Katie Hobbs files ethics complaint against Arizona Corporation Commissioner
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs filed an ethics complaint against utility regulator Jim O'Connor.
Katie Hobbs, the Arizona Secretary of State and Democratic candidate for governor, filed an ethics complaint against Jim O’Connor, a Republican on the Arizona Corporation Commission who likes to traffic in election conspiracies.
The complaint is alleging O’Connor is abusing his role as one of the five public utility regulators –– while using the government seal –– to lobby county elections departments to do away with electronic voting machines and result to fully hand counting entire elections, which would take months. (You know, like the attempt we’ve been seeing unfold down in Cochise County.)
The complaint was first shared by Arizona Election Law, the law blog run by former State Elections Director Eric Spencer.
“Our Office believes that Commissioner O'Connor improperly used his official role on the Arizona Corporation Commission ("Commission") in an attempt to advance his personal beliefs about Arizona's elections. Commissioner O'Connor's actions seek to undermine the integrity of Arizona's elections, and we respectfully request that the Commission investigate whether Commissioner O'Connor violated its Code of Ethics and Code of Conduct,” current elections director Kori Lorick wrote to the Commission’s legal counsel Robin Mitchell on October 20.
The Code of Ethics can be found at the link.
This complaint arises from Commissioner O'Connor's use of the name and institution of the Commission in a letter that he sent on August 30, 2022 to county election administrators in which he outlined his personal beliefs about election equipment and election administration. The letter was sent on official letterhead using the Commission's seal and mailed in an envelope with the Commission’s seal and return address. The letter urged “all of our Counties to immediately cease use of all electronic voting machines for this November's General Election and beyond."
O’Connor repeated widely debunked claims that the machines switched votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden (they didn't) and wanted the Commission to hold a public hearing to discuss his concerns even though that is not part of the duties of the Commission.
When O’Connor first reached out to county election officials in August, I requested the communication records from the Commission to see how it all went down. The commission “fulfilled” my request roughly two weeks ago, but only included the below email sent to O’Connor which attached O’Connor’s letter to the counties.
The commission did not include anything from O’Connor’s personal email, which he allegedly used for the communications1 and did not even include the initial email he sent out. Only this response from a Marcus Tork.
A Commission spokesman said, “We have received the complaint and are following the process outlined in the Code of Ethics. Since this is an ongoing complaint we have no further comment at this time.”
O’Connor apparently sent another letter on Oct. 19, one day before the ethics complaint, addressing his “fellow elected officials” urging them to “Stop the Use of Uncertified, Unlawful Election Voting Machines and Tabulators.”
He claims there potential cases of “serious fraud” because of the electronic voting machines and tabulators (there aren’t).
“Our Arizona Counties are about to engage in a potentially fraudulent election that will cause egregious public harm and further erode public confidence in our ability to conduct a free and fair election,” he writes, ironically given that the bullshit he and others continue to spread are really what’s eroding public confidence.
You can read his full letter (I prefer unintelligible screed) here.
O’Connor tells them to reply to his personal email address, further proving he’s bridging the gap between private and official business, as the ethics complaint alleges. (And proving the Commission should have turned over records to me).
In the SOS complaint, they included photos of envelopes using the Corporation Commission’s official seal sent to a Yavapai County supervisor and the Cochise County Elections Director. There was also emails from Coconino County Recorder Patty Hansen to Hobbs’ office and Gila County Elections Director Eric Mariscal.
“The Commission should investigate whether Commissioner O'Connor's letter comports with the ethical rules that require him to clearly distinguish when his actions were taken in a personal capacity and when they were taken in an official capacity and the rule that permitted him to use Commission letterhead only when representing the Commission’s official position. These rules are important because they prevent commissioners from abusing their positions as elected officials to advance private goals,” Lorick wrote.
The negative impact of an elected officeholder impermissibly using their office to sow distrust and undermine Arizona's elections cannot be overstated. Accordingly, the Secretary of State's Office asks that you investigate Commissioner O'Connor's conduct to ensure it does not happen again. - Kori Lorick, Arizona’s state elections director
This isn’t the first time O’Connor overstepped his role as a utility regulator. Last year, I wrote about him using debunked conspiracy theories about the Covid vaccine to convince the utilities he’s in charge of regulating to not require their employees be vaccinated.
O’Connor was also elected in 2020, after mounting a long-shot successful write-in bid during the primary, in an election he believes was marred by widespread fraud, but of course like everyone else who won in 2020 does not think there was a problem with his own race.
Elected officials’ personal emails and phone are subject to public records request when conducting public business, not private matters. This of course is not a private matter and therefore the Commission should have turned over those records. Elected officials use their personal devices all the time –– some deliberately to try (and a lot of time successfully) skirt around public records law and until there are lawsuits, they will get away with it. Any super rich people want to help me sue the government for the sake of transparency?