The Republican Party of Arizona, in an early action on Saturday, passed resolutions censoring the governor. Doug Ducey
Doug DuceyNational Guardsmen begins to leave Washington after the controversial Cindy McCain unfolding of possible Republican Party censorship: ‘I think I’ll make t-shirts’ Arizona Republican Party Governor to attend Biden’s inauguration MORE (R), former GOP Sen. Jeff Flake
Jeffrey (Jeff) Lane FlakeBudowsky: Democracy won, Trump lost, President Biden inaugurated Biden’s inauguration marked by the conflict of hope and fear Schumer becomes the new majority leader in the Senate MORE and Cindy McCain, the widow of the late Arizona senator John McCain
John Sidney McCainWhoopi Goldberg wears the shirt of ‘my vice president’ the day after the inauguration of Budowsky: Democracy won, Trump lost, President Biden took office Schumer becomes the new majority leader in the Senate MORE (R).
Public rebukes, which are largely symbolic, came after McCain and Flake endorsed President Biden in the 2020 elections. The party cited Ducey’s coronavirus restrictions as the reason behind its censorship.
The Arizona Republic reported that the resolution to convict Ducey argued about its emergency safety rules “restrict personal liberties and enforce unconstitutional decrees.”
Meanwhile, the party at its state meeting on Saturday argued that McCain “supported globalist policies and candidates” and “condemned President Trump
Donald TrumpMcCarthy said he told Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene that he disagreed with his impeachment articles against Biden Biden, Trudeau agrees to meet next month that Trump planned to oust AG to overturn the election results in Georgia: report MORE for his criticisms of her husband and misconceptions about the actual presidential results. “
The state GOP said that Flake “condemned the Republican Party, rejected populism and rejected the interests of the American people over globalist interests”, adding that Flake should join the Democratic Party.
When contacted by The Hill, Flake repeated a statement he sent on Twitter earlier this month, when censorship resolutions were first announced: “If tolerating the behavior of the president is necessary to remain in the Party’s good graces, I am very well to be out ”.
After the party’s vote on Sunday, Flake tweeted a photo of himself posing with McCain and Ducey at Biden’s opening this week, along with the caption, “Good company.”
Good company pic.twitter.com/1pdgVGE5Ps
– Jeff Flake (@JeffFlake) January 24, 2021
Biden won the state of Arizona in the 2020 Trump election, the first time a Democrat has done so in more than 20 years. Biden took Maricopa County, the most populous area in the state, over the Republican holder in a victory that helped him win.
McCain and his family members have criticized Trump in the past, and the late senator caught the ire of the former president when he was serving in the Senate.
Cindy McCain paid tribute to her late husband’s friendship with Biden during a video that aired during the Democratic National Convention in August 2020. Her husband and Biden’s son, Beau, died of the same form of brain cancer.
Flake, who retired from the Senate in 2019, had made a political announcement to Biden before the election stating that, to hold a high office, “character matters”.
Sara Mueller, Ducey’s political director, said in a statement to The Hill that she believed the censorship would have little weight.
“These resolutions have no consequence, and the people behind them have lost any small moral authority they may have had,” she said.
The McCain Institute did not immediately respond to requests from The Hill for comment.
However, shortly after the Arizona Republican Party resolution was passed, McCain tweeted that she uses censorship as an “emblem of honor”.
“It is a great honor to be included in a group of Arizonans who have served our state and our nation so well … and who, like my late husband John, have been censored by AZGOP. I will use this as a badge of honor,” she said. .
It is a great honor to be included in a group of Arizonans who have served our state and our nation so well … and who, like my late husband John, have been censored by AZGOP. I will use this as an emblem of honor.
– Cindy McCain (@cindymccain) January 24, 2021
The Arizona GOP also did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for additional comments on the votes.
The censorship occurred at the end of the Republican Party’s seven-hour meeting in Arizona, at which the party also voted to re-elect Kelli Ward for another two-year term as president of the organization after she made a taped phone call from Trump endorsing her, from a deal with The New York Times.
The Arizona GOP, after the 2020 election, repeated allegations of electoral fraud in the state, although these were later contested by local courts, and Ward and other Arizona Republicans have increasingly aligned themselves with Trump.
Updated at 22h12