Arizona Governor Republican debate 2026 — FOX 10 Phoenix

[00:00:00] Speaker ?: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. [00:22:30] Speaker 1: Thank you. [00:22:59] Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. [00:24:59] Speaker 3: Schweikert, hit the brakes on housing construction, or would you continue to encourage development [00:25:05] Speaker 4: despite the water issues? First off, we're not running out of water. What we have is the stress on the upper basin, lower basin. Sorry to geek out a little bit. It's the Colorado River. Internal water supplies, we've actually done a terrific job managing. If you go back years ago, actually the groundwater recharge districts were something I actually did in the legislature. Now [00:25:25] Speaker 3: it's about to pay off. Then why are you calling it a water crisis? Can you explain that? No, no, [00:25:30] Speaker 4: no. You called it the water crisis. I was responding to you. It is a crisis, but you actually, it's what wet water is available to us. So our stress right now is the central Arizona project. You actually see the agreement to have a discussion in regards to buying the excess water out of San Diego County. Here's your math problem on some of that desalinization. We're going to probably have to do it, but that's $3,000 an acre foot. Our internal water we have here in Arizona is $300 an acre foot. So a bit of trivia for you. What is the number one water user in Arizona? And it's been this way for 40 years. It's cattle feed. 47% of Arizona's water actually goes to cattle feed. So when you start to actually look at the hierarchy of an acre of homes, particularly if it's acre of homes that goes into where agriculture was, you actually end up with excess water supply. So it's an allocation, it's a distance problem, it's a price problem, it's a power problem. And if you're going to build a plan to stabilize Arizona's water, so you can also encourage and stabilize Arizona's growth. If you come to my home on our board and the wall, we've actually put up a hundred different things. You need about 15 of them to stabilize Arizona's water. Everything from raising Bartlett Lake to a diversion dam where the siphon is, all the way down to certain plants. In the middle are leaky pipes of all things. It is manageable. It's not going to be free. You have to do sort of an all-in approach of saying, here's our optionalities, and here's what we can afford and what gets us the water supply that's required. [00:27:12] Speaker 1: Something else that is putting strain on our water situation are data centers. Now, Governor Hobbs just signed a budget bill that does impose a three-year moratorium on new sales tax breaks for data centers. And so, Mr. Biggs, we'll go to you with this one. Is this the right move, or what would you do differently? [00:27:30] Andy Biggs: Yeah, it is the right move at this time. When you think about it, data processing centers are going to chew up probably 350 to 650 megawatts of power, depending on the size of that data processing center. They're going to use water. And quite frankly, it's a scrambled egg situation. I've been all over the state. I've talked to mayors. I've talked to councils. And some support it. They want to have it. Others don't. But here's where the real rub is. Where's the power going to come from, and where's the water going to come from, right? So it is a great idea that the legislature put together that I'm grateful that the governor finally signed a budget that had it in it, where you put that moratorium. I've actually met with data processing center brokers. I've talked with them. I said, here's what will happen. Under an Andy Biggs administration as governor, we're not going to have those credits or subsidies. You're not going to be treated special any longer. And we're going to find a way for you to create your own power so where you can get it to your system. Now, that's going to take some creativity. And that'll take some time. But they should not be given a break. And it should not impact current commercial or consumers with regard to power and water. Now, on the waterfront, there's a center in my own district out in East Mesa. And what they do is they actually recycle their water. And that is the move that all of them are willing to go to. They're also all willing to eat the cost of building the infrastructure. Nobody in Arizona, no consumer of residential or commercial should be paying for the infrastructure for that project. And so that's where we sit on that. Now, let me just tell you, I have been one of the leaders in Congress and trying to get water to us. It was my lead working with Greg Stanton that got $350 million released from the federal government to work on mitigation on water related issues. It is my lead with working with Mark Kelly and others that has also got the Flaming Gorge backup of about 650,000 acre feet released. And they still have more that they could release to help us. Without that, we would have a little bit more tough time. But I will say one thing. I will agree with one of my colleagues who just said it. We don't have a water shortage. We have a water management issue. And you need someone who knows water, like I do, who can get in and manage that. Mr. Maselli, let's go to you because you've [00:30:00] Speaker 3: talked about potential solutions like desalination plants. What level of investment, if you were governor, would you make into the water