Guests - Linley Wilson, Elizabeth Weiss
A Political Stunt in Pima County, a Law That Needs to Hold, and the Science Being Buried With the Bones
The last Friday of the election season's opening sprint on Winn Tucson covered three subjects that don't share a news cycle but share an underlying problem: institutions that are supposed to serve the public using their authority to serve something else instead. A county attorney who doesn't prosecute crimes suing the president. Three county governments clawing back a benefit from 100% disabled veterans after the legislature already gave it to them. And a federal law that was supposed to protect Native American artifacts being weaponized to exclude women from science, bury irreplaceable history, and empty museum collections for reasons that have more to do with money and activism than cultural preservation.
The Veterans Story That Went Viral — and Why the Claw-Back Won't Stand
Before the guests joined, Winn addressed the story that had been echoing across the country since the previous Tuesday: the interview with Jack Dona that revealed three Arizona counties — Maricopa, Pinal, and Cochise — were attempting to cancel property tax exemptions for 100% permanently disabled veterans that the legislature had already passed and the governor had already signed.
The story was picked up by the Epoch Times. The interview drew over 17,000 listeners. The legislature, still in session, is weighing in. The national attention is no accident — what the three county attorneys are doing has no legal basis.
The law is ARS 42-11111. The relevant language: "The property of a veteran with a service-connected disability whose disability rating is 100% is fully exempt from taxation." The section does not mention income. It does not mention other limits. There are none. What the county attorneys have done is surgically insert conditions that the legislature explicitly did not include — an income cap, a value threshold — and use those invented conditions to cancel exemptions that veterans had already received approval letters for.
"You don't get to add things. You don't get to say it. That is not how our laws work."
Veterans in Cochise County alone: 15,000 to 18,000. Nearly 20 percent of Arizona's adult population are veterans. The financial impact of the full exemption is real — and the counties had ample time to conduct that analysis before the law passed, not after. Telling 100% permanently and totally disabled veterans that the law means something other than what it plainly says — and clawing back money they were already approved for — is, in Winn's formulation, unconscionable.
"Do you want more homeless vets out on the street? Is that where you're going with this?"
The law is clean. The counties are going to have a hard time making an invented limitation survive a legal challenge. The legislature is watching. So is the country.
Linley Wilson: An Illegal Entry on the SOS Website, the EPM Lawsuit, the Navajo County Recorder, and the Citizenship Fight at the Supreme Court
Linley Wilson is an election law attorney at Holtzman Vogel. She spent years at the Arizona Attorney General's office litigating election cases — including during the COVID pandemic, when every party in America tried to use the courts to rewrite Arizona's election laws. She is currently defending Navajo County Recorder Marshall against a complaint filed by Attorney General Chris Mays attempting to remove him from office — in the middle of an election cycle.
Fontes Did It Again: The Illegal Website Entry
LD-17 chairman Joel Strabala discovered something on the Arizona Secretary of State's website and flagged it to Winn, Alex Kolodin, and Neal Cornett. Winn shared it live during the segment.
The Secretary of State's website was delivering incorrect information to voters about ballot status — specifically about what happens when a voter who received a mail-in ballot shows up to vote in person on Election Day. The website's language stated that in such cases, the early ballot is "canceled" and the in-person ballot is "tabulated." This language is inconsistent with ARS 16-558.02 and with the Arizona Elections Procedures Manual, which are both clear that only the first ballot received and verified shall be counted.
"It does seem like something that's worth inquiring into," Wilson said, reviewing the statute in real time. "There's a lot of precedent in Arizona for the proposition that our election laws have to be scrupulously followed."
The practical danger: a voter who reads the website's assurance that their early ballot is simply "canceled" when they vote in person might not understand the full implications of double-ballot submission — and the ambiguity creates a mechanism for misapplication of the law.
The EPM Lawsuit: First Amendment Concerns and the Chilling Effect
On the Oversight Project lawsuit — in which Winn is the named Pima County Republican Party plaintiff challenging provisions of the Elections Procedures Manual — Wilson offered a precise legal framing.
"It is concerning when a guidance document like the EPM is getting into First Amendment areas of expression and freedom and this code of conduct. It's important to look at whether provisions in the Elections Procedures Manual are actually depriving individuals of constitutional rights — and that there's not a chilling effect in Arizona's elections because of some words written on paper that may not be constitutional or might violate a statute."
The specific provision Winn focused on — the one allowing election workers to prohibit uniformed personnel from voting based on an administrator's judgment about whether the uniform constitutes intimidation — is, in Wilson's framing, exactly the kind of vague authority that courts should examine carefully. Constitutional rights require clear, specific standards. Vague authority in the hands of partisan election administrators is not a neutral tool.
