Michelle Ugenti-Rita on Internet Trolls, Election Integrity, and Sports Betting 44:27

Welcome to Broken Potholes. I am your host, Sam Stone.

My co-host Chuck Warren in snowy, frigid Utah today on the line with us. And in studio, State Senator Michelle Ugenti-Rita. I was about to say Ugenti-Reagan, which would be totally wrong. I'm matching you up with someone else. That's all right. But we actually finished the last show talking about a really astounding episode on Twitter that you were the star of.

along with a bit of a miscreant in the Scottsdale area. Yeah, so what was that? Like maybe a week and a half ago, two weeks ago? I had been trolled by someone for the last couple of months, which isn't unusual. There are a lot of trolls on Twitter. But this current troll had a particularly violent,

vile kind of rhetoric and comments, very misogynistic, very over the top, more over the top than usual. And that's saying something for Twitter. I saw some of them. I mean, they were really vile. And I get a lot of that same kind of thing on Twitter, too. And a lot of it, you just kind of brush off.

You do, right? I brush off a lot. And a lot of them are from accounts that have just five followers and they've just popped up. So I usually ignore them. But this one was different. I could tell that this was someone in the community. They had a lot of community references.

Plus, they said they lived in Scottsdale. Of course, the account was anonymous. The name was fictitious. And of course, there wasn't an accompanied picture. So it was a troll account, but like a real troll account, if you will. There was a real. Well, when and when you find those people, I mean, my experience is you find the worst people on Twitter never use their name or their photo. No, I mean, it's really cowardly.

It is. Of course not. They would never say what they say. For example, this guy would never say to Michelle's face what he was posting on Twitter. Matter of fact, he would say it. I mean, I don't know. Maybe he is the type of person that says that to women all the time. Well, you start to wonder, right? Right. Because he's so disconnected that maybe that is how he talks. But but but I agree. I think there's a reason to me. It's like a guilty conscience when you're using an anonymous account.

You're already saying that you know what you're spewing is controversial and offensive and will probably get you in trouble, whether at work, maybe in your family dynamic with friends and neighbors. That's why you disguise your identity. So it's kind of like I said, like a guilty conscience, but it doesn't stop him. No, and it didn't stop this guy. I mean, he really went after you for a long time. He did. And what I thought, you know, his biggest gripe was that I wanted kids back in school. Right.

Which, you know, I don't know. I don't know. We keep getting told to follow the science. And if you actually pay attention to the science, you're on the side of the science. A new study in Germany came out just today showing no spread in schools despite high levels of community spread. So you're on the right side of that. And he's attacking you for it in a really vile way. And then you managed to out him. I did. I've learned over the course of my political tenure that if you want something done right,

you know efficiently and right do it yourself so I thought you know I'm just gonna research this guy I did and he was clumsy and put posts on other accounts that that he identified himself in that were the exact same as posts that he made under his anonymous counts and I just I

collected all of it, made sure that it was overwhelming. So it's not just one. It was several. And some of the language was pretty unique. Yes. He has some choice words he's used that, like, nobody uses. Right. And handwriting analysis would have loved this guy, right? He'd been easy to point out right away in a murder mystery. Yeah, exactly. So...

So it wasn't too hard once I was able to find his personal account. And then I just looked him up on a multitude of different social media platforms. And there he was making the same posts. Because on that anonymous account,

Yes, he had hundreds of vile posts, me and other people, but then he also had like random things just about his everyday life. And those are what were similar to his posts on his personal pages on Facebook and Instagram. And I, you know, and I was going to let it go and handle it kind of a different way, but...

I'm glad you didn't. He wouldn't stop. And so I was like, you know, we're just going to out it. And and all I was my point was like, look, if you're such a tough guy and this is really what you believe, then say it. Say it with your name on it. I mean, look, I am probably one of the biggest Republican flamethrowers on Twitter in the state. Yeah, I've got my name in my photo there. Right. And I will stand in front of anybody and say that to their face now.

