Arizona State Lawmaker Expelled After Making False Claims of Cartel Bribes to Governor

"Socalj" for Borderland Beat

Former Arizona Rep. Liz Harris invited accusations of election fraud, cartel bribes, money laundering, and church control of the government during a legislative hearing.

The Arizona House of Representatives on Wednesday expelled a Republican lawmaker who organized a presentation making unsubstantiated accusations that a wide range of politicians, judges, and public officials of both parties took bribes from a Mexican drug cartel.

Rep. Liz Harris, a prominent supporter of discredited election conspiracies, was kicked out of the Legislature in a bipartisan vote after the presentation by an Arizona insurance agent. The lawmaker's ouster came a day after the House Ethics Committee determined Harris had engaged in “disorderly behavior” violating the chamber's rules.

The committee's report said Harris knew the person she invited to a legislative hearing in February would accuse her colleagues of criminal activity, that she took steps to hide it from House leaders ahead of time and then misled the committee investigating her actions.

“This comes down to the integrity, in my opinion, of this institution and us as leaders,” said Rep. David Livingston, a Republican who voted to expel Harris. “This is not personal.”

Harris, who was sworn into her first term in January, did not speak ahead of the expulsion vote. Immediately afterward, she carried boxes to her car, placed them in her trunk with the help of a handful of supporters, and left. She called the ethics report “a lie.”

“God knows the truth,” Harris said, according to a video recorded by a reporter for KPNX-TV. “This was an example of how you need to toe the line. If you don’t toe the line, this is what happens.”

Harris organized a daylong hearing of the House and Senate elections committees in February. In the end, a Scottsdale insurance agent, Jacqueline Breger, gave a 40-minute presentation alleging without reliable evidence that two women working on behalf of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel used fraudulent mortgage documents to launder money to a range of officials.

Arizona Republican lawmakers have given wide leeway for people claiming to be election experts to share unsubstantiated or disproven claims in hearings at the Capitol. But GOP legislative leaders raced to distance themselves from Breger's claims and pin the blame on Harris.

False Cartel Allegations

The allegations came at the end of a daylong hearing of the elections committees in the state House and Senate, which Democrats boycotted. Jacqueline Breger attributed them to a report written by John Thaler, who she said was an attorney with a background in fraud investigations.

Online sleuths discovered the women Thaler accused of facilitating the fraud were his ex-wife and her mother. Thaler has a history of filing lawsuits accusing them of carrying out wide-ranging conspiracies. A federal judge last year dismissed one of his lawsuits, calling it “a delusional and fantastical narrative.”

Thaler responded to a request for comment with an email questioning Toma’s ethics.

“Speaker Toma is in no position to make any comment concerning findings related to election integrity or in what forum they should be presented,” Thaler wrote.

“To our knowledge, none of the people named had charges filed, have prosecutions pending, nor had any convictions made against them,” Rogers said in a statement Sunday night. Rogers is chair of the Senate Elections Committee.

Before she was elected to the Legislature, Harris led a door-to-door canvassing effort searching for proof of fraud following the 2020 presidential election. Her effort drew scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Justice’s civil rights division, which warned about potential voter intimidation.

There was a little public discussion before the expulsion vote. Republican Rep. Alexander Kolodin said Harris “made an error in judgment,” but expelling her would send the wrong message.

“It will be perceived as setting the precedent that if you rock the boat too much, you will be expelled,” said Kolodin, who voted against expulsion.

“There has been real and lasting damage to the lives and reputations of people who did not deserve it,” said Rep. Andres Cano, the top Democrat in the House. “Most importantly, the integrity of this House has been jeopardized.”

Harris represented one of the most competitive legislative districts in the state in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler. Both parties had been anticipating she would face a difficult reelection campaign next year. By law, Harris must be replaced by a Republican. The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors will choose from a list of three candidates nominated by the Republican precinct committeemen in her district.

Sources AP News, NBC News, AP News