Arizona’s state legislature is controlled by the Grand Old Party (GOP) or Republican Party. Arizona too is one of the states that has bought into Donald Trump’s “big lie” that the last presidential election was stolen from him. Like other GOP-led states that have accepted this farce, Arizona has abandoned democracy for personality cult. What this means is that the state legislature increasingly serves at the behest of Trump or does what would please the former President. A case in point is the unnecessary recount of ballots at Maricopa county for which it is ready to punish all opposition to the charade. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, who is Arizona’s Secretary of State has been strongly opposed to the recount that is not transparent and conducted by an inexperienced, not to say incompetent contractor. In a vote that has all the coloration of an undemocratic agenda meant to protect the interests of one individual, Trump, the Arizona state legislature has voted to strip Secretary Hobbs of her legal authority over election law suits, handing the prerogative to the Republican Attorney General. Trump too used to fire people who opposed his policies. This development is reported by Michael Wines in The New York Times. Here is an excerpt:

The Republican-controlled State Legislature in Arizona voted Thursday to revoke the Democratic secretary of state’s legal authority in election-related lawsuits, handing that power instead to the Republican attorney general.

The move added more discord to the politics of a state already roiled by the widely derided move by Senate Republicans to commission a private firm to recount the vote six months after the November election. And it was the latest in a long series of moves in recent years by Republicans to strip elected Democrats of money and power in states under G.O.P. control.

The measure was part of a grab bag of proposals inserted into major budget legislation, including several actions that appeared to address conspiracy theories alleging manipulated elections that some Republican lawmakers have promoted. One of the items allotted $500,000 for a study of whether social media sites tried to interfere in state elections by promoting Democrats or censoring Republicans.

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