Right. You know, I've gotten black eyes before. It's been a while. But, you know, but I think that's an important point. These people and he turned out to be something of a public figure. Yes, he did. I know. It just kept like the onion kept rolling back. I mean, it'd be.

You know, it wasn't like he was, you know, the 17 year old kid, you know, in between jobs. I got one of those called Snugs Woodlock doing this to me at the moment. So, yes, it's a great name, though. It is actually more impressive than most. Yeah.

Yeah, that's true. So, yeah, he ended up being ended up working for some high profile companies, the school district, you know, the Giants. GCU. GCU. Yeah. I was like, oh, my God.

Yeah. So but but I'm glad it happened. It needed to happen. And hopefully it serves as a lesson that, you know, you run the risk of of of being outed. That stuff isn't going to be tolerated. And I'm glad he he faced the music. Well.

One thing social media can do that can really turn down the temperature of public discourse in this country, and newspapers as well, is just get rid of the whole anonymous element of profiles.

If you're going to be on Twitter, be who you are, be it confirmed. If you're going to post a comment on a newspaper article, then make sure your name's attached to it. And, you know, for example, in Salt Lake, the Salt Lake Tribune, they don't require that in the vitriol. It's always the same people, you know, Republicans are bad, Mormons are going to hell, blah, blah, blah. And it's the same thing over and you just know there are trolls, right? And you see that, you know, it's always interesting when you read comments on Twitter, for example.

you know, the most jackass statement is always made by the person who follows 200 people and has eight people following them or something like that nature. And matter of fact, if Twitter really wanted to clean it up and they don't, but if Twitter really want to clean up a, they would require you to confirm who you are and your name has to be there. And to not allow you to make comments unless you have 200 or more followers.

This would really end the troll farming quite a bit. I think that I agree. I've always thought this. And actually, I don't know, maybe six, seven, eight years ago, I did a bill that kind of tried to address anonymity online. Back then, I was blasted for trying to regulate the Wild West of the Internet. But but so maybe it was a little bit ahead of its time. But I think it

highlights an important point that just being identified with what you say is

puts controls on the system. You don't need to necessarily over-regulate speech if you just have to identify who you are when you're speaking. That in and of itself would go a long way to stop the trolling. It's too easy to levy insults and it's not even insults, I mean even threats to use just disgusting language and

when you can do it and not have to suffer the repercussions of your words. So the anonymity has played a big role in the trolling. Well, and for people who don't know you out there,

You'd mentioned being blasted over that a few years back. You tend to actually get blasted a lot more than most of our state senators. And yet you win your elections by big margins, I think, because everyone knows who knows you and in your district that you do these things, whatever you think is right.

And you're not going to stand down or stand aside. And I think that's what really creates a lot of the antipathy on the left in this kind of troll situation. Right. Yeah. You know, I do. These are the policies that I push or the opinions that I put out there. One, I do it with my name on it. I don't hide. I don't ask other people to do it on the side. You know, I own what I say because I think that's the right thing to do. Yeah.

But yeah, the flip of that is you get criticized quite a bit because...

You know, the left, they want you to fall in line. They don't want people really speaking the truth, speaking their mind, providing an alternative point of view, letting the public know that it doesn't have to be this way or it's not this way. And so just simply kind of exposing their rhetoric and pushing the ideas that I think the vast majority of the public are supportive of.

seems to get you nothing but negative press. The Democrat Party has really gotten good at messaging as if their ideas are a fait accompli. Right. That there's no alternative. This is the only thing you can do. Right.

