The Arizona House on Tuesday voted to pass a bill along party lines that would make it illegal for the secretary of state to oversee and confirm the results of an election in which they are also a candidate.
The bill passed in a 31-29 vote and now heads to the state Senate, which is controlled by Republicans. Its primary sponsor is state Republican Rep. Rachel Jones. It would require the secretary of state to recuse themselves from overseeing their own election and to publicly appoint someone who will do the job instead.
NBC News reached out to Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes’ office for comment.
The bill was initially introduced when Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, was serving as secretary of state while running as a gubernatorial candidate last year. Hobbs defeated Republican challenger Kari Lake, who was backed by former President Donald Trump and pushed his false claims of widespread election fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Hobbs refused to debate Lake, with her campaign saying it wouldn’t be fruitful to debate “a conspiracy theorist.” Lake has since made several unsuccessful attempts to overturn her defeat in the governor’s race.
Hobbs has not publicly commented on the bill’s passage in the state House. As governor, she would need to sign the bill for it to become law.
The bill’s passage in the state House comes after the Arizona House Municipal Oversight and Elections Committee passed the bill last month alongside three other election-related bills sponsored by Republicans. Jones at the time described the bill as “one more stop toward a transparent election process” in the state.
Arizona House Democrats slammed the party-line vote as one of Republicans’ “bad election bills” in a tweet.
Jones thanked her Republican colleagues for helping pass the bill along party lines.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
