Guests - Peter Churchbourne, Joel Strabala
The Foundation of Freedom Gets a New Name, and Pima County's Election Month Begins in 12 Days
Friday on Winn Tucson opened the last weekend before ballots start dropping with two conversations that could not be more different in scale — one national, one hyper-local — and both indispensable for the moment we're in. A brand-new organization that has actually been around for 36 years announced itself to the country this week. And the man who knows Pima County's election machinery more precisely than anyone else laid out the specific vote center schedule, the Green Valley problem, the federal court date on Tuesday, and the arithmetic that makes every Republican vote count.
Peter Churchbourne: $500 Million, Six People, and the Second Amendment's Next 235 Years
Peter Churchbourne is the Executive Director of the 1791 Foundation — formerly the NRA Foundation — which made national news this week with an exclusive in the Wall Street Journal announcing the relaunch. The organization has been operating since 1990. It has awarded more than $500 million in grants. It is run by six people. And it exists to make sure that what the founders put in place in 1791 is still recognizable in 2261.
Why 1791 — and Why Now
The name is a statement, not just a rebrand.
"In 1791, we ratified the Bill of Rights," Churchbourne explained. "The first 10 amendments — and probably the most important of those two are the first and the second. And we all know that the second protects the first."
The timing is deliberate. This is the 250th anniversary of the United States and the 235th anniversary of the Bill of Rights ratification. If there is a moment to plant a flag and say these freedoms matter — to declare that an organization exists specifically to ensure the next generation inherits them — this is it.
The operational argument for the new structure is equally concrete: greater independence and efficiency, the ability to fundraise more freely, reach new audiences, build new partnerships, and grow the mission in ways that the prior structure did not permit. More operational efficiency means a higher percentage of every dollar flowing directly to the programs.
"Our overhead falls well below the national nonprofit average," Churchbourne said. "And that is an efficiency that I and we are extremely proud of and committed to maintaining."
Who Runs It
The president and board chairman is Tom King — one of the most respected voices in the Second Amendment community, with decades of experience across the space. The vice president is Ronnie Barrett, whose name requires no explanation to anyone who cares about the Second Amendment: Barrett Firearms, created in the early 1980s, has protected this nation for over 40 years.
The other nine board members are a mix of business founders and attorneys with long histories in Second Amendment organizations at both the state and national levels. Al Wilkinson — well known to Winn Tucson listeners and Tucson's own community — is on the board.
Of the six staff members managing the foundation, four of them have 60 combined years of experience working within it. The institutional knowledge — knowing what works, knowing who delivers, knowing which organizations produce lasting change — is, in Churchbourne's view, irreplaceable.
"For all of us that are staff here, it's not a job. This is a passion for us. It's a calling."
He has worked in the outdoor hunting and shooting space for nearly 30 years, served on numerous boards including the Council of Advanced Hunting and Shooting Sports, founded and chaired the Outdoor Stewards of Conservation Foundation, and served on committees of the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. He has seen how nonprofits should and should not be run — and designed the 1791 Foundation's operations around the model that actually delivers.
"Who wants to give money to something that's wasting money?" Every staff member is also a personal donor. They are spending their own money alongside everyone else's.
What the Foundation Actually Does
The $500 million in grants distributed over 36 years has gone to: youth shooting sports leagues — including high school clay target leagues; hunter education programs; marksmanship training and competition; conservation; range development and improvement; firearm safety education; law enforcement training; and programs through the Boy Scouts and 4-H. The foundation is one of the largest supporters of the U.S. Olympic shooting team.
In Arizona, the foundation is not a distant national organization funneling money in from a boardroom somewhere else. It is actively present in local communities. In 2026 alone, grants have been awarded to the Catalina Mountaineers 4-H, Tucson Mountaineers 4-H, the Sundowners 4-H Club, the Catalina Council of Scouting America, and the Southern Arizona Firearm Educators — which received two separate grants. Combined: more than $18,000 to Southern Arizona communities in a single year.
"We are not just funding programs," Churchbourne said. "We are making sure the Second Amendment lives in the next generation."
Why Youth Programs Are Not Optional
The argument for investing heavily in young people is the same argument that applies to any value or tradition: if younger people never have the experience of shooting a rifle for the first time, of being mentored by a hunter, of competing in a marksmanship tournament, or earning a merit badge for safe and responsible shooting, then those traditions don't get handed down. They stop.
"It's not just that we lose them as future donors or Second Amendment supporters, but people who understand in their bones what those freedoms actually mean."
Winn connected this directly to the Presidential 1776 Award finals she had attended in Washington days earlier — young people who had earned their place on that stage through deep engagement with the Constitution and the Declaration. Those two events — the civic knowledge competition and the shooting sports investment — are expressions of the same underlying commitment: the next generation needs to understand not just how to do something but why it matters.