And you bring common sense to the table like you do, and that just shuts that down. It destroys their narrative. Well, and what happens to, especially at the left, because they go to the old standard, you're racist or you hate grandma or poor people. And the problem is many Republicans, a chunk of our party are people of faith. It doesn't mean they always live their perceived principles, but-

No one likes to be called a racist. No one likes to be called hating poor people or homeless. And so we then our side, because a lot of our electorate has a conscience on certain things. They don't want to be accused of something like that. It becomes very scary for them. And we're almost at the point that you just have to start telling people to kiss off. You know, I mean, you just it's not going to stop people.

until we have more elected officials and public figures do what you did. I just won't stop. And it was, it was a good start, but he's having more, you know, Ted Cruz, Cancun trip was, I cannot believe someone was that clueless. Um, especially somebody that has such a beating. Well, it may just somebody with that, somebody with that such, such, you know, unbridled

ambition, right? That you just don't think that through. But the way the press has reacted and, you know, a lot of it's deserved, but, you know, he almost should have followed the Trump strategy and said, yeah, screw you. I'm staying in Cancun. I'm taking my family. Well, I know at that point, right? I mean, yeah, it's done. Now he's trying to do a mea culpa. It's just, it looks horrible. And I think our side needs to start just being more blunt about

with the adversaries who just toss these grenades at him all the time. You can't back up. You can't back down. I mean, we have about 40 seconds left in this segment, but I think maybe one of the most important lessons of Trump is don't go run and hide in the closet when these folks come after you. Right. Because it almost looks like you agree with them. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Michelle, fantastic interview so far. We're looking forward to having you back after the break. Broken Potholes will be right back.

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If you're running for political office, the first thing on your to-do list needs to be securing your name on the web with a yourname.vote web domain from GoDaddy.com. Get yours now. Welcome back. This is Broken Potholes. I'm your host, Sam Stone. My co-host, Chuck Warren. In the studio today with us, State Senator Michelle Ugenti-Rita. I got her name right this time.

Big, you know, small victories. Got to take them where you can get them. I like it. And also coming up a little bit later in the show, the irrepressible Kylie Kipper and our sunshine moment. But right now, Michelle, I want to talk about election reforms. And you've really been the leader in the Arizona State Senate in terms of election integrity, election reforms. Had a big brouhaha over that this week. Can you tell us a little bit about it?

Yeah, so this isn't news or new to me. I've been doing election reform, you know, for eight plus years now. I identified it early on in my career as something that I was going to be passionate about because, look, if you don't have elections that people have confidence in that are run efficiently, fairly, you know,

uh then you really doesn't matter what else you do it's just the baseline for our democracy so i really love this area of law even though it can be uh boring for others i find it very exciting it's a very boring minefield yeah right i know exactly that's the funny way to put it um it's become that yeah there there was a time when you know most people didn't want to get into these kind of policy discussions but

But now, you know, you have what I what I keep calling is like the commercialization of elections where private companies are advocating that you get out and vote. So it's just it's it's got it's become its own kind of beast. And because of that, there's just a lot of attention on it by the by the public and the media. And it's always been partisan, but it's been particularly partisan, I guess.

And of course, there's just a lot of brewing distrust. And that's very, very problematic. Whether it's even worthwhile or not, it exists and it does a lot of damage to the process. So I've done a handful of bills, but most recently I was been trying to push a bill to update our early voting system.

mail-by-voting system in Arizona. Very popular here, right? 70 plus percent of people vote by mail. And we've been doing it for like 30 plus years. So this is nothing new for Arizona. The first thing I tell every candidate here is election day is not election day. I mean, it's 30 days before that.

Right, exactly. So but but we have an obligation and I believe we have an obligation to make sure that that list is up to date and accurate. And we don't have people on the list that aren't participating or, you know, may be deceased or have moved. So we've again an obligation to have an updated list. So I had a I have a bill and I also introduced it in 2019. So it's really nothing new for the legislature, but it hasn't been passed yet.

that says look if you miss an election four years in a row you don't vote at all over the course of a four-year period

and you're sent a notice to reaffirm your participation and you have 30 days to respond to that notice and you don't respond to the notice, yeah, you're going to be removed because you're not utilizing this voluntary system. And we want to make sure we're sending live ballots to people who are indeed voting by mail. Well, because at the end of the day, I think mail voting has been a really great thing for a lot of people. It makes it much easier for a lot of folks. My parents are older. For them, it's a huge help. But...

