Photos by Gage Skidmore (modified) | Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0
GOP voters will make a choice between two of the most dissimilar legislators currently serving Arizona in the Republican primary for the state Senate seat representing Legislative District 7 when they choose between Sen. Wendy Rogers, of Flagstaff and Rep. David Cook, of Globe.
Legislative District 7 covers portions of Gila, Pinal, Coconino and Navajo counties.
While Rogers, who has served Legislative District 7 since 2021, built a national profile on election denialism after former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, Cook is more moderate throwback to what Republican elected officials were like before Trump dominated the GOP.
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Cook is a rancher who has served in the state House of Representatives since 2016 and is chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, while Rogers is a former Air Force pilot and chair of the controversial Senate Elections Committee. The committee has entertained presentations from conspiracy theorists and approved bills that would have upended Arizona’s elections, with proposals that would have forced hand counts and banned no-excuse early voting.
Rogers declined to participate in what was supposed to be a Clean Elections debate, broadcast by Arizona PBS on July 1, that ended up being just a question and answer session for Cook. Rogers did not respond to an interview request from the Arizona Mirror or to a question about why she skipped out on the debate.
Rogers, a member of the far-right extremist group the Oath Keepers, has been mired in controversy virtually since she took office. She faced an ethics complaint for mistreating a staffer in early 2021 that was later dismissed, and was censured by the Senate in 2022 after she threatened her colleagues with political retribution when some of them criticized her for speaking at a white nationalist conference and calling for her enemies to be hanged.
She later filed a restraining order against Senate reporter Camryn Sanchez for ringing Rogers’ doorbell when investigating whether Rogers actually lives in the district she represents. A judge later dismissed the restraining order.
But Cook has also faced the ire of his own party, as one of the few Republicans in the legislature that sometimes openly sympathizes with Democratic causes or votes alongside them, against the rest of his party.
Cook was one of a small group of legislative Republicans who publicly agreed that an 1864 total abortion ban that the state Supreme Court ruled was enforceable in April should not go into effect. Before the House voted on the bill to repeal the law, Cook said the Civil War-era law was out of touch with what Arizonans want. However, he ended up voting against the repeal bill when it finally went up for a vote.
Cook is term-limited in the House, and told the Mirror that he decided to run for Senate this year because he just can’t take the idea of Rogers representing the district where he and his friends live and work.
“We’ve got to have people step up and do better,” he said.
The final straw, he said, was when Rogers last year retweeted explicit images of Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.
“Now I’m not going to be in the House, who’s going to protect the people and communities in District 7?” Cook said he thought at the time. “Who’s going to step up to continue to do the good work for the people? And it just came down to me.”
At the time, Cook figured that Rogers would get voted out in the primary, but he said that other people were afraid to run.
“These people are so full of hate, and when you just watch them and their demeanor and stuff, they can’t have an intelligent conversation, you know? Rogers definitely can’t,” Cook said. “And so that means she’s not going to get anything accomplished.”
He pointed out that Gov. Katie Hobbs signed 22 bills that he either sponsored or co-sponsored this year compared to nine from Rogers. Hobbs vetoed seven bills that Rogers sponsored or co-sponsored and five from Cook.
Cook said that he’s been criticized by some in his own party for working with Hobbs, but at present, that’s realistically the only way to get legislation passed since she has veto power.
“There’s more work in the middle that needs to be done for Arizona, not giving up my principals or my foundation or what I believe in for the people that elect me,” he said.
And, in Cook’s view, the refusal of some of his colleagues to work across the aisle has resulted in urgent problems going unsolved. He expressed frustration that his health insurance reform bill, which had bipartisan support in both chambers, was blocked by Senate President Warren Petersen without explanation.
“He wouldn’t even meet with me to tell me why,” Cook said, adding that meanwhile people in his district were dying and rural hospitals were going broke because of health insurance issues.
During the debate on July 1, Cook said that he does not believe the 2020 and 2022 elections were stolen. He pointed out that, even though the Trump-endorsed Republican candidates for statewide office in 2022 lost their races, Republicans Kimberly Yee and Tom Horne won the races for treasurer and superintendent of public instruction, respectively. And even though Hobbs was elected governor, Republicans kept a narrow hold on both chambers of the legislature.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Cook said, that Democrats would rig the race for governor and not take control of the legislature as well.
On the same day as the debate she declined to participate in, Rogers shared a post on the social media site X, formerly Twitter, that praised far-right French politician Marine Le Pen for refusing to wear a headscarf and then canceling a meeting with a Muslim leader.
“I trust all other leaders of our white society take notice, they fit into our way of life, not us into theirs, it is our country,” the post she retweeted read.
When Rogers shared the post, she added a brief message of support: “You go, girl.”
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The post A choice between the middle and the far right in Republican primary for LD7 appeared first on Arizona Mirror.