The Daily Agenda: County attorney candidates correct the record
There’s been a lot of misinformation in the race for Pima County attorney … We asked the candidates to clear things up … Casa Alitas dials back efforts.
The race for Pima County Attorney has become a contentious battle between two Democratic candidates, the likes of which many longtime political aficionados say they’ve never seen before.
Although there’s been plenty of reporting about Pima County Attorney Laura Conover and challenger Mike Jette and their campaigns, a large part of the public conversation around the race has played out in local opinion pages and social media.
Conover, Jette and their proxies have taken shots and returned fire in dozens of letters to the editor and opinion pieces in the Arizona Daily Star and Tucson Sentinel.
And while opinion pages have a limited audience, the information (and misinformation) doesn’t only live there. We’ve seen daily examples of it reappearing on social media to a much larger audience.
At face value, this isn’t unusual. But what stood out to us is the number of submissions written specifically to correct purported misinformation.
In May, the Star ran an editorial in response to a previously published op-ed by a Goldwater Institute spokesman that reported a 75% spike in violent crime in Tucson in 2023. After the Star heard from people surprised by the statistics presented in the op-ed, the Star did some digging and learned that there had actually been a “significant, consistent and encouraging decline in violent crime” over the past three years.
Last month, we included in our “other news” section a Sentinel opinion piece written by former Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall that accused Conover of being “factually unhinged.” This prompted an op-ed by Conover, who called LaWall’s accusations an attempt to “distract” voters from her first-term successes.
That same month, we also included a pair of dueling op-eds about Conover’s role in writing cash bail reform legislation, authored by state Rep. Alma Hernandez and a trio of local attorneys.
There are more examples and these are just the op-eds, which are typically penned by local experts and officials. Non-experts also have taken to the opinion pages, writing dozens of letters to the editor about the race in recent weeks.
The Pima County Attorney plays a pivotal role in the local criminal justice system, so the stakes here are extremely high. And with no Republican challenger, the race will be decided in just a few weeks.
We wanted to offer the candidates a chance to correct the record, so we gave them the opportunity to pick three pieces of false information about themselves and concisely explain why it's false.
We asked them to focus their answers on themselves and avoid making accusations about their opponent. We edited their answers to reflect that, which meant cutting several lines from Jette’s responses and one of Conover’s items altogether. We also fact-checked their answers to the best of our ability.
Here’s what they had to say:
Jette on claims that he would roll back progressive policies
Jette called the claim “blatantly false,” saying he is “pro-choice, pro-environment, anti-death penalty, progressive on diversion, supportive of bail reform, and compassionate in supporting crime victims and second chances for non-violent offenders.”
He pointed out that he was endorsed by the National Organization for Women, not Conover.
“The fundamental difference between Conover and me is not in policy but in character and experience.” Jette says he stands by his “record of integrity and dedication to justice.”
“My commitment to progressive values is unwavering, and my experience as a prosecutor has equipped me to serve our community effectively and honestly. Voters deserve a leader who prioritizes truth and experience over deception,” he said.
Conover on claims that crime rates have increased
“The year before I arrived, violent crime had swept the Nation, correlating to the timing of the pandemic,” she said.
“Through extraordinary hard work by law enforcement and the Think Tank we ran every single Monday, we cleared a homicide backlog going back to 2017, and we are recovering better and faster from that crime spike than the rest of the State and Nation,” she said.
As of the end of June, ”we are 43% down on homicides and 39% down on robberies from two years ago, County-wide,” she said.
“Efforts by the Goldwater Institute, which were then later falsely echoed in a massive candidate ad buy claiming that “violent crime is skyrocketing" here are false, is insulting to law enforcement, and is recklessly dangerous. Our improved crime stats should be a point of pride and a call to come invest in our community,“ she said.
Jette on claims that he’s not actually a Democrat
“So far, they have claimed that I am a Republican and that I support the MAGA agenda, Abe Hamadeh, and the Goldwater Institute. These allegations are entirely untrue,” he said.
“Like Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes and former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, I was briefly a Republican. For AG Mayes, it was for 30 years and changed in 2019. For me it was a year, in 2012 (4 years before Donald Trump.),” he said, referring to a time when he explored the idea of running for county attorney as a Republican.
“I rejoined the Democratic Party, which aligns with my public policy positions. I firmly reject the current Republican Party platform and vehemently oppose the MAGA agenda,” he said. “My commitment to Democratic values and progressive policies remains unwavering.”
He said the choice in the election was clear and he was a “trustworthy and dedicated public servant.”
We checked Jette’s voter registration history at the Pima County Recorder’s Office and they told us Jette registered as a Democrat in 2002. He switched to Party Not Designated in 2005, then to Republican in 2011. He switched back to PND in 2012 and then remained either PND or independent until he registered as a Democrat in 2023.
