Secular AZ attorneys helped shut down an illegal campaign event planned to be held at a public school last week by right wing gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and GOP Senate hopeful Jim Lamon. The candidates — who have received recent press for their embrace of white Christian nationalism, Nazi sympathizers, Jan. 6th insurrection organizers, and conspiracies theories about COVID-19 pseudo-science and election fraud — had planned a rally at Scottsdale’s Coronado High School, ostensibly about a recent controversy at Scottsdale Unified School District.
The event was advertised in flyers paid for by Lamon’s campaign, which also alluded to a recall campaign against an embattled school board member. These details highlighted the likelihood that the event would run afoul state law that bans the use of school resources for electioneering, a detail brought to the attention of SUSD by Secular AZ’s legal team, which was notified of the rally by a concerned constituent. SUSD’s counsel quoted the statute spotlighted in our letter in their warning to the candidates to keep the event off school grounds.
The event was consequently held from a nearby pickup truck bed instead, where the candidates afterward dodged reporters’ questions about whether racism should be taught about in classrooms.
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