Guests - Warren Petersen, Joel Strabala, Eileen Wilson, John Riches, Patrick MacQueen
Warren Petersen: The Attorney General Race Becomes a Referendum on Law Enforcement
Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen joined Kathleen Winn with the attorney general’s race entering its final stretch and ballots just days away from being mailed. His case against incumbent Attorney General Kris Mayes centered on a simple theme: the person charged with enforcing Arizona law should be expected to follow it.
Petersen pointed to a campaign-finance complaint involving a contribution Mayes received before formally becoming her party’s nominee. He argued that state law did not permit the contribution at that point and criticized Secretary of State Adrian Fontes for treating the matter as moot because Mayes had no primary opponent. Petersen said the proper response would have been a penalty and return of the contribution, followed by a new contribution once legally permissible.
For Petersen, the dispute fits a larger pattern. He accused Arizona’s Democratic statewide officials of protecting one another rather than enforcing rules consistently. “You would think the person in charge of election law would know the law,” Petersen said.
The campaign, however, is not relying solely on partisan criticism. Petersen highlighted recent endorsements from Democrats, including state Rep. Lydia Hernandez and three Democrats from the Navajo Nation. Hernandez, he said, endorsed him because of his emphasis on school safety, while the Navajo endorsements focused on missing and murdered Indigenous women and human trafficking.
“Even Democrats are fed up with this,” Petersen said.
Petersen Promises More Prosecutors and Investigators
Petersen said his first-year agenda would include doubling the number of prosecutors and investigators in the Attorney General’s Office. He contrasted that with what he characterized as Mayes’ focus on litigation against the Trump administration and political opponents rather than cartels, organized crime and public safety.
“One of the things I’m going to do within the first year is double the number of prosecutors and investigators,” Petersen said. “I have a plan to do that.”
Winn argued that an attorney general’s office can have an enormous impact when its resources are directed toward crime, corruption and enforcement rather than politics. She also returned to Hernandez’s endorsement, noting that the Democratic legislator has made school safety a signature issue even when it brought her into conflict with members of her own party.
Petersen called school safety a “nonpartisan issue” and said political pressure should not override the obligation to protect children.
Law Enforcement Lines Up Behind Petersen
Petersen said every major law-enforcement organization in Arizona has endorsed his campaign—an especially significant development, he argued, because Mayes is the sitting attorney general.
“Every major law enforcement organization in Arizona has endorsed my campaign,” Petersen said, describing it as unprecedented for a challenger running against an incumbent attorney general.
Winn said that endorsement pattern raises an obvious question. If the men and women responsible for enforcing the law are backing the challenger rather than the official sometimes described as the state’s “top cop,” voters should pay attention.
Petersen Reopens Questions About the Hobbs Investigation
The discussion also returned to allegations surrounding Gov. Katie Hobbs and state contracting. Petersen argued that Mayes’ investigation failed to publicly include two pieces of evidence he considers important: reports that he said included statements from agency leadership regarding a possible bribe and whether a pay increase was warranted.
Petersen stopped short of promising an automatic prosecution if elected. Instead, he said he would first need access to the complete case file and would have to determine whether the current attorney general had entered into any binding agreement or formally disposed of the matter in a way that would limit future action.
“At a minimum, [I] would not be done investigating,” Petersen said. “If we had what we needed, obviously there’d be indictments and prosecution.”
That distinction mattered. Petersen said prosecutors should not rush into cases they cannot prove. But neither, he argued, should political considerations cause potentially significant evidence to disappear from public scrutiny.
The Debate and the Question of Competence
Petersen also revisited his debate with Mayes, rejecting criticism that he relied on prepared notes.
“I feel great. I mean, we were prepared,” he said.
His argument was straightforward: lawyers prepare. Showing up with research is not a weakness when the job being sought is attorney general.
Petersen criticized Mayes for what he said were factual and legal errors during the debate and argued that experience should be measured by accomplishment rather than simply years holding a law degree or public office.
“What matters is what you’ve actually done and accomplished,” he said.
Turnout Is the Closing Strategy
With ballots approaching, Petersen said Republicans should stop obsessing over polls and focus on turnout.
He cited Republican turnout of roughly 72 percent four years ago and said increasing that to about 75 percent statewide could be enough to win competitive races despite Democrats’ spending advantage.
“We have the numbers,” Petersen said. “So we just need to get the turnout.”
He specifically praised Pima County Republicans for outperforming expectations in the primary and told Southern Arizona voters they could be decisive in statewide races.