infrastructure? Well, first of all, let me, for the record, [00:30:11] Speaker 2: 70 percent of our water goes to agriculture, 70 percent. We're currently at 32 percent full at Lake Powell. That's how low we are. This is the driest season we've ever experienced. That condition was actually voted on in 1922 in Colorado. And by the way, did you know that Colorado, they, if something happens to where they've got to cut water, they are going to cut it first from Arizona versus the other five states. So we are in a crisis. My plan is to generate new ways of bringing in more water through the flow of rainfall and expanding our aquifers. So that's what our plan is. I have a plan. I don't know if these other gentlemen have a plan, but I have a plan. And that's what you're going to see when you look at my union state address. All right. Thank you so much for that. And Mr. [00:31:23] Speaker 6: Neely, what is your plan? We have we have to have an all of the above approach to water. And there's many different ways we can manage and solve the water problems of Arizona. So number one, we can turn back online the the Yuma desalinization plant that was the experimental plant built by the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1990s. We can pump water. We can make a deal with Mexico to pump water from the Sea of Cortez, salt water to that plant, desalinate there, build a micronuclear plant right next to it so that it has its own power supply. These data centers are going to take a lot of water. They can't do a closed loop system with their water because if you do a closed loop system, if you do a closed loop system, it it causes it to heat itself up. So you have to have an open loop system in these power plants for water. So if you have an open loop system, though, and you're pumping that water back into the ground through through the facility and back into the ground, it pollutes the ground over time. So I will not allow data centers in the state of Arizona unless they build their own desalinization plants at the data centers at a cost to them. We give them no tax subsidies. They build their own desal plants. So when they suck their water through and they push it back out, they don't pollute our environment and they're going to build their own power supplies. And I'm going to advocate for micronuclear in the state of Arizona so that the data centers can have their own micronuclear plants so it doesn't affect our utility rates as consumers. I've watched my rates go through the roof. I was part of the crew that went out and helped to decommission. Sorry, Mr. Neely, you're going over time. Oh, sorry. I didn't see it. My apologies. Oh, no. Thank you for your answer. [00:32:59] Speaker 3: We want to get to the cost of living. You talked about utilities. That's certainly one of the ways that Arizonans are being squeezed higher costs for housing, as you know, groceries, you name it. What is the single most effective thing and or action that a governor can take to for some immediate relief to lower the cost of living for Arizonans and how would you pay for it? And Mr. Schweikert, I'll direct this to you because you've also mentioned that you've pledged to eliminate the state income tax. That is not the fact. Oh, I'm sorry. We'll talk to you about that then. I apologize for making that error. No, it's OK. Yeah, it is Mr. Biggs. I apologize for that. But we will get to you about that because we want to know how you'd pay for it. But we'll start with you. And how would you pay for? [00:33:42] Speaker 4: Yeah. Your problem is the state income tax is basically 31 percent of the appropriated budget and the cuts you'd have to double Arizona's property tax. That's why there's some structural design problem. All right. Let's actually talk about affordability. Yes. Arizona now is 43rd on the stack of affordability. It's pretty miserable out there. When you actually do the years of the Biden inflation, the inflation regimen, wage growth has been somewhat anemic compared to that inflation. Our brothers and sisters in this state are poorer today than they were just a few years ago. But you don't magically make prices start to come down. What you have to do as governor, get off your backside, recruit every great business you can. So there's competition for your willingness to work. That competition raises wages. The most powerful thing you can do for affordability in the short term is the raising of wages. Then you have to deal with infrastructure type issues. So supplies, freight, everything moves much more efficiently. That's how you also get downward pressure on pricing. Let's actually move on to housing, which is actually one of the big drivers of this being an unaffordable market now. We actually sit on some amazing assets around us. The state trust land that's in the urban area. We're skipping over it, running sewer, water, power to neighborhoods a mile, two miles over. The mismanagement of our state trust lands and bringing that to market. I actually have a degree in finance and housing and the basic economics of the way you create affordability and housing is two things. It's supply and wage growth. We can actually do both of those. And those are both in the touch point of a governor. Fix the way we bring an access to our real estate so we can build that next generation of homes for our kids and the things of bringing jobs here [00:35:44] Speaker 1: so we can raise wages. Mr. Biggs, let's revisit the sales