“My party affiliation has not evolved over time based on a change of principles but on my job as a career prosecutor, and definitely not for political opportunism,” he said.
One rumor that has been floating around is that Jette voted for Hamadeh in 2022. Jette initially told us he didn’t vote in 2022 at all because he was in Pakistan. But after we showed him records indicating he did vote that year, his wife checked her journal and she said it showed he did in fact vote. He said he voted for Mayes.
“There’s absolutely no way I voted for that knucklehead,” Jette said of Hamadeh.
Conover on claims that victim advocacy has declined
“In the seven years before I arrived, the Office cycled through five different Directors of Victim Services, leading to constant flux and uncertainty at the top,” she said.
“Because I had little to no transition, no one in leadership warned me that in fact there was no Director at all on my first day in office and that all crisis work had been suspended due to COVID (for right or wrong, I pass no judgment. Very difficult decision.) Our Director now has been here over three years and that has meant so very much to the quality of service victims receive County-wide,” she said.
“We are fully staffed. We respond to crisis call outs. We reinstated the Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board that had become defunct in the previous administration. We revolutionized and modernized victim contact by becoming the first in the State to offer real time text messaging for case updates. We re-started a Domestic Violence Court in Justice Court. We have two dedicated Domestic Violence AZPOST certified Detectives. And we have increased victim grant funding, such as the Governor's STOP grant.”
Jette on claims that he will re-institute a “tough on crime” agenda
“Many individuals, including current and former elected officials and community leaders, have endorsed me to be the Democratic nominee for Pima County Attorney, but this does not mean I support all their policies,” he said.
“I am my own person. I decided to run for County Attorney in consultation only with my wife. It was only after that decision that I reached out to community leaders for support,” he said.
“I’m proud of the long list of endorsers who have come out in support of my campaign over the past six months, including those whose agendas differ from my progressive agenda,” he said. “They support me because they know I am honest, compassionate towards victims of crime, and an experienced, capable prosecutor and manager.“
This story was supported by the Local News Initiative of Southern Arizona, a fund of the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona.
Heat by design: A new study shows that Tucson’s temperatures are 7 degrees hotter because of pavement, buildings and other heat-radiating developments, the Arizona Daily Star’s Tony Davis reports. The nonprofit research group Climate Central’s new analysis sought to compare the impacts of urban heat islands in Tucson, Phoenix and dozens of other U.S. cities.
Exploring the aftermath: Tucson Electric Power and the city spent time yesterday assessing damage from Sunday’s storm. KVOA’s Jafet Serrato reports. More than 31,000 TEP customers lost power as a result of the storm, with at least 40 poles either blown over or damaged.
“We were out on the field as soon as this storm rolled through,” said Joseph Barrios, a TEP spokesman.
Dialing it back: Casa Alitas has reduced its role in the county’s migrant-aid efforts, focusing on families with children under 10 and other vulnerable migrants including pregnant women, the Star’s Emily Bregel writes. Casa Alitas, Catholic Community Services’ migrant-aid program, has been operating solely out of its 140-bed “Welcome Center” since July 1, after operations at the 650-bed Drexel Center were taken over by the for-profit AMI Expeditionary Healthcare, a company that provides worldwide crisis logistics and healthcare support.
Get out the vote: Despite a hiccup yesterday at an Oro Valley early voting site, Pima County voters have a few more options when it comes to casting early ballots in the primary election, the Tucson Sentinel’s Jim Nintzel writes. The early voting site at the Oro Valley library was temporarily closed due to a broken air conditioner, but the county added two more early drop-off sites in Vail and the Sahuarita/Green Valley area.
39,095: The number of early ballots returned in Pima County as of Friday, representing a 6.2% voter turnout.
I subscribe to the Daily Star as well as the Republican and both Agendas. I am also a paid subscriber to several other local substack and weekly local publications. I appreciate the opportunity many of those publications give to others to espouse their views and opinions. It’s a cornerstone of democracy to give voice to “the little people”, I believe.
The Goldwater Institutue isn’t the average citizen, however. And, even with regular folks “My Turn” columns, I do believe our publications and their editors have an obligation to fact check. Giving an opinion is one thing. But, to publish facts that are demonstrably false is editorial negligence.
I’ve ghostwritten my share of OpEds for others to publish. When facts are presented, I’ve had editors from the Republic ask for proof of the claims. Does the Star not adhere to the same standards? Apparently not. And, that’s not a good look for our local paper. When a key supporter of one candidate spends big money advertising in a paper, I think it behooves that paper to fact check outside submissions. Otherwise, it looks pretty suss. 🧐
The Goldwater Institute has clearly demonstrated that it is more interested in spreading propaganda than honest thinking.