And speaking of Republicans in the U.S. Senate, according to The Arizona Republic Arizona, place-holder Sen. Jon Kyl has announced he will resign from the U.S. Senate on Dec. 31.
Kyl was tapped to come out of retirement after the passing of John McCain earlier this year.
This will give Gov. Doug Ducey the chance to handpick another replacement to the seat once occupied by McCain.
Odds are Ducey will appoint outgoing GOP Rep. Martha McSally, who lost to Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema last month for Arizona’s other U.S. Senate seat vacated by retiring Sen. Jeff Flake.
Sinema will be sworn into office Jan. 3.
Appointing McSally now would give her a leg up on the next election cycle as the incumbent.
UPDATE: Republican Martha McSally has conceded the US Senate race to replace retiring Jeff Flake. Democrat Kyrsten Sinema will be the next Senator from Arizona.
She is the first female to represent the Grand Canyon state in the Senate as well as the first openly bisexual US Senator.
Congrats to @kyrstensinema. I wish her success. I’m grateful to all those who supported me in this journey. I’m inspired by Arizonans’ spirit and our state’s best days are ahead of us. pic.twitter.com/tw0uKgi3oO
The Cook Political Report is projecting that Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema will win her US Senate race in Arizona.
According to the latest counts, Sinema has expanded her lead over Republican Martha McSally to 1.5%.
McSally lead on election night with partial returns being counted, but the next day many ballots were still uncounted in Democratic leaning areas of the state.
Sinema will be the first female senator from Arizona, and the first Democratic senator since Sen. Dennis DeConcini left office in 1995.
She will also be the first openly bisexual US Senator.
NEW: Kyrsten Sinema’s campaign releases statement on the state of the Arizona Senate race, calling her lead “insurmountable.” #abc15pic.twitter.com/ujtqx7ZQbi
The folks at ThinkProgress point out that Democratic House candidates are on track to win the national popular vote by as much as 7 points, yet Republicans gained seats in the Senate.
There are still two outstanding Senate races: one in Florida which is heading to a recount, and one in Mississippi which will hold a runoff later this month.
Donald Trump, clearly having been told Democrat Kyrsten Sinema has pulled ahead of Republican Martha McSally in the still-undetermined U.S. Senate race in Arizona, took to Twitter to rant about non-existent ‘electoral corruption.’
Just out — in Arizona, SIGNATURES DON’T MATCH. Electoral corruption – Call for a new Election? We must protect our Democracy!
Tuesday night it appeared McSally would be the victor, but as early votes are now being counted along with absentee votes, Sinema has taken a lead of over 8,000.
An average of final polls going into the election showed Sinema with a slight lead.
“But it is interesting — it always seems to go the way of the Democrats,” Trump said today. “Now, in Arizona, all of a sudden, out of the wilderness, they find a lot of votes. And she’s — the other candidate — is just winning by a hair.”
Try telling that to Al Gore.
Republicans in Arizona are trying to stop having the votes counted there saying, in part, that if signatures on someone’s voting history don’t match, the vote shouldn’t count.
Of course, there are lots of reasons why signatures may not match: illness, age, being in hurry. My signature certainly doesn’t match my voter registration card from when I signed up 14 years ago here in Nevada.
There were plenty of responses on Twitter, but here’s the only one you really need to see.
Just out— in Washington DC, SIGNATURES DONT MATCH. Electoral corruption – Call for a new Election. We must protect our Democracy! pic.twitter.com/WQ6ymUmEA9
Jon Kyl will succeed the late Sen John McCain in the U.S. Senate
Arizona Central is reporting that former U.S. Senator Jon Kyl has been tapped by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey to succeed the late Sen. John McCain.
Before retiring in 2013 from an 18-year-career in the Senate, Kyl became the second-highest-ranking Republican in the upper chamber.
McCain’s widow, Cindy McCain tweeted her approval of the choice of Kyl calling him “a dear friend of mine and John’s.”
Jon Kyl is a dear friend of mine and John’s. It’s a great tribute to John that he is prepared to go back into public service to help the state of Arizona.
Last night in Arizona’s primary election for the upcoming fall mid-terms, Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema won the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.
First elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2012, Kyrsten Sinema is the first openly bisexual member of the House.
She is the first openly bisexual candidate to run for the Senate from Arizona, and should she win in November, would be Arizona’s first female Senator.
But another woman stands in her way.
Rep. Martha McSally clinched the Republican nod in the race for GOP Sen.Jeff Flake’s seat, who announced early that he would not be running for re-election.
