In an escalation of intraparty warfare, the Arizona Republican Party will vote this month on censuring its own Republican governor, Doug Ducey; former Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake; and Cindy McCain, the widow of the late Arizona Sen. John McCain.
The issue with McCain and Flake revolves around their rejection of President Trump and some of his policies. Both Republicans endorsed President-elect Joe Biden rather than Trump in the Nov. 3 election. If passed, the proposals for formal condemnation would “dissolve any connections whatsoever” between the state party and the two individuals, according to a statutory meeting schedule released Tuesday.
The Arizona Republican Party and its chairwoman, Kelli Ward, who is up for reelection to her post, got in multiple online spats with the McCain family in the aftermath of the election.
After the party’s Twitter account stated that “we’re never going back to the party of Romney, Flake, and McCain,” The View host Meghan McCain, the daughter of the late senator, responded: “Honestly whomever is running this Twitter account can go to hell.” She added: “How’d that work out on election day in Arizona?”
Cindy McCain, the resolution charges, “has supported leftist causes such as gay marriage, growth of the administrative state, and others that run counter to Republican values, a Republican form of government, and the US Constitution” and “has supported globalist policies and candidates, including Democrats such as Joe Biden, in direct opposition to Republican values, the interests of the American people, and the Constitution of the United States.”
Similarly, the measure to censure Flake says that he “has abandoned true Republican values by professing support for progressive and globalist politicians, and thereby their policies,” and it “suggests he join the Democrat party.”
The party’s issue with Ducey revolves around his use of executive powers in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The powers that the state Legislature afforded to the governor that he used to issue the orders, the resolution says, “violate the Constitution by purporting to the office of Governor dictatorial powers” and state that he invoked them “to empower himself to restrict personal liberties and force compliance to unconstitutional edicts.”
If passed, the party would demand that Ducey “immediately rescind all Executive Orders and directives issued under this faux State of Emergency.”
The party will meet on Jan. 23 to consider the censure proposals and other items.
