Cheat,Lie and corruption is All the Maga Regime has to try to win elections on, Jack. They already know that none of their policies are popular, so now, they'll run on "We're Not Great, but the Democrats are Worse" Good article and will reStack 💯👍
Thanks, Karen. Andy Biggs is a BAD man. In my estimation, probably one of the worst I've ever written about.
And...the fact that the statement I just made...would catch so many people off guard...is part of the reason why I believe he is one of the MOST dangerous.
Jack is correct. He is correct that the office matters more than the campaign issue list attached to it. He is correct that most voters will be told this is a contest about taxes and schools and the price of eggs, and will never be told that it is also a contest about who signs a document in December of 2028. That is not a criticism of voters. It is a description of how information is managed.
Let me file the date.
January 6, 2021. Hours after a crowd assaulted the Capitol to prevent the certification of an election, Andy Biggs voted to reject electors from Arizona. Not before the violence, when the objection could be called ignorance. After it, when the objection could only be called intention.
Note what he did next.
He did not cooperate with the committee investigating that day. He was referred to the House Ethics Committee for defying a subpoena. And in the days that followed January 6th, he requested a pardon — not for a crime he says he didn’t commit, but the request itself is data. People who believe they have done nothing wrong do not usually ask to be forgiven in advance.
Historians are trained to distrust the single data point and trust the pattern. So look at the pattern.
Cochise County, 2022. Two county supervisors refused to certify an election with no evidence of fraud. A court had to order them to perform a ministerial act — to sign a paper confirming what the count already said. That is not a controversial ruling. That is not even a close call. It is the floor of democratic function, and it required a judge to enforce the floor.
File that: the floor needed enforcement.
Now note who is running for the offices that sit above the floor.
Andy Biggs, who voted against certification at the federal level, seeks the governorship — a chair with authority inside Arizona’s certification chain. Alexander Kolodin, sanctioned by the Arizona State Bar for his conduct in litigation seeking to overturn the state’s results, seeks the office of secretary of state — the chief election officer of the state. These are not adjacent positions. They are, as Jack writes, access points to the same system.
I want to be precise about what this does and does not establish.
It does not establish that either man will refuse to certify a lawful result in 2028. Prediction is not the historian’s craft. Pattern recognition is.
Here is the pattern, stated plainly, without embellishment: authoritarian movements do not typically seize the machinery of elections in a single dramatic act. They seek, election by election, quiet office by quiet office, to place loyalists in the positions that certify, canvass, and validate. The seizure, when it comes, looks less like a coup than like a formality — a signature withheld, a canvass delayed, a certificate unsigned, all performed by someone who was elected to a boring-sounding office nobody covered closely at the time.
Note the words used to describe these candidacies now: routine, down-ballot, procedural. Those are the words used before the importance of the office becomes clear. They will not be the words used after.
Jack is correct that the danger was never abstract. Cochise County was not a warning about what could happen. It was a demonstration of what does happen, on a small scale, when officials decide the count does not suit them. The only reason it did not become a crisis is that a court had the authority — and the willingness — to compel compliance.
The question this newsletter is asking, and the one worth carrying past the election, is not whether Biggs or Kolodin will attempt what Cochise County’s supervisors attempted. The question is what happens if they do, and whether the guardrail that held in 2022 — a court, an order, a willingness to enforce a ministerial duty — will still be staffed by people willing to issue that order in 2028.
Guardrails are not laws of nature. They are decisions, made by people, renewable only by more people willing to make the same decision again.
November decides who holds the pens. That much, at least, is not a matter of interpretation.
Andy Biggs is one of the worst! Definitely eyes need to be on Arizona! We don't need him as governor and the other election deniers anywhere near the election certification process!
Cheat,Lie and corruption is All the Maga Regime has to try to win elections on, Jack. They already know that none of their policies are popular, so now, they'll run on "We're Not Great, but the Democrats are Worse" Good article and will reStack 💯👍
Thanks, Karen. Andy Biggs is a BAD man. In my estimation, probably one of the worst I've ever written about.