McSally was forced to tact far to the right to defeat her primary opponents, former state Sen. Kelli Ward and virulently anti-immigration former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who appeared to split the more extreme fringes of the GOP.
McSally was the first woman to pilot a fighter jet.
HRC released the following statement on Sinema’s victory in the Arizona primary:
“HRC proudly supports pro-equality champion Rep. Kyrsten Sinema — a strong, effective leader who puts solutions first and fights to ensure every Arizonan has a shot at the American Dream,” said HRC Arizona State Director Justin Unga. “The stakes in November could not be clearer. In the coming weeks, HRC will continue mobilizing more than 800,000 Equality Voters and tens of thousands of members and supporters in the state to turn out for Sinema.”
The Republicans currently have a slim one vote edge in the Senate. They can only afford to lose one seat in the Senate without losing control of the chamber.
As I’ve written before, this year marks a big uptick in the number of LGBTQ people running for public office at various federal, state and local levels.
Penning a personal essay for the ACLU, Hilde Hall shared a sad turn of events on what began as one of the happiest days of her life.
Hall, a transgender woman, left her doctor’s office this past April with her first prescriptions for hormone therapy as she was about to begin the journey to seeing her body reflect her gender identity.
Excited, Hall drove directly to the local CVS pharmacy in Fountain Hills, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix.
After handing over the three prescriptions from her doctor, a hormone therapy specialist, she was informed the pharmacist refused to fill one necessary to affirm her gender identity.
Without any specified reason, according to Hall, the pharmacist “kept asking, loudly and in front of other CVS staff and customers, why I was given the prescriptions.”
Embarrassed, Hall says she became distressed and nearly began to cry right there in the store.
“I didn’t want to answer why I had been prescribed this hormone therapy combination by my doctor,” writes Hall. “I felt like the pharmacist was trying to out me as transgender in front of strangers. I just froze and worked on holding back the tears.”
To make matters even worse, when Hall asked for the written prescriptions from the pharmacist so she could leave, he refused to return the written script.
Hall was forced to call her doctor’s office to intervene. But, according to reports, the pharmacist wouldn’t return the prescriptions without being told EXACTLY why the medication had been ordered.
In her essay, Hall shares she left the CVS store ‘feeling mortified.’
Eventually, the prescriptions were transferred to a Walgreens pharmacy where the meds were filled ‘without question.’
Hall adds that, after the insulting episode, she moved all of her prescriptions from CVS to Walgreens “so that I never again have to see the pharmacist who discriminated against me.”
She contacted CVS’ corporate complaint line several times but didn’t no one addressed her concerns initially.
It was after filing a complaint with the Arizona State Board of Pharmacy that CVS responded.
“CVS Health extends its sincere apologies to Ms. Hall for her experience at our pharmacy in Fountain Hills, Arizona last spring,” said in a statement to The Hill.
According to CVS, the employee had been dismissed, and assured Hall that it had not responded due to “an unintentional oversight.”
The company indicated the former employees attitude did not “reflect our values or our commitment to inclusion, nondiscrimination and the delivery of outstanding patient care,” CVS said.
It’s important to note that this isn’t a cautionary tale for just transgender people.
This easily could have been the case of a pharmacist refusing to fill a prescription for Truvada or “PrEP.” Or refusing to refill a birth control script.
At Walgreens, pharmacists are allowed to step down from filling scripts they find don’t align with their personal religious beliefs, but at least there is a company policy requiring another pharmacist step in to accommodate the customer’s needs.
This CVS pharmacist wouldn’t even return the written paper scripts. This was a guy taking out his own personal agenda against an innocent trans woman.
(images screen captured from Brush & Nib promotional video)
In the first court case since the ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court this week regarding an anti-gay baker in Colorado, the Arizona Court of Appeals has rejected the argument that businesses can discriminate against a customer based on their sexual orientation.
In 2013, the Phoenix City Council added sexual orientation and gender identity to an already existing non-discrimination ordinance making it illegal to discriminate in the areas of housing, employment, and public accommodations.
A small printing business in Phoenix, Brush & Nib Studio, which designs and prints wedding invitations, asked a judge to override the city’s ordinance to allow them to legally discriminate against LGBTs.
It’s important to note that NO gay couple had asked Brush & Nib for wedding services.
A three-judge panel today handed down an unanimous ruling citing several federal court rulings from across the nation which upheld laws similar to Arizona’s public accommodation laws.
In the ruling, Judge Lawrence Winthrop wrote, “In light of these cases and consistent with the United States Supreme Court’s decisions, we recognize that allowing appellants based on sexual orientation would constitute grave and continuing harm.”
