Rep. Liz Harris || Wikipedia
By Ray Stern || The Arizona Republic
A Republican lawmaker faces an ethics complaint more than a week after bringing a speaker to the state Capitol who falsely accused numerous Arizona elected officials of taking bribes from a drug cartel.
The complaint was the second attempt Monday by a Democrat in the state House of Representatives to hold Rep. Liz Harris, R-Chandler, accountable for her action.
House Majority Leader Rep. Leo Biasiucci, R-Lake Havasu City, blocked a motion by Rep. Stephanie Stahl Hamilton, D-Tucson, that would have subjected Harris to an immediate censure vote. Stahl Hamilton then filed the complaint with the House Ethics Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Joseph Chaplik, R-Scottsdale, a member of the far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus.
The three-page complaint accuses Harris of violating House rules, including “disorderly conduct” by inviting the speaker to the Feb. 23 joint special House and Senate committee meeting on elections.
At the meeting, Harris’s guest, local insurance agent Jacqueline Breger, related allegations by her boyfriend, local lawyer John Thaler, about a years-long bribery and money-laundering scheme in which the key players were two Arizona women.
Breger didn’t mention in her speech or in a report submitted to the Senate that the women were Thaler’s ex-wife and former mother-in-law, and that two judges had examined the same allegations previously in divorce-related court cases and deemed them malicious fiction.
