The Daily Agenda: Which one is it?

Rep. Juan Ciscomani seems to be changing his stance on abortion ... But is he really? ... Supervisors double-down on probe of Sheriff Nanos.

Politicians are always hard to nail down, but figuring out where exactly Republican U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani draws the line on reproductive rights has become an increasingly difficult task lately.

Abortion was one of the top concerns for voters in his Tucson and southeastern Arizona district during his inaugural run for Congress last year, and Democrats hammered Ciscomani over his refusal to say exactly what he believes should be legal and illegal in a post-Roe world. 

On the campaign trail last year, Ciscomani often fell back on vague generalities like he’s a pro-life, pro-woman father who won’t jeopardize his daughters’ health and thinks abortion regulations should be left to states. 

Emily’s List and other abortion-rights groups are putting Ciscomani on their top target lists this year as he prepares for another round against former Democratic lawmaker Kirsten Engel, who lost the district by a little more than 5,000 votes in 2022. Congressional District 6 will be one of the most competitive House races in the country, and Engle is attempting to make reproductive rights a top campaign issue. 

And this time, Ciscomani has a voting record. 

But it’s still a little unclear where he stands. 

Right out of the gate, Ciscomani began voting for and sponsoring bills targeting abortion. Starting in early January, he co-sponsored a bill to prohibit the use of federal funds, including ACA Marketplace insurance providers, from paying for abortion care.

The bill would also have prohibited the use of tax credits to purchase plans that cover abortions. This would affect women in the military, veterans, federal employees and those on Medicaid or covered by the Indian Health Service. Ciscomani’s district includes about 74,000 veterans, according to the U.S. Census.

He also voted to support legislation to prohibit the Defense Department from paying for or reimbursing abortion services for military members. 

In July, Ciscomani took his boldest stance yet, voting to prohibit mail delivery and retail pharmacy sales of abortion medications as part of an appropriations bill. The drug in question, mifepristone, has been used by more than 5 million women nationwide over the past 20 years. In 2020 and 2021, 13,279 women in Arizona had medication abortions using mifepristone and misoprostol, the second medicine used in the process. 

Other moderate and swing district Republicans opposed the bill over the amendment. But not Ciscomani.

The vote was not only a hard line on abortion, it directly crossed Ciscomani’s own line that abortion issues should be left up to the states. 

A “House Republican staff member” anonymously told the Republic that Ciscomani was changing his stance to pass the budget bills and avoid a government shutdown. If that’s the case, Ciscomani should tell the voters himself. 

Somehow voting to restrict access to abortion drugs became “relaxing his stance on abortion” in the Republic’s headline.

Last week, Ciscomani joined about two dozen other Republicans to vote against that same bill to restrict mifepristone, a stark about-face from his previous support and a move that made passing a budget increasingly complicated. 

We reached out to Ciscomani’s press office last week to try to get a definitive answer on whether he supports or opposes allowing retail pharmacy sales of mifepristone. But we didn’t hear back.  

If Ciscomani believes keeping the government open is more important than ensuring access to mifepristone, he should make that case. 

It’s a stance voters might understand -- a government shutdown could have had disastrous results for more than just women seeking abortions. The last significant shutdown in 2013 impacted government programs related to Native Americans, children and domestic abuse victims, and halted asylum and immigration cases and sexual assault cases handled by the Office of Civil Rights.

National Parks Conservation Association.

More broadly, he should outline where exactly he draws the line on what should and shouldn’t be legal when it comes to abortion. 

Voters deserve to know how their representatives will vote before they elect them, and being clear and consistent about his beliefs on abortion would go a long way toward explaining his flip-flops. 

But given public opinion polling on reproductive rights in Arizona, maybe Ciscomani is taking a lesson from Ronald Reagan, who once said “If you’re explaining, you’re losing.” 

Taking the next step: The Pima County supervisors voted to seek an outside investigation of how Sheriff Chris Nanos handled an internal review of the alleged sexual assault of a deputy by a sergeant, the Arizona Daily Star’s Charles Borla reports. The lone vote against seeking the investigation came from Supervisor Rex Scott, who said he was concerned it would interfere with ongoing criminal and civil investigations of the sergeant.

Politics aside: Sheriff’s deputies will still provide security at the county supervisors’ meetings, the Tucson Sentinel’s Paul Ingram reports. That was a reversal of a decision Nanos made after Supervisor Sharon Bronson requested an outside inquiry of how Nanos handled the internal review. Nanos said he pulled the deputy due to his department’s financial constraints and he wanted to protect them from “politics.”

Two more months: The Blue Ribbon Commission set up to look into the Pima County jail will have an additional 60 days before they submit their report, Pima County Administrator Jan Lesher wrote in a memo. The commissioners said they wanted to “get it right” before they released their report.

Water wars: Gov. Katie Hobbs joined Attorney General Kris Mayes in going after foreign-owned farms that use tons of water. Hobbs cancelled the lease for a Saudi-owned company that farms alfalfa, KJZZ’s Katherine Davis-Young reports.

Giving in to bullying: The University of Arizona Faculty Senate Committee isn’t happy with the UA administration’s handling of threats against staff at the UA nursing school, AZPM’s Paola Rodriguez reports. The threats came after a right-wing Twitter account posted photos of slides used during a UA nursing class that dealt with talking to young children about their gender identity.

“If a hate group comes for the slides of another faculty member, if they come for my slides, if they come for your slides, are our senior leaders going to have our back?” UA Sen. Carol Brochin said.

Going to the dogs: The Tucson Police Department’s electronic storage device detection dog, Zona, helped find evidence that led to the arrest of a man who had uploaded hundreds of images of child sexual abuse. Zona assisted the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations last week and found several storage devices hidden in various spots around the house. We wrote about Zona last month and are excited to see what she’s able to do.

58: Tucson’s temperature at 6 a.m. Tuesday. But don’t get too excited: The National Weather Service reported that high temperatures would return to above normal by Friday, with a chance of rain for the weekend.