tax. You have pledged to eliminate the state income tax, excuse me, not sales tax. That accounts for half of Arizona's budget. And so with the state already facing a massive deficit, what are you prepared to cut? Well, I just have to correct you on [00:36:03] Andy Biggs: one thing. It doesn't, that doesn't represent half of our state budget. The state budget for this year is 18 billion dollars. It represents about 4.4 to 4.5 billion dollars. That's what it represents. And what you do is, and by the way, the legislature only controls a small portion overall because of voter protected spending that's gone in. But one thing I will tell you is we have dormant assets. We have resources that are underutilized. And when you start bringing those into bear, you can actually incrementally start moving this down on the income tax. And that's where we're going to go. And I'll tell you why we need to go there. Because we do need to recruit businesses coming in. And I will be the biggest cheerleader going out to businesses and telling them, we do have water. We do have power. We want you in Arizona because we do need those jobs. And we will get this economy rolling and rocking. But here's the bottom line. If you don't, if you don't do that, then those businesses don't get incentivized to come here. If you don't deal with the tax structure that we have in Arizona, guess where they're going? And I know this. They're going to Texas. They're going to Tennessee. They're going to Florida. They're going to places that don't have that income tax. And we have various states in the Midwest now and in the Intermountain West that are all considering ways to eliminate their state income tax. We better be innovative and understand that this is a competition. We want those businesses here. And that's why when Governor Hobbs went out and insinuated to the New York Times that Arizona was out of water, she killed literally, I happen to be in one of these places, $700 million worth of outside investment coming into Arizona. She killed it. That died within two days after she said it. An additional investment also died. [00:38:02] Speaker 3: But if that money goes away, sir, your time, I just want to follow up because it's important. But the state income tax, if that goes away, the services that you'll have to cut, what would be on the table? [00:38:13] Andy Biggs: I'm not saying you're going to have to cut services per se. We didn't even get into the fraud. So let's talk fraud for just a second and see what's there. You've got Chris Mays who said, look, there's $2.5 billion. She's the Democrat AG. She said there's $2.5 billion worth of fraud in Medicaid. That's $2.5 billion. Why don't we recover that? Let's see what we can recover. Let's see what we can get back. Let's stop the fraud. There's the Indian Health Services fraud, which could be as high as $8 billion that's being investigated right now. That's minimum $2.8 billion. If you start recovering and taking fraud out of the picture, how about when we start talking about the Medicaid expansion program? Estimates of over 50% of that is going to people who are not supposed to be getting those benefits. Why don't we make sure it's people who deserve the benefits and should be getting the benefits. Get those benefits and we stop the fraud elsewhere. When you do that, you're going to save a bunch of money. So that's just one thing. And then we start using resources. Uh, and, and I will just say this, I've talked about this relentlessly. Our, our, one of the biggest dormant assets we have is eight and a half million acres of state trust land. Some of that is incredibly valuable. That goes into the trust rest, but there, but there's interest that comes out and we can fund school, [00:39:31] Speaker 1: schools even better with that. Mr. Biggs. Thank you for that. That is your time. Mr. Neely, I want to turn to you. I saw you nodding your head, uh, during some parts of that. [00:39:39] Speaker 6: So as Republicans, we can definitely all agree on a lot of things. Uh, as Republicans, we can definitely all agree on a lot of things. Um, I agree with some of what Mr. Biggs says here. Um, but one thing I would like to do differently is I would like to cut taxes for businesses across the board, big and small. Um, and another thing I'd like to do, it's a bold idea, but I would like to cut property tax for those 65 and above, completely eliminate property tax for those 65 and above, because not only have they paid for their children to go to school, but they've also put my children through school. They paid for a couple of generations or more already. I think it's about time senior citizens get a break on property tax, a permanent break, so they can finally own their home outright. Um, and as far as business goes, yes, we are behind Texas and Florida in attracting businesses because our business tax structure is not as attractive as Texas and Florida. We need to work on that. As far as income tax goes, we have a 2.5% flat tax. That's fine. We can, we can keep it at that and, and keep it [00:40:42] Speaker 1: going. Thank you very much. And Mr. Maselli, what are your thoughts on bringing more businesses to Arizona, kind of piggybacking off of what Mr. Neely just said? I'm really glad you asked me that question. [00:40:52] Speaker 2: You know why? The first year, let me just back up. The property tax. The first year I'm governor, property tax will be reduced 50%. The second year, we