Joel Strabala: Testing the Machines Before Arizona Votes
Joel Strabala, chairman of LD17 and a member of the Pima County Election Integrity Commission, took listeners behind the scenes of election preparation.
Strabala was headed to the county elections department to participate in a logic-and-accuracy test of voting equipment. Representatives of the major political parties prepare marked ballots with known outcomes, run them through the tabulation system and compare the machine results to what was expected.
The goal is not to speculate about whether machines work. It is to test them.
“The major political parties will mark a set of ballots to make sure, to their experts, that the tabulation machines are properly counting votes for candidates or propositions,” Strabala explained.
The county conducts its own testing, political parties perform an additional check, and the Secretary of State’s team later conducts formal certification testing with thousands of ballots.
Strabala described the party test as an outside audit designed to confirm that the software and equipment are functioning as intended.
“Stupid Voter Tricks” Put the System Through Its Paces
Strabala does not make the test easy.
He intentionally creates what he jokingly calls “stupid voter tricks”—using different pens, failing to completely fill an oval, attempting write-ins, over-voting and under-voting—to see how the machines handle the kinds of imperfect ballots that inevitably appear in a real election.
“I try to break it,” Strabala said.
So far, he said, the systems have returned the expected results.
That is exactly the kind of process Winn said voters should want to see. Election integrity is strengthened when citizens can point to repeatable tests rather than simply being told to trust the system.
Early Voting Opens October 7
Strabala also laid out the voting calendar.
Three Pima County early-voting locations are scheduled to open October 7: the Recorder’s Office at 240 North Stone, the Recorder’s Office near Country Club and Valencia, and the Ward 2 building on Broadway west of Pantano.
Those locations remain available through October 19, followed by additional sites—including Oro Valley Library and another dozen locations opening during the final week of October.
Strabala recommended voting early rather than waiting until Election Day.
One reason is practical: voters can track an early ballot and confirm that it has been tabulated. The other is political. Once a voter casts a ballot, campaigns can remove that person from turnout lists and direct their door-knocking, phone calls and texts toward voters who still need to participate.
“It actually helps those that are knocking doors and trying to get out the vote if you go vote,” Strabala said.
Eileen Wilson: Arizona’s Online Voter Registration System Goes Down
Eileen Wilson, second vice chair of the Pima County Republican Party, found herself on the front lines of another election problem: people attempting to register online were unable to complete the process.
Wilson said her office had successfully helped register voters throughout the week. Then the system stopped working.
At first, she assumed it was a temporary glitch. The first two people eventually left frustrated. A third voter insisted on completing the process online, but the system rejected the information and instructed him to use a paper application instead.
“We put everything through, and then it says that we can’t register,” Wilson said.
Wilson called the Pima County Recorder’s Office seeking help. She said employees initially tried to assist, but the call was disconnected. The Elections Department correctly directed her back to the Recorder’s Office because voter registration falls under the recorder rather than election-day administration.
Paper Forms Become the Backup Plan
With the October 5 registration deadline approaching, Winn and Wilson urged prospective voters not to wait for technology to solve itself.
Their fallback was decidedly old-school: paper.
Forms could be obtained through Republican offices, Green Valley United Republicans or the Recorder’s Office, completed and physically delivered. Winn said hand delivery gives voters more confidence than mailing a form and wondering whether it arrived before the deadline.
“If you’ve waited this long to register to vote and you still want to register to vote, please go do that,” Winn said.
Wilson went further. She offered to personally take completed forms to the Recorder’s Office for people she was helping and planned to prepare certified correspondence for one new Arizona resident to document his attempt to register.
When 400 Votes Can Decide an Election
The urgency was not theoretical.
Winn pointed to the close Pima County sheriff’s race between Chris Nanos and Heather Lappin, decided by roughly 400 votes, and to Arizona’s extraordinarily close 2022 attorney general race.
“If you think that your vote doesn’t matter, it does,” Winn said. “And it matters more than you can know.”
The online outage came as Winn and Wilson said they were seeing another development: longtime Democrats changing their registration to Republican, particularly in Green Valley. Winn attributed the movement to voters who feel their former party no longer represents their family, faith or political values.
Whatever party someone chooses, however, the immediate issue is simpler: an eligible citizen cannot vote if he never completes the registration process.
John Riches: Goldwater Says Pima County’s Data Center Moratorium Is Illegal
John Riches of the Goldwater Institute joined Winn with a direct legal warning for Pima County.
The Board of Supervisors had imposed a moratorium halting data-center development in the county. Goldwater’s position is that the county failed to meet the requirements Arizona law imposes before a government can freeze lawful land development.