The shooting sports in America are growing. More people are buying firearms and going to the range. The 1791 Foundation is positioning itself to be the partner that elevates the programs and organizations serving that growing community — not just the established ones, but the innovative new ones that are reaching audiences nobody had reached before.
A Unified Second Amendment Community
One of the stated strategic goals of the relaunch is unification. The Second Amendment community has not been immune to the internal divisions that have fractured nearly every other conservative institution in recent years.
"What better way to defeat your enemy than to divide them from the inside?" Churchbourne said. "So us fighting with each other is just playing into the hand of the people that want to destroy us."
The 1791 Foundation's position as an independent, efficient, mission-focused charitable organization gives it credibility across factions. It does not take sides in internal political disputes. It funds the programs. The programs build the culture. The culture protects the rights.
To support the foundation, donate, or partner: 1791.org — or follow on X, Instagram, and Facebook. Donations can be made directly through the website.
Joel Strabala: Vote Centers, the Green Valley Disenfranchisement, Federal Court on Tuesday, and the Budget That Just Passed
Joel Strabala — LD-17 chairman, Pima County Election Integrity Commission member, and one of the most operationally precise voices on election administration in Southern Arizona — joined for the second half of the show with the ground-level information every Pima County voter needs before ballots arrive.
The Election Timeline Every Voter Needs
Early ballots drop approximately June 24th — twelve days from broadcast.
Last day to register to vote: June 22nd (tell people June 21st so they don't cut it close).
Last day for PND voters or independents to request a Republican primary ballot: July 10th.
Early voting hours at in-person sites: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. — not the extended hours of Election Day.
Election Day hours: 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. — a 13-hour window for voters. For poll workers, it runs 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. — a 15- to 16-hour commitment. If you can give that time, it matters.
Primary Election Day: July 21st.
Where to Vote: The First Two Weeks
For the two weeks following June 24th and extending until July 6th, in-person early voting in Pima County is available at only three sites:
The Pima County Recorder's main office at 240 North Stone Avenue (downtown)
The satellite office at 550 South Country Club Avenue (at Valencia and Country Club)
The City of Tucson Ward Two office
Starting July 6th, the Oro Valley library will be added to the early voting list — giving residents of Marana and Oro Valley a closer option.
For a complete schedule of all vote centers and the mobile voting unit, go to the Pima County Recorder's website and click on early voting sites or mobile voting center.
The Mobile Voting Center: Where It Is and Where It Isn't
The mobile voting center's July schedule was confirmed by Strabala: Ajo on July 14th, Three Points on July 16th, Sells on July 17th and 18th, and Marana on July 20th. It is not in service on any other days.
Critically: it is not scheduled for Green Valley at any point during this election cycle.
"If they're not using the mobile voting center on those other days, they may want to supplement it in Green Valley to compensate for the loss," Winn said. Strabala agreed — even parking it in a Safeway parking lot on Election Day would help address the access problem in a community that has been clearly and deliberately underserved.
The Green Valley Polling Reduction: 12 Sites Removed
Pima County goes into this primary with 129 designated vote centers on Election Day — three more than the 126 used in 2024. Within that net increase, however, 12 individual vote center locations were eliminated from the prior cycle. A significant number of those removed locations were in Green Valley, where Green Valley Recreation and the area's HOAs declined to host vote centers, citing safety concerns.
The result is a large, reliably conservative senior community that has lost its familiar local voting locations with no adequate replacement.
The Election Integrity Commission — on which Strabala serves — was not consulted in the process of eliminating those locations. The commission whose purpose is to ensure election security was excluded from the decision to reduce election access in a conservative area of Pima County.
"That's kind of ironic, right? You're the election integrity commission. They removed 12 polling places in a highly conservative area of Pima County and they don't involve the election integrity commission."
In defense of the elections department, Strabala noted that director Constance Hargrove had kept the commission informed of the Green Valley challenges as they emerged over several months. The problem is not that no one knew. The problem is that the solution being offered — a mobile unit that appears in Green Valley on zero days — is not an adequate solution.
The Pima County Republican Party is coordinating rides to the polls for anyone in Green Valley who needs transportation. Call the party or reach out through LD-19 directly.
The New Election Security Task Force
A separate development Strabala disclosed: a new election security task force has been formed, sponsored by the Pima County Board of Supervisors, with its first meeting scheduled for Monday. Strabala was appointed to represent the Election Integrity Commission on that body.
The task force's mandate: review and ensure the security plans for voting; provide a central rapid-response location for controversies, protests, or voter intimidation attempts; develop a social media response center for voter inquiries; and coordinate with the county attorney's office while providing regular updates to the board.
Whether the task force will have meaningful authority — or will be a procedurally compliant exercise in the appearance of oversight — remains to be determined. What is certain is that Strabala will be at the table.