will waive the property tax. There will be no property tax. How am I going to do that? I'm bringing in some of the top companies in the world here in Arizona. I've met with some of the largest CEOs that want to come and set up shop here in Arizona. And we're talking about 50,000 to 100,000 new jobs, good paying jobs for Arizona. And that's how we can innovate and waive the property taxes. So there's many things that we can do as a businessman. You create a lot of potential to where you could use that money to put it back into our school system, into helping our hospitals, into helping medical. Those are the things that people want to see. Those are the things that people that we can do. When I'm governor, I will take the action to do this. As a businessman, I've got to perform. As a businessman, if I don't perform on the job, guess what? We don't get paid. [00:42:16] Speaker 1: Right. So thank you, Mr. Maselli. That is that is your allotted time. Thank you. [00:42:21] Speaker 3: Yeah. And you brought up medical. That's another thing that's really gone up for Arizona. And so I want to address this to Congressman Biggs and Congressman Schreicher specifically, because during your recent terms in Congress, federal lawmakers allowed the enhanced Biden era Affordable Care Act premium tax credits to expire. And as a result, the average Affordable Care Act premium or the premiums for Arizona's jumped nearly 30 percent and more than 100,000 Arizona's lost their health care coverage altogether. And considering the financial strain that's placed on families, how do you justify letting those subsidies lapse? And what would you do as governor to help bring down those health care premiums, Mr. Schreicher? Okay, let's go through this math, because this is [00:43:04] Speaker 4: something I'm actually an expert on. And I beg of you, will someone here actually read budgets? Because a lot of the word salad so far have been absurd. This was a subsidy on top of a subsidy for the ACA, what we call an Obamacare from COVID. The problem is every dime of that money was being borrowed by the federal government. We actually had a problem. We had almost a third of the population never used it. And a substantial number didn't even know that the broker had signed them up for it. So the level of misuse, fraud, the money's being paid to brokers, those things. At some point, we're going to have to deal with the reality of subsidization of everything in the economy is not going to work. So how do we solve our health care cost problems here in Arizona? It's you actually need a marketplace here that actually works. So let's actually take a look at access. Years ago, I actually used to do the budgets for the Arizona health care cost containment system, our Medicaid system here in Arizona. After even looking at the sober living home fraud, those sorts of things. If you have a system that last year had 28.4% of our state's population receiving their health care from access, our Medicaid system, this is uncomfortable to talk about. But you look at the health statistics when almost 50% of the spending in that population are through obesity related illnesses. Wouldn't it be moral to come up with a holistic approach to saying, should we give someone an EBT card to buy onion rings? Why can't we help you on the nutrition side, the gamification to actually participate in a healthier lifestyle? And then we're going to help you on the waste management side. We've actually worked out a model. It's going to take 24 months. But in that third year, we believe we could say $400 to $500 million because we've helped our brothers and sisters get healthier in the system. That's actual working on the math and the planning. Mr. Schreiker, thank you. And Mr. Biggs, over to you. [00:45:13] Speaker 3: And how would you help bring those premiums down? Because 24 months, a lot of people can't wait that long. [00:45:21] Andy Biggs: Yeah, here's the reality. In Congress, I introduced legislation to provide a greater expansion of health health care benefits that would actually lower cost. All of the actuaries that we talked to said they would lower costs. A guy named Eric Burleson from Missouri also did something similar. His was actually even more comprehensive than mine. And what that does is, and President Trump's right on the money, where you're going to give money directly to that HSA, to that individual, so they can manage their health care. And you're going to provide incentives for better diets, making sure that you can get some exercise. So you do the pre-action so you don't get sick and you can handle that. Those are things that we've proffered in Congress. We've tried to get those on multiple bills. We've been told that one of them is going to come out on a bill. Let's see if it does. But in any event, that would actually help move the cost pressure down. I'll tell you one other thing that needs to happen in Arizona. We have a problem, and we're cranking out doctors, and we're going to have another medical school here pretty soon. You know what we need? We need residencies. Mr. Biggs, that is your allotted time. [00:46:37] Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Let's switch and talk about education. That is something that has come up already here tonight. Arizona ranks 49th in the nation when it comes to per-pupil spending. And so, as Governor, Mr. Maselli, we'll start with you on this. How would you balance giving parents choice