“It’s a pretty draconian rule to make,” Riches said. “You can’t just tell a property owner that one particular use is outright prohibited.”
Riches said state law establishes specific criteria for development moratoria and argued Pima County’s stated justification “doesn’t come anywhere near satisfying the requirements.”
A Property Owner May Have to Sue
At the time of the conversation, Riches said Goldwater had not received a response from Pima County.
If the county refuses to withdraw the moratorium, the next step could be litigation. Riches said an affected property owner would be the likely plaintiff, and Goldwater would be interested in representing someone directly harmed by the restriction.
Arizona law specifically creates a cause of action for challenging unlawful development moratoria, he explained.
Riches did not argue that counties have no zoning authority. Quite the opposite. Local governments can regulate land use, he said, but those rules should be clear, consistent and applied similarly to similar uses.
“What they can’t do is just issue an outright moratorium unless they comply with state law,” Riches said.
The county appeared to be trying to buy time while it develops new rules, he said, but Arizona law does not allow officials to simply freeze property rights while government figures out what it wants to do.
“You can’t just freeze lawful property development just because the county wants more time.”
Data Centers Are Infrastructure, Not Just Buildings
The legal debate led to a larger policy question: should Arizona want data centers at all?
Riches said yes.
“There is an education gap here,” he said.
Data centers support cloud computing, online transactions, streaming, artificial intelligence and many other digital systems Americans use every day. They also bring private investment and high-paying jobs.
Riches acknowledged concerns about resources such as electricity and water, but said technology is changing rapidly. Newer facilities increasingly use closed-loop cooling and reclaimed water.
The better policy response, he argued, is to create reasonable rules addressing legitimate concerns—not simply prohibit the industry.
“Data centers, they’re essential infrastructure for our economy,” Riches said.
The Business-Climate Consequence
Winn worried about the message arbitrary moratoria send to outside investors.
A company considering Pima County must ask whether local government could suddenly decide its particular industry is unpopular and freeze development.
Riches said that concern extends beyond data centers. He referenced Goldwater’s investigation into a separate situation in Benson, where he said state government pressure contributed to a company abandoning planned investment and jobs.
“The government isn’t there to play Tony Soprano and try and strong-arm lawful businesses,” Riches said.
For conservatives who believe economic development depends on predictable rules, that may be the larger issue. Investors can operate under strict regulations if those regulations are known in advance. What businesses cannot easily price is arbitrary government.
Riches Says the Moratorium Should Simply Be Withdrawn
Riches said the most economical solution is also the simplest: Pima County should rescind the moratorium.
Litigation would cost taxpayers money, even if the county ultimately loses.
Whenever Goldwater challenges what it believes is illegal government action, Riches said, the first preference is for officials to voluntarily correct it.
“The right thing would be to lift the moratorium,” he said.
His closing principle was broader than data centers. If Pima County wants new land-use regulations, it should adopt them through the ordinary legislative process.
“If they want new rules and regulations, [they] should adopt them through the ordinary process and not suspend property rights in the meantime,” Riches said.
Patrick MacQueen: Arizona Pushes Back on HOA Power
Real estate attorney Patrick MacQueen joined Winn with changes to Arizona HOA law that took effect September 12 and shift more authority toward homeowners.
MacQueen said the broader trend is unmistakable: both Arizona courts and the Legislature are increasingly telling homeowners associations that their power has limits.
“The courts and the legislature are both saying, hold on a second, you guys don’t have as much authority that you thought you had,” MacQueen said. “You can’t do these things to people and their properties.”
MacQueen was careful not to portray every HOA as abusive. He lives in one himself and said his works well.
But when an association overreaches, homeowners now have additional tools.
Arizona Homeowners Get More Freedom to Create Shade
One new law addresses backyard shade structures.
In the past, MacQueen said, homeowners would frequently contact attorneys after HOAs rejected pergolas, awnings and similar improvements. The new statute substantially limits an HOA’s ability to simply prohibit those structures.
Umbrellas, awnings, shade sails, gazebos and canopies may fall within the protection.
“They can no longer prohibit backyard shade structures,” MacQueen explained.
HOAs still retain some control. They may regulate unreasonable size, placement or a structure that intrudes into a neighboring or common area. But the default has moved away from an association simply declaring that a homeowner cannot create shade in his own backyard.
For Winn, it fits a basic property-rights principle: if an improvement does not infringe on a neighbor, an owner should have considerable freedom to use his own property.