The case has been assigned to a federal judge. Wilson, who knows Neal Cornett's work, expressed confidence in how the litigation is being handled and expressed hope that it is resolved before the general election, so voters and poll workers have clear constitutional rules going into November.
The Navajo County Recorder: Chris Mays's Newest Target
Wilson confirmed she is currently representing Navajo County Recorder Marshall in Maricopa County Superior Court against a complaint filed by Attorney General Chris Mays seeking to remove him from office. The complaint was filed a couple of weeks prior to this conversation.
"We filed a motion to dismiss. We don't think it's an appropriate action. And especially in the middle of an election, Recorder Marshall is very busy out in Navajo County, just like all of our other county recorders, preparing for the July primary."
The pattern is consistent: Mays deploys the attorney general's office against Republican election officials rather than against election fraud, drugs, or crime. The Navajo County case follows the same model as the pressure campaign against Justin Heap in Maricopa County — use the AG's resources to make life difficult for legally elected Republican recorders.
The Citizenship Case at the Supreme Court
Wilson brought forward the most significant piece of election law news that most Arizonans are not following: the Arizona legislature's citizenship petition is now before the United States Supreme Court.
The underlying issue is whether Arizona can require proof of citizenship for voting by mail and for presidential races. The state has been fighting this through the federal courts for years. Just a few months ago, the legislative leaders filed a petition for writ of certiorari. The RNC has a companion petition. Both are pending before the court.
"We're still engaged in that fight, asking the United States Supreme Court to weigh in on whether Arizona can require proof of citizenship for mail-in voting, for ballots by mail, and to vote for the president."
No ruling has come down yet. The citizenship requirement fight — which is the legal backbone behind everything from the SAVE Act debate to the Fontes voter roll obstruction — is working toward a definitive resolution that could reshape election law in Arizona and across the country.
The 7 p.m. Deadline, Same-Day Mail-in Ballots, and Why When You Vote Matters
Wilson confirmed Arizona's 7 p.m. Election Day deadline is constitutional and legally clear. The contrast with California — which allows ballots to be mailed on Election Day and accepted for up to two weeks afterward — was the foil both she and Winn used to illustrate the stakes.
A separate challenge to post-Election-Day ballot counting is currently pending before the United States Supreme Court in another state case. Wilson noted the ruling, when it comes, won't directly affect Arizona — but it will matter for the broader legal landscape.
Her practical instruction, aligned with Winn's: do not drop your mail-in ballot in a physical location on Election Day. Return it earlier. Same-day drop-offs extend the counting process, extend uncertainty, and are the mechanism that has prevented Arizona from producing election-night results. "Our 7 p.m. deadline on Election Day is really important. Voters want to see election results as quickly as possible."
The new Arizona option for voters: when voting in person this year, voters now have the opportunity to show government-issued ID if they choose to do so — the result of legislation Kolodin passed a couple of years ago. It is not yet mandatory, but it is now an option.
Linley Wilson's firm: Holtzman Vogel. Her previous role: Arizona Attorney General's office, election litigation division.
Laura Conover: The Lawsuit Nobody Else Filed, the Board Vote Steve Christie Missed, and Why This Is a Political Stunt
Before Wilson joined, Winn spent time on a development she characterized as one part political theater, one part legal futility, and one part telling evidence about what Pima County's Democratic leadership actually prioritizes.
Pima County Attorney Laura Conover announced she was filing the first-in-the-country lawsuit by a county government against the Trump administration's changes to the Affordable Care Act — specifically challenging alterations to the open enrollment period and pre-enrollment requirements.
The board of supervisors — four Democrats — voted to authorize the lawsuit in a closed-door session lasting approximately 30 minutes. Steve Christie was absent. It was a 4-0 vote.
The lawsuit names HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., CMS Administrator Dr. Oz, and alleges that the Trump administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act. Two other lawsuits on essentially the same grounds are already working through the courts. Conover chose not to join them, not to file an amicus brief, and not to coordinate — because, in Winn's analysis, that would have given the spotlight to someone else.
"She wants to make a name for herself. She's going to take on Donald Trump."
The substantive argument Winn made — and which she notes will be amplified by an expert on the following Thursday's show — is that the Trump administration's changes to the ACA were cost-reducing measures, not access-denying ones. The Big Beautiful Bill includes provisions that reduce drug costs, streamline enrollment requirements, and impose accountability standards for who is actually enrolled in federal health programs.
Conover's stated claim — that the changes will keep residents from adequate health coverage — is, in Winn's assessment, a fabrication. The actual text of the changes does what cost-conscious reform should do: it requires knowing who is receiving federal money before dispensing it.