education choice without starving traditional public school budgets? That's a great question. [00:46:59] Speaker 2: And I have an answer. The answer is trade schools. We need to implement more trade schools here in Arizona. And I'm a very big proponent of trade schools. An electrician, someone that repairs HVAC, air conditioning. They can do a two-year term in trade schools and come out making $60,000, $80,000 a year. They could buy a house. And by the way, my housing plan, I can get people in housing for $5,000 to $10,000 that I work with CEOs and mortgage companies through the state of Arizona. And that's another issue. So, we can not only get them going with their jobs at a reasonable pay, at a good pay. It's not traditional any longer. The education system needs to change. And we need to change with that. Some people want to go through the four-year path of education. It doesn't work that way. Right now, we are in so much demand for people to help out with hospitals, with medical, trainees. And I also have a plan where they're going to get paid while they're going to school to get certified. So, that's where I'm at right now. Again, check out my Union State address, and you'll see each move and each answer that I'm coming up with right now. I'm just giving you a taste of what it's all about. [00:48:42] Speaker 3: All right, Mr. Maselli, thank you for that. Mr. Neely, there's been a lot of criticism surrounding how the voucher money is actually being used. What changes, if any, should be made to ensure accountability with those tax dollars? Talking about ESAs? Talking about, yes, the school vouchers. Okay. So, [00:49:00] Speaker 6: as far as transparency in ESAs, I do think there should be some regulation on the ESAs and some transparency with that and how the money's spent. But I also think we should expand ESAs. I believe in ESAs. And matters of fact, I want ESAs in trade schools. I want to merge those two together. I want small businesses to be able to team up with the ESA program, be provided incentive to train young people in the trades, in electrical, plumbing, concrete, framing, drywall. This is something that's necessary. It's an Arizona national and a national security issue if we don't get people back in the trades. Because here's the thing, Salt River Project employees are in their 60s that are managing our water systems. Central Arizona Project employees, people at the nuclear power plant, they've actually incentivized older folks to come back to work because they can't find enough young people interested in the trades. So the only way to get them interested is we have to start them in high school. Now Empire Caterpillar has a program with Mountain View High School where they bring kids in and trade them for their junior and senior year. And by the time they get out of high school, they're making $80,000 a year. This is a wonderful program Empire Caterpillar has. They're a billion dollar company so they have the money to invest in that. But I think that we could incentivize our small businesses to do the same if we paired ESAs with small businesses. Small businesses can be the teachers of the future because not everybody's an academic, not everybody's headed to college. I certainly didn't go and I'm doing fine. I'm on the stage running for governor and I'm going to be your next Arizona governor. I'm going to implement the policy of trades through ESAs. This is going to happen. It's an important component in the future economy because the present economy is going to be consumed by robots. The present economy will be taken over by robots with these data centers. So trades, though they were the past, they are now the future. Vote Scott Neely for Arizona governor and go to neelyforgovernor.com. [00:50:59] Speaker 1: Thank you very much. I want to make sure that we hear from both of you on education as well. So one minute response for this. Mr. Schweikert, is Arizona spending enough on education? [00:51:09] Speaker 4: First, let's do the hierarchy. I'm a huge fan of education choice. Matter of fact, the first charter school bill years ago was something was one of mine. And having young children, we adopted a little girl 10 years ago, got a surprise three years ago, the same birth mother, the little boy was never supposed to be healthy. He is a miracle. I should, as a parent, have had optionality of where my little boy goes, particularly if he had some difficulties. Education choice is the future. It also, I would argue, is one of our attractions for economic growth. And in your first question, I would disagree. The amount of money it's spent for me to choose homeschool or something here, compared to what we spend for that same child in traditional education, there's a differential. You actually put some money back in the bank. The big battle for governor is we have a court case from last summer that says equalization is unconstitutional how we're doing it. We are going to have to rebuild a portion of our education financing. All right. Thank you, Mr. Schweikert. That is that one minute [00:52:21] Speaker 1: time limit. Thank you. And Mr. Biggs, real quick, one minute. When it comes to the ESA vouchers, would you expand the program even more? Keep it where it is? What are your thoughts on that? [00:52:30] Andy Biggs: My thoughts on it is we should be expanding it fully. And Katie Hobbs is trying to actually crush educational freedom in this state. And she's siding with unions and