And...the fact that the statement I just made...would catch so many people off guard...is part of the reason why I believe he is one of the MOST dangerous.
Thanks for the reStack!
-Jack
🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
I concur!
Jack is correct. He is correct that the office matters more than the campaign issue list attached to it. He is correct that most voters will be told this is a contest about taxes and schools and the price of eggs, and will never be told that it is also a contest about who signs a document in December of 2028. That is not a criticism of voters. It is a description of how information is managed.
Let me file the date.
January 6, 2021. Hours after a crowd assaulted the Capitol to prevent the certification of an election, Andy Biggs voted to reject electors from Arizona. Not before the violence, when the objection could be called ignorance. After it, when the objection could only be called intention.
Note what he did next.
He did not cooperate with the committee investigating that day. He was referred to the House Ethics Committee for defying a subpoena. And in the days that followed January 6th, he requested a pardon — not for a crime he says he didn’t commit, but the request itself is data. People who believe they have done nothing wrong do not usually ask to be forgiven in advance.
Historians are trained to distrust the single data point and trust the pattern. So look at the pattern.
Cochise County, 2022. Two county supervisors refused to certify an election with no evidence of fraud. A court had to order them to perform a ministerial act — to sign a paper confirming what the count already said. That is not a controversial ruling. That is not even a close call. It is the floor of democratic function, and it required a judge to enforce the floor.
File that: the floor needed enforcement.
Now note who is running for the offices that sit above the floor.
Andy Biggs, who voted against certification at the federal level, seeks the governorship — a chair with authority inside Arizona’s certification chain. Alexander Kolodin, sanctioned by the Arizona State Bar for his conduct in litigation seeking to overturn the state’s results, seeks the office of secretary of state — the chief election officer of the state. These are not adjacent positions. They are, as Jack writes, access points to the same system.
I want to be precise about what this does and does not establish.
It does not establish that either man will refuse to certify a lawful result in 2028. Prediction is not the historian’s craft. Pattern recognition is.
Here is the pattern, stated plainly, without embellishment: authoritarian movements do not typically seize the machinery of elections in a single dramatic act. They seek, election by election, quiet office by quiet office, to place loyalists in the positions that certify, canvass, and validate. The seizure, when it comes, looks less like a coup than like a formality — a signature withheld, a canvass delayed, a certificate unsigned, all performed by someone who was elected to a boring-sounding office nobody covered closely at the time.
Note the words used to describe these candidacies now: routine, down-ballot, procedural. Those are the words used before the importance of the office becomes clear. They will not be the words used after.
Jack is correct that the danger was never abstract. Cochise County was not a warning about what could happen. It was a demonstration of what does happen, on a small scale, when officials decide the count does not suit them. The only reason it did not become a crisis is that a court had the authority — and the willingness — to compel compliance.
The question this newsletter is asking, and the one worth carrying past the election, is not whether Biggs or Kolodin will attempt what Cochise County’s supervisors attempted. The question is what happens if they do, and whether the guardrail that held in 2022 — a court, an order, a willingness to enforce a ministerial duty — will still be staffed by people willing to issue that order in 2028.
Guardrails are not laws of nature. They are decisions, made by people, renewable only by more people willing to make the same decision again.
November decides who holds the pens. That much, at least, is not a matter of interpretation.
#HOLDFAST
Andy Biggs is one of the worst! Definitely eyes need to be on Arizona! We don't need him as governor and the other election deniers anywhere near the election certification process!
My relatives all moved out of AZ. Jack, could you send this directly to Katie Hobbs’ office? Can someone on here send it to her? 👹
Why do I keep being amazed at all this BS?!
Restacked.
Well, we've all been warned. Let's see what we do with it. I know no one in Arizona, but will be supporting opposition candidates as much as possible.