when you're sending ballots to people that might not be there anymore or who have passed away or have moved to another state. Or who just simply aren't voting by mail. They're there, but they're not voting. Right. The argument that's ludicrous about this and what the left is doing is they make, you know, when you read about what you are proposing, it's like, well, they're taking all these people off the rolls. Well, they're people not participating. That seems to be a fact that,

that the Arizona Republic and others do not point out. These people are not voting. I mean, you could see as high as 20% of these people are not even at the address anymore.

So if they're so concerned about it, why did they not take the opportunity to vote at least one time out of four elections? It's utter hogwash that people think you're somehow taking away voting rights for people who are not participating. And our side just, you know, and the problem is you just can't be one state center, get that message out. And this is my frustration as well with all government, but my real frustration with Arizona is,

Why, why the body cannot all preach from the same hymnal about this message, you know, you have a majority, they should all be on every weekly newspaper op ed saying, we're not taking away anybody's right to vote. You just haven't used this service in four years.

And there is no subscription in the world that if you don't use it over four years that they keep you on it. Now, this doesn't it's insane. This doesn't remove your voter registration. So you can go to the polls. Let's say that you decide you want to vote. No, I have an election tomorrow. I want to vote. I've been removed from the rolls because it's been eight years since I last cast a ballot.

But now my buddy from down the street is running for council. So I'm going to show up. I can still go to the poll. Absolutely. So it's not your voter registration that you're removed from. It's your participation on our permanent early voting list that you're removed from. So you are able to vote early in person. You can vote by emergency. You can vote in person day of.

And you could also just re-register for people if you wanted to as well. I mean, all that takes is going on the Service Arizona website. It's super easy, right? It's very easy. I mean...

If you're if you're a casual voter and you are participating by mail casually, you're going to see no change because you're going to continue to just get your ballot sent to you. If you're not voting at all over the course of four years, don't respond to a notice. You're really not going to see that much change because you're not voting anyway by mail. So you can't really to me, it's a.

it's a very moderate step in reinforcing the integrity of vote by mail. Um, while also, you know, there's costs associated with sending out these ballots, you know, the envelope that it comes with is prepaid, you know, we, it doesn't make sense. And I think Chuck had a great point too. Like in what other area do we keep you on a prescription or subscription, excuse me, if you're not participating in, if you're not utilizing, I mean, it just makes sense that you would be removed. Hey,

I mean, here's here's here's an example. I mean, there was over 200000 Republicans who did not vote this election. Yeah. OK. And we had an 86 or 87 percent turnout among Republicans. OK, this election. What sane person believes. Let's let's round it off and say that these 10 percent.

have any intention of voting or if they're even at where they were supposed to be. Chuck, they're not sane people. Democrats are not sane, but they're convinced that they can go collect that ballot somehow and get it turned in. Well, yeah. I mean, I keep those ballots out. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, because there's just I mean, and that goes again to the messaging for the party. You know, you're you're not targeting Democrats and homeless people as well. There is a likelihood that

130,000 Republicans will be taken off PEVL. Right. It's not this is this is fairly blind what you're doing. This is not a targeted, you know, getting a tumor out. You're saying, look, if you haven't voted for the last four elections, you're obviously not that interested and we're not going to waste money on it anymore. Yeah. I mean, for example, I hadn't actually parked in the employee parking garage at City Hall in over a year. I've been stealing the councilman spot in the basement VIP garage.

And I had to actually park. He came into the office. I had to actually try to use it. And then the parking company had canceled my pass. Right. Yeah.

Same concept. Yeah, same concept. Absolutely. Well, just Republicans alone, if you just round out and say it's a buck to mail for each envelope, which is more, we know that's $200,000. Yeah. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. And it's a lot of money for counties that don't have a big budget. Some of these outlying counties are scraping dollars at the bottom of the barrel every year. And coming to the legislature asking for money and here's a cost saver. Right. Yeah, it's...