she's siding with administrators. She's going after educational choice. But every parent, I believe, has a more special interest in that child's education than an administrator. I think the people that are most important are going to be your student, your parents, and they teach actual teachers. And ESAs, actually, they're funded at roughly 70 percent of the traditional district schools. And you should actually expand the ESA program. If there's a fraud, one thing we found is if there's a fraud, the reason that you're hearing about it is because they're catching people if they fraudulently use ESAs. There's also tremendous fraud in the traditional system that we have to come in and find out and get that and stop that. And so I'm a big ESA proponent. [00:53:31] Speaker 3: I want to touch on the election security because a recent survey from the Clean Elections Commission shows election security and access are top of mind for people across the political spectrum, whether it's Democrats, Republicans or independents. And I want to ask, we'll start with you, Mr. Neely, do you support the current mail-in voting system making changes to it or replacing it with something [00:53:54] Speaker 6: different? I support mail-in voting for veterans that are overseas or out of state for military service duties. And I support mail-in ballots for the disabled, the handicapped. But I don't support mail-in ballots or 27 days of voting with early ballots going out and an entire election season, every election of 43 days when you include the two weeks that it takes to count the votes. So, no. What I would propose is one day, one vote on paper, in person, no private-owned ballot drop boxes. We can use the post office drop boxes. And I propose we go that route. Now, Trump Save America Act doesn't go that far, but I would go that far in the state of Arizona. I would sign a bill like that if it was on my desk. John Fillmore had a bill like that many years ago, HB 2289. I would have signed that bill as governor. That would have streamlined the election process. That would have eliminated fraud in the system or potential fraud in the system. And it would have made elections fair, free, honest. So, that's how I would do that. Now, let's get past that. As far as Medicaid, I didn't get to answer that question. So, Medicaid's aid, it's a safety net. It's not a hammock that we should have perpetually. It's not a lifestyle, okay? It's to get you on your feet and get you going, but it's not something that you should live on forever. We do need to look at the Medicaid system. We do need to look at redundancies in that system. And we need to cut fraud where possible. And we need to look into the massive fraud that was going on in the Native American community with regard to that Medicaid system that Andy had mentioned over there. So, I agree with Andy on that. We need to look into that fraud. I believe it's like $4 billion of fraud was done in that particular system. Was it 2.8? Okay. He's the numbers guy, 2.8. So, $2.8 billion in fraud in the state of Arizona. And what happened? Nobody went to jail. I think somebody got fined. He was from California. But nobody went to jail. I would have prosecuted that [00:55:56] Speaker 1: case and made sure they went to jail. Thank you, Mr. Neely. That is your time. And we are getting close. So, I want to make sure that we can hear from the rest of you. Mr. Schweikert, one minute. What are your thoughts on mail-in voting and the current system? [00:56:08] Speaker 4: Look, we've had mail-in voting that was passed in 1991 and then been expanded. We actually don't have absentee ballots really in Arizona. We have a vote through mail system. I do have a legitimate concern. My mother, who passed away, I miss her terribly, in 2010, she was still getting ballots up to, I think, 2020, 2022, because we gave the house to my brother. Cleaning up the voter rules. Updating the fact that this is you with some type of ID with actually you're going to have to have a system that ultimately updates signatures. Think about how different someone that may have registered 30 years ago because you met the signature verification. But we have to deal with the reality. Our voters like the mail-in balloting system. 84%. 84% of our votes will be coming through the mail [00:57:05] Speaker 3: in this primary. Thank you. And your minute is Mr. Biggs. Thank you. You know, [00:57:11] Andy Biggs: Governor Hobbs was given a bill in January of 2025 that would have taken us and given us the Florida standard. And the Florida is the gold standard of voting now, voting integrity now. It really is. It's the top. And they still have mail-in ballots over there. But they control those better. And you know the night of the election who won. That's what I will actually sign that bill when it comes back. But I'll tell you this. If you're going to talk about election integrity, and you know that the Congress is going to fail, I believe Congress is ultimately going to fail on the Save America Act. So you're not going to see any wholesale reforms there. The state needs to make some reforms. And we need to make sure that when you send in a ballot and you're signing there, how do you... The verification of that system is, as Jimmy Carter put it, the most likely to fail for fraud. [00:58:11] Speaker 3: Well, even after... We should point out that after millions of taxpayer dollars were spent on on investigations and audits that the outcomes