Former Arizona State Rep. Shawnna Bolick was appointed to fill a state Senate seat left open by the resignation of former Sen. Steve Kaiser. Photo by Gage Skidmore || Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0
Supervisors lament flawed appointment process
JEROD MACDONALD-EVOY
Arizona Mirror
Former lawmaker Shawnna Bolick was chosen by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Wednesday to fill the vacant North Phoenix seat in the Arizona Senate left by the resignation of Republican Sen. Steve Kaiser.
Bolick was widely considered the frontrunner for the appointment as one of the other two candidates had openly embraced QAnon while the other had ties to the extremist Three Percenters militia movement. Bolick previously served in the House of Representatives, and was in that position until her unsuccessful bid for secretary of state last year, where she finished in third place out of four candidates in the GOP primary.
Bolick is no stranger to controversy.
In 2021 Bolick authored legislation that would have allowed state lawmakers to override the presidential choice of Arizona voters with a simple majority — something Republicans have held in the state for decades. Bolick’s proposal came just two months after receiving emails from Ginni Thomas, urging her to overturn Biden’s victory in Arizona. Ginni Thomas is married to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Bolick and her husband, Arizona Supreme Court Justice Clint Bolick, are close friends with the Thomas family.
