)… 2018 Update
Six Years Ago, November 29th, 2017: Sonny Borelli (AZ)… Original Profile
Seven Years Ago, November 29th, 2016: Dawn Wilson (AZ)
Eight Years Ago, November 29th, 2015: Richard Mack (AZ)
Nine Years Ago, November 29th, 2014: Adam Kwasman (AZ)