Amazing how many times government's willing to run to the fount and beg for cash and how rarely they're willing to sit back and say, well, maybe we can cut a little fat off this bit. Well, broken potholes. We'll be right back. It's the new year and time for the new you. You've thought about running for political office, but don't know where to start. Before you start any planning, you need to secure your name online with a yourname.vote web domain.

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Welcome back to Broken Potholes. Your host, Sam Stone, Chuck Warren in the studio today, State Senator Michelle Ugenti-Rita, and the irrepressible Kylie Kipper. We'll be bringing our sunshine moment in a moment, but...

First, we're going to talk sports gambling. Yeah. Big news, except nobody knows what that news is. Let's take a bet and see if this bill passes. I'm just joking. But yes, we have a bill facing the legislature that will deal with the sports gambling. Every 20 years in Arizona, we have an opportunity to, I guess, renegotiate the gambling compact. I'll let you know.

So we are doing that. The 20 years are coming up. And that compact is with the state and the tribes. Yes. Is that correct? It's with the state and the tribes. It actually was a ballot initiative 20 years ago and that it's it's expiring. So there's an opportunity to renegotiate the terms and conditions of the compact.

And then there's also an opportunity because of a recent Supreme Court case allowing states to opt into sports gambling to add sports gambling to the compact. People are also looking at fantasy gambling.

Football gambling as well and maybe allowing some other kind of gambling games. And some of those things are pretty big, like the Fantasy Kings and some of those things are actually some some pretty big networks. But I think people are overestimating how much impact that might have here.

Yeah, there's a saturation point, right, where it's only going to be able to generate that much revenue. But I think there's a couple different things at play. I mean, there's the revenue discussion. And I'll just tell you, I was I sit on the Commerce Committee and that's where this gaming bill was heard. It did pass out. But, you know, I've asked for a fiscal note on this bill two weeks ago and I can't get it. That's a concern for me because I think we do need to have finite. Well, I don't know if you're going to get finite numbers, but we do have some estimates.

Some sort of projections. Some kind of projections. And then two, kind of the scope. You know, there's questions about where these potential new casinos could go. There's a lot of unanswered

Because as I read that, there would be really no restriction on where they could go, right? No, they just hand out 20 licenses. It's just 20 licenses, half go to the tribes, the other half for other entities, which include the sports franchises. I mean, talking about the numbers. So New Jersey in 2019, just for, I think, seven or eight months, they took in $920 million worth of sports bets. And the state received less than $8 million in tax revenue from that. Okay.

And so New Jersey is projecting long-term that they're going to get $25 million in sports betting tax revenue for a full year, which is less than one-tenth of 1% of their actual budget. Yeah, I was going to say $25 million would not be a whole lot in Arizona's budget either. No, so when I –

So when you hear this, it's this big windfall for taxpayers. That's not true. And they just need to be honest about it. I'm okay with teams allowing sports betting. It probably will enhance the experience for a lot of people because,

As we know now, based on fantasy football, people just don't root for teams. They root for players or bets or whatever the case may be. So, you know, that's what it is. But it seems that everybody supporting it need to be honest about it, that this is not going to be a windfall for the state. It will be a windfall for the tribes and those who have the sports gambling licenses. Well, yeah. And let's also not forget that the current distribution model or split between the tribes and the state system,

for the casinos that already exist, in my opinion, is very low. And we could be renegotiating, like I said, that split, and we're not doing that. So, Chuck, to your point, I mean, that's an opportunity to

to get some more money, and I don't know that we're looking at that avenue. I mean, that was my pitch to voters about providing more money for education without raising taxes, renegotiate the split from gaming between the state and the tribes, but we're not doing that. And I think there's a lot of just other ramifications that will come with this kind of new level of gambling that I think the public...

you know, deserves a more transparent conversation about. Well, I do love that they say that service organizations will be able to offer Kino. Yes.

