State Rep. Alex Kolodin (R-Scottsdale), an election attorney, spoke to a group of supporters Thursday evening, Feb. 12, in north Scottsdale about his plan to bring back election integrity to the Arizona Secretary of State’s office if he wins the election. He is running against former Republican Party Chair Gina Swoboda, and one of the two will face incumbent Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes in the general election.
At the event in Scottsdale where the event was held, cars could be seen lined up far down the street. Kolodin said he is running to replace Fontes “so he can go back to where he belongs, representing the Sinaloa Cartel.” When Fontes was a criminal defense attorney, he represented Manuel Celis-Acosta, who was a key figure in the ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious scandal, transferring firearms to the cartel.
Kolodin, who said he’d beaten Fontes in court numerous times, said about him holding the office, “He has finally fallen upwards to his true level of incompetence.”
One of Kolodin’s victories he listed was the left-leaning Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that Fontes violated the First Amendment. “The First Amendment is the hill I will die on every time,” he said. In American Encore v. Fontes, the Ninth Circuit unanimously ruled that Fontes’ changes to the state’s Election Procedures Manual restricting “threatening, insulting, or offensive language” near polling places was unconstitutional.
Read the rest of the article