"Pre-enrollment requirements because — God forbid — that we actually know who we're giving money to."
The standing question is real: a single county in a state generally cannot challenge a federal law on its own. Two existing lawsuits are already testing the same legal theory. Conover's timing — her name won't be on the ballot this election — makes clear this is not about Pima County residents' healthcare. It is about positioning.
"She's stealing a page from Chris Mays. And so I'm surprised as a county, I don't even think she has legal standing."
The final verdict was practical: the caseload Conover says is too heavy to prosecute murders, drug crimes, and assaults has somehow produced capacity to file a first-in-the-country lawsuit against a sitting president over a healthcare enrollment form. "She says she has a winning streak protecting the people of Pima County. I'd like to challenge that statement."
Elizabeth Weiss: The Science Being Buried, the Women Being Excluded, and the Law That Became a Weapon
Dr. Elizabeth Weiss is an anthropologist and archaeologist, recently retired after 18 years at San Jose State University — where she found the locks changed on the curation facility where she had worked because she spoke publicly against discriminatory practices in her own field. She now lives in Tucson. She authored the Goldwater Institute report Arizona's Past Is Being Buried by Political Correctness, published May 26th, and a companion article titled The Reburial of the Southwest: Closing Off Native History and Archaeology.
What the Science Is, and Why It Matters Beyond the Academy
Weiss studies skeletal remains from past peoples — primarily Native American remains, because we are in America. The research reconstructs what those people's lives were like. It informs the methods used by forensic anthropologists to determine age, sex, and cause of death. It has trained medical doctors on anatomy for generations. It produced the Nobel Prize-winning work on Neanderthal DNA that advanced how scientists extract and analyze deteriorated genetic material.
"You never know where the next big scientific breakthrough is going to come from."
The field also does something that has direct contemporary relevance in Arizona: it provides methods for identifying whether skeletal remains found in the desert are archaeological in origin — meaning they may be thousands of years old — or recent, meaning they may be a border crosser who died crossing.
"How can we determine whether that is a recent border crosser or a Native American? And there's been research done on that. And we're going to, that research is also being strongly curtailed, especially in Arizona, because of these laws."
NAGPRA: The Original Compromise That Has Now Collapsed
In 1990, Congress passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. The law was a genuine compromise: modern tribes could reclaim human remains with a clear cultural link to them, while scientists could continue studying remains that were not demonstrably linked to any existing tribe. Both sides got something. The law reflected honest recognition that both scientific inquiry and tribal cultural connection to ancestral remains are legitimate interests.
That compromise has effectively collapsed.
In 2023, Biden-era regulatory changes inverted the hierarchy of evidence — elevating traditional knowledge over scientific knowledge. The practical result: material is now being returned to tribes even when there is no documented link between the tribe and the remains. Last week, a body found in the Arizona desert — initially believed to be connected to the search for Nancy Guthrie's mother — was determined to be an archaeological site. Without determining how old the remains were, without establishing any tribal connection, the remains were handed to a nearby tribe.
"Those remains could have been thousands of years old, older than the tribe that's currently here."
The Arizona State Museum in Tucson is the main regulatory body for Arizona's compliance with NAGPRA. The National Park Service is the federal oversight agency.
"Oh, good. What could possibly go wrong?" was Winn's response.
Museums Being Emptied — Including of Items Made for Commercial Sale
The scope of what's being removed goes beyond skeletal remains and burial objects. Under the banner of "decolonization," modern Native American artwork — including objects created specifically for commercial sale by living artists — is being withdrawn from museum collections and removed from display.
Photographic negatives, casts, and replicas made by Native American artisans so that originals could be safely preserved are now also being reclaimed — meaning the reproductions made specifically to allow the originals to go back are the next target.
"Once everything authentic has been removed, these things will be the next ones that are more massively on the table."
In some cases, materials are not even physically removed from university curation facilities — but because the regulatory guidance requires tribal permission for any research or display, and because tribes have not granted that permission, the materials sit in curation rooms that nobody can access and nothing can be learned from.
"Nobody can see them, nobody can research them, and they may be there for a decade. In a sense, this doesn't do the job of repatriating and it doesn't allow the scientists in."
The additional complexity: tribes frequently disagree about who owns contested materials. A repatriation dispute between tribes can lock materials in legal limbo — inaccessible to scientists, not returned to any tribe, simply frozen.
The Menstrual Taboo: Women Excluded from Their Own Field
The segment that produced the most visceral reaction from Winn — and the most precisely documented argument from Weiss — involved what is now happening inside universities and museums operating under the expanded NAGPRA framework.