By the way, my parents started their business, a dental lab, because my mom in 1963 won $800 in Reno on Keno. And that's what they did to finance the family business. That's an amazing story. It's an American story. Listen, listen, everything starts in Reno. Everything starts in Reno. That's all we need to know. All right. One minute before we go back to break right here, but

Real quick, I think the other comparison with this bill is something that's happening right now also, which is the legalization of recreational marijuana and the claims. Now, I supported the medical marijuana industry here. I really have no problem with that. But there are issues with the neighborhoods, with odor and things like that. There are impacts from these businesses. We can't pretend there are not. We're expanding that significantly and doing it on a promise of a lot of revenue. Mm-hmm.

And it's hard now for the state to have any kind of impact because remember, this was an initiative passed at the ballot. So for us to change anything, you need to further the purpose and get a three-fourths vote. Not easy in a legislature that can't get 15 people on the same page. Broken potholes will be back in just a moment.

The 2020 political field was intense, so don't get left behind in 2021. If you're running for political office, the first thing on your to-do list needs to be securing your name on the web with a yourname.vote domain from GoDaddy. Get yours now. ♪ The other night, dear, as I lay sleeping ♪ ♪ I dreamed I held you in my arms ♪

When I awoke, dear, I was mistaken. So I bowed my head and I cried. Welcome back to Broken Potholes and our moment of sunshine with Kylie Kipper. Thanks for having me back. So we're seeing right now moments of kindness across the country just because of this terrible weather that...

We're all having, except here in Arizona. This is why we live here. Don't want too many people to get any ideas. But I want to talk specifically about one organization, nonprofit, that has stepped up to help the homeless community in Austin specifically. It's called Solid Ground Ministry. And what they've done is they've turned a church, the Texas Oaks Baptist Church, into a 24-hour, 24-7 shelter. So they have this...

boots on the ground approach. They're going into the streets to get the homeless people off the streets into these shelters. And they typically, before this weather, they would just help homelessness with...

you know, showers, clean clothes, helping them find a job, providing long-term care. So they've really had to change their approach in their business plan basically to a short-term. They were basically providing outpatient assistance. Yes. And now they're opening their doors and letting these folks in. Yeah. And out of this horrific weather that Texas and most of the country has been enjoying. Yeah.

And this story sparked my interest just because Deborah Fisher, she's the president and co-founder, she did an interview the other day and just had such a positive outlook. She said, there's a silver lining to this weather. People are starting to show compassion, which is something that this country has been lacking. Yeah, you see, in talking about compassion, I don't know why people are ripping Ted Cruz and his wife. She invited their friends to go with her. Very compassionate move to go to Cancun. It was a community thing. Although I didn't get an invite.

Neither did I. How does that work? Don't hold your breath on that. Don't hold your breath on that. But again, we are relying too much on the government to help us. And it's going to be people like Debra and her co-founder, Ali, that are truly going to help these people and provide them the jackets and the

a place to stay and the warm shelter that they need to survive this. - Kylie, I think that's an incredibly important point 'cause you look at all the disasters that we've had in recent years and whether it's the Gator Navy showing up every time there's a flood, Americans step up. - Yeah, we do. - And in a way that people in a lot of places don't and don't have that ethos. - Well, there was a great quote recently in the National Review and I just found it and it was from Cameron Hiltitch.

and it said this belief that every private personal problem is ultimately a political one that could conceivably be solved the right rulers were put in place has run amok in modern america it has led many americans to see themselves almost exclusively through the prism of political action to the point that they reduce themselves to little more than walking avatars of the left or right

And it is. And I think right now we are looking for the government to solve everything. And the problem that COVID has brought up, and Sammy, you and I talked about this, is there is one side of America, it is the left, that thinks differently.