Federal Court on Tuesday: The EPM Lawsuit
Winn confirmed publicly what Strabala already knew: she will be in federal court on Tuesday as plaintiff in the Oversight Project lawsuit challenging eight provisions of the Arizona Elections Procedures Manual, with Strabala as a witness.
"We are challenging eight things in the elections procedure manual. And the reason we're doing that is not for political theater. We're doing it because they take away freedoms and they are being done to disenfranchise specifically conservative voters."
The provisions under challenge include the uniform prohibition that would prevent law enforcement officers from voting in their duty uniforms, the audibility restriction that effectively bans election-day protest in downtown Tucson, and the observer removal mechanism that can exclude Republican observers for raising "frivolous" challenges — with no reinstatement process.
The argument Winn made for why this matters beyond partisanship: police officers are not exclusively Republican. Military personnel are not exclusively Republican. Protecting the right of uniformed public servants to vote without intimidation is not a partisan issue — it is a civil rights issue. And the court will hear it on Tuesday.
The Arizona Budget: What Passed and What It Means
The Arizona state budget passed the previous day — a bipartisan agreement that delivered meaningful wins despite months of obstruction. Strabala and Winn walked through the highlights and the specific Arizona impacts.
The most significant structural achievement: Arizona is now the first state fully compliant with the Big Beautiful Bill and the Trump tax cuts.
"Something we could be proud of," Strabala said. "And it benefits. Between our state income tax and our federal, it was going to create a huge debacle." Hobbs signed it — the political calculus being that the voter pushback for failing to conform would have been immense.
On Rio Nuevo: the first Republican budget proposal would have cut $19 million in sales tax revenue diverted to the district — effectively defunding it. The final budget spared Rio Nuevo, but attached new requirements. The district board must now spend 80% of its sales tax revenue, after debt obligations, on activities that generate sales tax revenue. The theory is sensible: use the revenue to grow the revenue base rather than to fund non-commercial activities.
On the University of Arizona: the final number was a $5.7 million reduction — down from the originally proposed $14.4 million cut. The programs losing funding include the natural resource law and policy center ($1.6M), the Yuma Center of Excellence for Desert Agriculture ($1.35M), and the on-farm irrigation fund ($2M in one-time funding). The Center for Philosophy of Freedom — long protected by GOP lawmakers as a counterweight to campus leftism — retained its funding explicitly in the final budget language.
On the veterans home: a $2.4 million capital appropriation for HVAC replacement at the 120-bed Tucson Veterans Home was removed, with a modified footnote allowing the state to restore the money from the general fund if federal grants do not come through. Congressman Ciscomani has been working on veterans-related federal funding in the district.
The broader budget philosophy Strabala identified: "I think some people in the legislature, mostly Republicans, are recognizing that government has a fiscal responsibility of spending our taxpayer dollars wisely and getting rid of the fluff and the potential fraud."
Jeff Rhodes in Supervisor District 5: Write-In
For voters in Pima County Supervisor District 5 — the only supervisor seat on the primary ballot — Republican candidate Jeff Rhodes must be written in during the primary to appear on the November general election ballot.
District 5 encompasses the southern edge of Tucson, the Green Valley corridor, out toward Ajo, and into the Picture Rocks area. Legislative districts 16, 18, 20, 21, and possibly 23 overlap with the district. LD-17 voters are not in District 5 and should not write in Rhodes' name — it will spoil that portion of the ballot.
Saturday Event: June 13th, Desert Diamond Center
Strabala confirmed a candidate event the following day: Saturday, June 13th at the Desert Diamond Center on Pima Mine Road in Sahuarita. The VIP event begins at 11 a.m. The main candidate event runs noon to 3 p.m. — where voters can meet and hear directly from the candidates asking for their vote in the July primary.
The One Message for Republican Voters
Strabala's closing argument was as simple and direct as it gets.
"If we get out to vote and we have at least 50% participation among Republicans, we can change this state back to a red state and we can fix the problems that have been festering for the last four years."
The math is in favor of that outcome. What is not guaranteed is the turnout. And turnout is the only variable left.
Sign up to be an election observer: pimagop.org — click Elections 2026, scroll down to election observer training and resources.
Voter registration check and update: my.arizona.vote
Rides to the polls in Green Valley: call the Pima County Republican Party or reach out through United Republicans for Arizona at the Green Valley storefront.
Winn Tucson airs Monday through Friday, 9 to 11 a.m., on KVOI 1030 The Voice.
1791 Foundation: 1791.org | Donate, follow on social media, or find a program near you.
Saturday candidate event: Desert Diamond Center, Pima Mine Road, Sahuarita. VIP 11 a.m., main event noon–3 p.m.
Federal Court hearing on the EPM lawsuit: Tuesday, June 17th.
Primary voter registration deadline: June 22nd. Last day for PND/independent to request Republican ballot: July 10th. Early ballots drop June 24th. Primary: July 21st.