Some Native American tribes hold ancient taboos about menstruating women — beliefs that women in their menstrual cycle cannot touch certain objects, cannot be in the presence of elders, cannot eat with others, cannot participate in archaeological activities.
These are religious and cultural beliefs. In America, the freedom of religion also means freedom from being required to practice other people's religious beliefs. The original 1990 NAGPRA legislation anticipated this problem and included explicit guidance that the National Park Service cannot discriminate against women on the basis of these tribal beliefs.
In 2023, the Biden-era regulatory changes elevated traditional and cultural knowledge — including these taboos — to a position of authority that overrides the original anti-discrimination guidance.
"Universities and museums are now re-embracing ancient taboos such as menstrual taboos and saying that women who are menstruating cannot access collections."
At some museums, male staff members are now stationed in curation facilities specifically to handle artifacts that a woman is not allowed to touch on days when she is menstruating. These staff members are not archaeologists. They are there because the law now effectively creates two tiers of scientific access — one for men, one for women — based on a biological characteristic.
San Jose State University — where Weiss worked for 18 years — adopted a formal policy using the phrase "menstruating personnel" (because they could not bring themselves to say "women") to describe those who could not access the curation facility on certain days. The irony she named is exact: the people who cannot define what a woman is are perfectly capable of identifying who to discriminate against when discrimination serves their purposes.
"When it comes to discriminating against women, they know who to discriminate against. But when women need support and equal treatment, they're nowhere to be found."
The San Jose State locks were changed on the curation facility after Weiss spoke out publicly against these practices.
Her instruction to any student encountering this discrimination: file a Title IX complaint. This is precisely the category of sex-based discrimination Title IX was designed to prohibit. Universities that adopt menstrual taboo policies are violating federal law.
"If there are students who are in the field and they come across this kind of discrimination, they should file a Title IX complaint. They should not be able to get away with this kind of discrimination."
The Broader Stakes: False History, Real Consequences
Weiss made the argument that will not appear in the academic journals that have stopped publishing her work: when you stop allowing accurate reconstruction of the past, you feed a mythology that fuels division rather than understanding.
Every culture has beautiful aspects and ugly aspects. Accurate archaeology reveals both — the trade networks, the art, the violence, the community structures, the migrations, the contact between peoples. Inaccurate mythology produces what she called the framing that "Europeans came and destroyed everything," which serves political purposes but is historically false.
"An accurate reconstruction allows us to see true humanity and not play the blame game."
She also invoked Thomas Jefferson — who conducted serious, high-quality archaeology for his era — as an example of the intellectual curiosity that animated the founders. The 250th anniversary of the nation is, in her framing, an occasion to recommit to the kind of honest inquiry about the past that Jefferson modeled.
Winn's application: bones found in the desert that cannot be aged, identified, or examined for cause of death because the law treats all remains as sacred property to be disposed of rather than evidence to be understood are a loss not just for science but for the community. Cold cases that are 50, 60, or 70 years old have been solved with less technology than exists today. Arizona's 50-year threshold for treating remains as archaeological rather than forensic closes doors that DNA technology might otherwise open.
The Goldwater Institute Report and What Can Be Done
The report, Arizona's Past Is Being Buried by Political Correctness, was released May 26th and is available at the Goldwater Institute website. The companion article, The Reburial of the Southwest: Closing Off Native History and Archaeology, is also available.
Weiss's call to action was threefold: file Title IX complaints when you encounter menstrual discrimination in academic settings. Contact your senator and congressman to let them know these practices are occurring. And push for common-sense reform of NAGPRA that distinguishes between looting — which destroys history — and scientific research that illuminates it.
"We need common sense rules that allow people to have a good shot at accurately reconstructing the past. And that should be open to all people in an equal manner — men and women. And those are the only two sexes."
Arizona, with 22 tribal nations and one of the richest prehistoric records in North America, is being disproportionately affected. The state that has the most to learn from its past is rapidly losing its ability to study it.
Winn Tucson airs Monday through Friday, 9 to 11 a.m., on KVOI 1030 The Voice. Monday: Kathleen Winn returns. Tuesday: Dave and Betsy Smith fill in while Winn attends the Presidential 1776 Award finals in Washington, D.C. Wednesday: China Watch Wednesday — Winn plans to fly back in time.
Goldwater Institute report — Arizona's Past Is Being Buried by Political Correctness and The Reburial of the Southwest: GoldwaterInstitute.org
ESA initiative opposition statements — deadline June 24th, file immediately: info@azlovesesas.com
Election observer sign-up: pimagop.org | Primary: July 21st | Registration deadline: June 22nd | Early ballots: June 24th
Veterans' property tax exemption: ARS 42-11111 — no income or other limits. The counties cannot add them.