The government is the answer for everything, and they want 100% guarantee on everything, that we are to provide them with life, liberty, and happiness with a government guarantee. Well, life, liberty, happiness, and a paycheck, and full protection. I mean –

They just want a guarantee. I mean, that's what COVID's brought up. There is a chunk of people who just believe it's your job to make sure we all live. Now, government has a very important role, especially in disasters such as COVID. I don't think any of us would disagree with that. But you can't 100% guarantee anything, and they want these guarantees. That's why you have teachers balking at going back to the classroom.

And it's caused irreparable harm to many kids. It's just, I mean, you've ruined the last two years for many high school juniors and seniors. You've got elementary kids who are trying to do Zoom. Never mind the fact that a lot of homes don't have good broadband or computers to do this online schooling. And we just, we have somehow...

I don't know how we turn the course on this, but there are no guarantees. And there's no guarantee that all of us are going to be alive tomorrow. This is just life. And you do the best you can. Government does indeed have a role. And in many ways, government has not done performed well during COVID, but there was a lot of unknowns too. And I think sometimes we don't give political leaders enough leeway to realize, hey, they're learning on the job as we were learning about it as well. But

But there are no guarantees. And the left and the right keep thinking government's going to solve all these problems. And that's just a fool's errand. Yeah. I mean, what about individualism? What happened to that concept about being responsible kind of for your own trajectory? You know, you've...

It's we're not we're not reinforcing. And that really is such a American principle. And I think it's something Republicans really do need to push and talk about. And the importance of it, because if you look at where people become dependent on government and I've talked about this before, but once you've had three generations in a family that are dependent on government, you have no role model.

Yes. Which communities thriving under –

under that mindset. None of them. None of them. It's really, you know, our unique individual kind of spirit is what has made this country so great and has provided us the quality of life and ingenuity and technology, technological advances and the...

And we should be reinforcing that in allowing people like you were saying to to help each other than relying on government for all the answers because they're not going to be able to provide it. I mean, that is just a recipe for disappointment and disaster. And I think COVID was a great example that if you were.

If you were certain when there was no certainty because you needed to be politically the way the Democrats were, this is what we have to do. You have to wear masks. Now it's two masks. You have to be six feet apart. Somehow that's the magic number, even though the WHO says three feet. And there's all this differing advice, but they have presented it all along with absolute certitude when there can be none. And I think that's maybe the most dangerous element of this is you get government policies built on

really faulty incomplete information that then are massive in scope and impact and then if you challenge it you're banned right right right well you don't care i mean it's not that you're in a band you just don't care about people i mean that's yeah you know and because we're all human beings with the heart and we have people we love no one wants to be told they don't care no and

Well, yeah. And if it doesn't, you know, that's a little weird. It should. Right. We don't like to we don't like to be accused of things that we know in our heart that we're not nor do our actions show. But, you know, it's just simply a guarantee. I mean, for example, let's go back to your P.E.V.L. mail in ballots.

If there's any family sitting around a kitchen table, any single mom looking at her budget said, I have spent the money on this the last four years and I have received nothing in return for it. They would cancel that. Mm-hmm.

But based upon the left is, oh, no, no, no. You have to keep doing this, whether they're using it or not, whether it costs money or not. I mean, Sam, how many meals could we provide for homeless shelters with just 200 grand from GOP who don't vote? Oh, well, I mean, you're talking. It's two bucks a meal a day, they say. It's two dollars a day, right? Two bucks a day for three meals for one person. I mean, so you're talking about 100,000 days of someone eating.

Right. Who wasn't able to otherwise. Right. So we have food insecurity and we've got all we're wasting money on something with obviously about what is it, Michelle, about 500000 people who aren't bothering to vote. Yeah. All because we're afraid, Chuck, to your point that we're going to be called insensitive, racist, non-caring, you know, and people have a hard time dealing with those criticisms because, like you said,

A normal person takes offense to that and they don't know how to how to respond. And that has been the technique of the left this whole time. Like, I don't have to talk about a bill or a concept or a substantive policy direction because I'm just going to call you names and I know you'll back down. Right. And that's absolutely right. I take...