One of the court rulings referenced in today’s decision is the one involving the Colorado baker who refused to create a wedding cake for a gay couple.
But the ruling from SCOTUS only concluded that the baker had not gotten a fair hearing before the Colorado Civil Rights Board. The high court never addressed the question of whether his religious beliefs allowed him to legally discriminate against same-sex couples.
Back in May 2016, blogger JoeMyGod noted that when the Phoenix lawsuit was filed the company didn’t appear to have a physical address, and the artists’ social media accounts were only months old, making it credible that the company might have been created just to file the lawsuit and challenge the city’s ordinance.
The video below, titled “Getting to Know the Artists of Brush & Nib,” was uploaded to YouTube just days before the lawsuit was filed, and the comments section is closed.
In the video, the two artists make a point to say their teaming up was a “God thing,” “beautiful things just come from God,” and how “special” they view their work on wedding invitations.
Interestingly, the video is listed as “Unlisted.”
Now, why would a business have a “getting to know” video be “unlisted” on YouTube?
Taking a look at the upcoming mid-term elections, Stephen Colbert offers his recap of the wild and wooly Republican primary happening down Arizona way.
“It’s a classic Arizona match between “Chemtrail lady,” “Revenge porn guy” and “Sheriff Convict” in what I’m calling, “Showdown at the ‘This is not OK’ Corral.”
A small business in Phoenix, Arizona, which designs and prints wedding invitations has lost in their attempt to override the city’s ordinance that protects LGBTs from discrimination.
It’s important to note that NO gay couple has asked Brush & Nib Studio for wedding services; nor has anyone has filed a complaint against the artists with the city.
Judge Karen Mullins rejected arguments that the ordinance interferes with free speech or free exercise of religion laws.
Joanna Duka and Breanna Koski, owners of Brush & Nib Studio and self-described evangelical Christians, create invitations and other handmade artwork for weddings and events.
They filed a lawsuit against Phoenix in May 2016 challenging the part of the city’s nondiscrimination ordinance that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Their suit alleges the city’s ordinance would compel them to create invitations or artwork for same-sex couples, which would conflict with their religious belief that marriage is between one man and one woman and violate their freedoms of speech and religion.
In 2013, the Phoenix City Council added sexual orientation and gender identity to an already existing non-discrimination ordinance making it illegal to discriminate in the areas of housing, employment, and public accommodations.
JoeMyGod noted back in May 2016 when the lawsuit was filed that the company didn’t appear to have a physical address, and the artists’ social media accounts were only months old, making it credible that the company might have been created just to file the lawsuit.
The video below, titled “Getting to Know the Artists of Brush & Nib,” was uploaded to YouTube just days before the lawsuit was filed, and the comments section is closed. Additionally, the video is listed as “Unlisted.”
In the video, the two artists make a point to say their teaming up was a “God thing,” “beautiful things just come from God,” and how “special” they view their work on wedding invitations.
Now, why have a “getting to know” video be “unlisted” on YouTube?
Good news from The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) regarding McLaughlin v. McLaughlin where the Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that a woman was the legal parent of the child she and her same-sex spouse conceived through assisted reproduction during their marriage.
Via press release:
As the Arizona Supreme Court recognized, the U.S. Supreme Court rulings in Obergefell v. Hodges and Pavan v. Smith require states to treat married same-sex parents and married different-sex parents equally under the law. The Arizona Supreme Court explained, “It would be inconsistent with Obergefell to conclude that same-sex couples can legally marry but states can then deny them the same benefits of marriage afforded opposite-sex couples.”
Suzan McLaughlin and Kimberly McLaughlin were a married lesbian couple who had a child in 2011 using an anonymous sperm donor. After separating in 2013, Kimberly stopped allowing Suzan to see their child, and Suzan filed a legal action to be recognized as a parent.
Both the Arizona Court of Appeals and the trial court held that Suzan should indeed be recognized as a legal parent to her child. NCLR and Arizona attorney Claudia Work represented Suzan.
Since the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court marriage equality decision, Obergefell v. Hodges, numerous cases have recognized that married same-sex parents and married different-sex parents must be treated equally under the law.
In June 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Pavan v. Smith, another National Center for Lesbian Rights case, that Obergefell required states to treat married same-sex parents and married different-sex parents equally.
Arizona law assumes the man in a marriage is the father of any child born within 10 months of a marriage. But current laws don’t offer any protective rights to a non-biological same-sex parent in a married relationship where artificial insemination is used.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Scott Bales noted that the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling states that same-sex couples are entitled to civil marriage “on the same terms and conditions as opposite-sex couples.”
