Forget Ginni Thomas. Look how Rep. Shawnna Bolick wanted to hijack presidential elections

Opinion: Ginni Thomas may have lobbied the Arizona Legislature to veto our vote in 2020, but state Rep. Shawnna Bolick did something even more appalling.

Laurie Roberts
Arizona Republic
Rep. Shawnna Bolick, R-Phoenix, proposed that our vote in presidential elections not even count, not if it differed with the will of the party that controls the Arizona Legislature.

Add now Ginni Thomas to the long and growing list of Republicans who were plotting to overthrow the results of Arizona’s presidential election in 2020.

The Washington Post is reporting that no less than the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas sent emails on Nov. 9, 2020, to House Speaker Rusty Bowers, R-Mesa, and state Rep. Shawnna Bolick, R-Phoenix, urging them to choose “a clean slate of Electors” (read: Trump electors).

“Article II of the United States Constitution gives you an awesome responsibility to choose our state’s electors,” Thomas wrote, though it’s not clear to me when she became a resident of “our state”. “This means you have the power to fight back against fraud and ensure our elections are free, fair and honest.”

Or put another way, the power to proclaim Donald Trump the winner of Arizona’s election and to heck with the popular vote.

Bolick wanted to veto your vote forever

It is, of course, appalling that the wife of a U.S. Supreme Court justice – a justice who, by the way, serves as godfather to state Supreme Court Justice Clint Bolick’s son – would try to lobby our Legislature to veto our vote in 2020.

But you want to know what’s more appalling?

Bolick wanted to be able to veto our vote in all presidential elections.

Now she’s running for secretary of state, hoping to be put in charge of elections when 2024 rolls around.

Isn’t that special?

While some legislators, still steamed about Joe Biden winning Arizona, were running around after the election scheming various ways to make it more difficult for people to vote, Bolick cut straight to the heart of the problem.

She proposed that our vote in presidential elections not even count, not if it differed with the will of the party that controls the Arizona Legislature.

Arizona said long ago that voters should choose

Her House Bill 2720 last year would have allowed the Legislature to ignore the state’s presidential election results and choose its own winner right up until the moment a president-elect steps up to the podium and puts his hand on the Bible.

“The Legislature retains its legislative authority regarding the office of presidential elector and by majority vote at any time before presidential inauguration may revoke the secretary of state’s issuance or certification of a presidential elector’s certificate of election,” her bill said.

That “legislative authority,” of course, being the superpower some Republican legislators think is conferred upon them by the U.S. Constitution, giving them the right to hijack the presidential election.

Bolick was relying on the part of the U.S. Constitution that says, “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct,” its presidential electors.

But Arizona Legislature long ago directed what that manner would be – that Arizona’s voters would choose Arizona’s presidential electors.

How is that a 'democratic check and balance'?

Apparently, that whole democracy thing didn’t work as Bolick would have liked in 2020, so in 2021 she set about trying to take it back by giving the Legislature the power to ultimately decide who final say on who the state's electors should be.

Bolick’s bill, which fortunately never got a hearing, would have ensured that never again would the Legislature be forced to abide by the will of the little people.

Bolick, at the time, called it “a good, democratic check and balance."

Imagine, thinking there is something good and democratic about taking away the right of the people to choose their own president?

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.

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