I take a position on elections that they would find and, you know, feel free if Arizona Republic, you're listening to this, you can go ahead and beat me up tomorrow on this. I don't want more people to vote. I want more people who are educated about what's on the ballot, the candidates they're voting for, the issues they're voting for to vote. I want informed participation. And that should be the objective in this country because our system was designed to

Based on informed participation, not on someone showing up at your door and saying, hey, let me show you how to fill out your ballot and I'll turn it in. Yeah, and that's right. Or I'll just you'll automatically be registered to vote without you having to do anything to get that accomplished. I mean, there's no you have to have some skin in the game. Yeah.

There was an Arizona Republic piece about 10, 12 years ago. I'll never forget that I brought up profiling a MeFamiliaVota canvasser who went to a woman's house, signed her up for the first time ever to vote. She was in her 60s. She'd never voted before. They timed the drop of the ballot, went back to that woman's house. She had thrown the ballot away.

Without ever opening it. So the canvasser went through her bags of trash until she found it, dug it out, scraped the junk off it, and then, quote, helped her fill it out. Right. Now, who cast that vote? Right. That's great. That's a great question. The canvasser cast that vote, right? I mean, if someone has not voted for all those years, they're not engaged. They don't even want the ballot. They throw it away. Then they get it.

That's not a vote. No, no. And you know what? You have the right to decide whether you want to participate or not. Yes. We encourage it, but then it should end at that. You know, we want to make it convenient, you know, simple for you to participate. But at the end of the day, it has to be the voters will to want to participate, get educated, learn about candidates and initiatives. And if they're not willing to do that or they don't want to, you have to respect that.

Yeah. Well, there's literally no excuse for any Arizona resident not to vote. I don't know what you could do to make it easier. Oh, I agree. I always say if you're not voting in Arizona, that's because you don't want to. Right. Yeah, you just don't want to nor care. Right. It's very easy. Michelle, let's quickly talk about here the ballot harvesting law that passed and that's going to the Supreme Court. Can you give us a little bit of that?

of information of what's going on and what the timeline is and so forth. Yeah. So that's a practice of having a third parties come to someone's door and collecting their mail in ballot for them, and then hopefully dropping it off or turning it into, uh, the County recorder for, um,

to be counted so that doesn't sound like a good practice to me to break that chain of custody and allow someone else in control of a voter's ballot so in 2016 in the state of arizona we we banned it it's called ballot harvesting we ban the practice of ballot harvesting in arizona although it is allowed in other states um the left uh challenged it in court uh we we won in

And we did win in court, but then it got appealed. And that appeal has been appealed to the United States Supreme Court, where it sits now. And oral arguments for it, I think, are February 2nd. So they will be weighing in to make the final decision whether a state can ban the practice of ballot harvesting. That's going to be a big case, actually, that people aren't paying attention to.

The notifications are massive because if they side with Arizona and say states do have a right to ban the practice, then I hope that it serves as a template for other states to look at this because there's there's really no benefit to allowing third party operators collect other people's ballots and it needs to be banned across the country.

No, it's too easy. Let me ask one. Yeah, it is. Let me ask one final question. Michelle, you've been a leader on issues. You've stuck your nose out on things. You've been slapped and hit back. Why should people run for office?

Oh, wow. If you're a glutton for punishment, really. Because ultimately you're an optimistic person and you believe in the country and you believe in your state and you want to help your community and you have an obligation to participate and make sure that you protect the things that you love. And I am a very optimistic person. I see nothing but opportunity on the horizon and I don't think you should give up.

Well, so there it is. You can be like Michelle. You can be an optimistic, forward-thinking person, or you can be a sadist. And you can be beat to death for your entire term, right? Right. It's up to you. Hey, folks, sign up and run. Not in District 23, though. No. No, no, we don't need that. Don't go that far. Yeah.

This has been Broken Potholes. Thank you so much, folks. Be sure to tune in next week, same time.