HOAs Now Have an Express Duty to Act “Reasonably”
The second major change may have even broader consequences.
Arizona law now expressly says associations have a statutory duty to act reasonably when exercising discretionary power.
MacQueen joked that lawyers will remain gainfully employed debating what “reasonable” means, but the standard has practical teeth.
Reasonableness generally requires neutrality, consistency and an absence of favoritism. If one homeowner is allowed to build an RV garage, for example, the HOA should have a defensible reason for denying an identical proposal from the neighbor next door.
The same principle can apply to enforcement. An HOA should not aggressively cite one homeowner for weeds while ignoring identical violations by favored residents.
“You have to be neutral,” MacQueen said. “You have to analyze this in a fair way. You can’t show favoritism. You have to be non-arbitrary.”
Arizona case law already contained similar principles, MacQueen explained, but putting the requirement explicitly in statute gives homeowners another avenue for challenging selective or unreasonable enforcement.
Fighting a Bad HOA Starts With Showing Up
Winn asked the question thousands of frustrated homeowners have asked: what do you actually do if your HOA becomes tyrannical?
MacQueen’s first recommendation costs nothing.
Show up.
Attend meetings. Ask questions. Read the rules.
Arizona law also gives homeowners substantial rights to obtain association records, including bylaws, CC&Rs, voting records and other documentation.
“That’s usually where these lawsuits against HOAs begin,” MacQueen said. “It’s in this sort of fact-finding stage.”
A homeowner may have to pay copying costs, but the documents themselves can reveal whether the association is following its own governing rules and treating owners consistently.
Political Signs Still Have Some Protection—and Some Limits
With an election approaching, Winn raised one of the most common calls she receives at Republican headquarters: can an HOA stop someone from putting up political signs?
MacQueen said associations retain some authority.
They can regulate the size, number, placement and location of signs within limits. Homeowners generally have room for political expression, but that does not mean an unlimited banner covering the entire front of a house.
HOA rules still matter, and Arizona law attempts to balance property rights with the contractual nature of living in an association-governed community.
Arizona Real Estate Law Meets the Monsoon
MacQueen’s discussion extended beyond HOAs into one of the most Arizona-specific areas imaginable: monsoon law.
Heavy rain can create legal problems involving disclosures, roof repairs, water intrusion and drainage.
A seller who claims a roof was replaced may face a dispute when the first monsoon reveals significant leakage. But disputes also arise between neighboring property owners when someone alters the natural movement of water.
If a homeowner builds up dirt, changes grading or blocks drainage in a way that sends water onto another property, liability can follow.
“There is a statute that says, oh, no, no, no, you can’t do that,” MacQueen said.
He said improper diversion can potentially result in misdemeanor liability, attorney’s fees and responsibility for damages.
The lesson is particularly timely during Arizona’s rainy season: owning property does not mean having unlimited authority to redirect nature onto the person next door.
When Insurance Says No
MacQueen also addressed insurance disputes following major property damage.
Arizona homeowners sometimes receive denials because an insurer characterizes damage as flooding or argues that a particular loss falls outside the policy.
MacQueen said homeowners should not assume every denial is necessarily the final word. Arizona recognizes bad-faith insurance claims when an insurer wrongfully refuses coverage, although he emphasized that bad-faith litigation is a specialized area requiring attorneys who work specifically in that field.
His own role is often to begin by challenging what appears to be an incorrect decision.
“My goal is just to say, look, I think you denied this and you’re wrong,” MacQueen said.
Sometimes negotiation resolves the matter. Larger or more serious disputes may need to be referred to lawyers specializing in insurance bad faith.
Private Property Is the Common Thread
The subjects may have looked disconnected at first: campaign-finance rules, ballot testing, voter registration, data centers, HOAs and monsoon drainage.
But the same question appeared repeatedly.
Who has power, and what limits apply to that power?
Petersen argued that an attorney general should enforce the law without partisan exceptions. Strabala described election testing designed to verify that government systems produce the results they are supposed to produce. Wilson confronted a registration system that failed when citizens were trying to exercise the franchise. Riches argued that county supervisors cannot ignore state law because they dislike a particular type of development. MacQueen explained new protections for homeowners when private governing associations overreach.
MacQueen’s closing thought captured much of the day’s discussion.
“I think it’s important that we do everything we can to protect private property rights,” Winn said.
MacQueen agreed. The history behind American property law, he said, is part of a much larger constitutional tradition.
“Our founders,” Winn added, “protected those rights, and I think it’s important that we continue to do that.”