from 2020 and subsequent elections, they weren't changed by fraud that was found. Mr. Masselli, what are your thoughts on mail-in voting? [00:58:26] Speaker 2: Well, my thought is a different level. It's called biometrics. Biometrics, basically it claims that you are the person that you say you are. A, that you're alive. Two, that you're a citizen. And three, that you're able to vote. Now, a lot of people might say, well, what about my privacy? Well, no, this is... This is a system through the state, where it is only kept in the state. So no one else has the information. But do you know how many people that have passed away that voted last year and continue to vote? Do you know how many people that are not citizens that try to vote? The biometrics is a safeguard to this. Very simple. You can get it through the mail to apply. And I recommend it [00:59:27] Speaker 1: highly. It's a safeguard. All right. Thank you, Mr. Masselli. And thank you to all of you candidates for being here. It's now time for closing statements already. Each one of you will have one minute. And so we ask that you please stick to that time as best as you can. Scott Neely, you have the first closing [00:59:43] Speaker 6: statement. Thank you. My name is Scott Neely. I'm a candidate for Arizona governor. I have a lot of policy solutions on my website at neelyforgovernor.com, where you can learn how I can better the state of Arizona with you, with you the people. I am the voice of the people. We the people are fed up. We're tired of lifetime politicians running our state. And I will be the candidate that brings actual change to the state of Arizona. I will be bold. I will be fearless. I will be with you, Arizona. I am Arizona first. I'm American first. AFAF. Arizona first. America first. Always. Unapologetically. I've taken no money from outside lobbies. I've taken no large PAC monies. I'm the only clean elections candidate in the race. And currently I have more money in my war chest than either of these two politicians on this stage. I've got $1.2 million of clean elections money in my war chest that I'm going to be launching in the media next week. Thank you very much. Vote Scott Neely for Arizona governor. Mr. Biggs over to you for your [01:00:51] Andy Biggs: closing statement. Thank you. I have to ask Arizona, are you better off today than you were four years ago under Governor Katie Hobbs leadership? Katie Hobbs has taken us down at various times to be in the bottom five for wage growth, job growth and currently at number 43 with affordability. Housing prices have shot up. She's attacked parental choice and freedom in education. This is what she has done and all the time she's done it, she's been under criminal investigation for pay for play scheme. I remain optimistic for this state because under Governor Andy Biggs administration, we're going to restore the American dream to Arizona. We're going to make sure that we have our security in place. We're going to have the infrastructure for water, power, education, the tax and regulatory infrastructure that will allow us to grow again to be the one of the top states economically. I ask for your vote. I ask for your support [01:01:54] Speaker 1: and I thank you. All right. Thank you. And David Schweikert, you have one minute for your closing statement. [01:01:59] Speaker 4: As fellow Republicans, are you tired of losing? We have to deal with a reality that's going on in Arizona. As of a couple of weeks ago, we have more independents than we have Republicans. We've lost the senior senator, the junior senator, the secretary of state, the attorney general, the governor over the last decade. Losing is unacceptable. If you want to protect elections, if you want to protect education choice, if you want to protect a three and a half percent flat tax rates based on adjusted gross income, where we don't tax Social Security, where we don't tax military retirement, losing is devastating to the future of this state. And the fact of the matter is, take a look at our history. You know, my friend at the end, I know this is tough with us running against each other, but when you're wholly owned by turning point and you've lost election and lost election and lost election, it puts everything in our future at risk. Let's make America, let's make Arizona the state that prospers again. [01:03:05] Speaker 3: Thank you so much for that. Mr. Maselli, you have one minute for your closing statement. [01:03:10] Speaker 2: Thank you. Well, right now, gas is at $4.43 a gallon, one of the highest in the nation. We could do something about that. Did you know that we buy our gas from California, which pays for their regulations and a lot of their taxes? I have negotiated with different vendors, a different approach, where we can get our gas and energy cheaper. Two, you know, we, at each end of the roll here, we have Mr. Schweiker that has had 11 ethic violations against him, where he's had to pay $175,000 in fines. To my right, Mr. Biggs, on January 6th, called to get the Arizona electoral votes thrown out. That's not leadership. I'm a businessman. I can't do that. I've got to be straight, right on and to the point. Vote me as your next governor and I'll prove to you that this state is going to be in the best shape it's ever been in. Thank you. [01:04:23] Speaker 3: All right. Thank you. And thank you to all of you on the stage tonight. This wraps this primary debate with the Republican candidates for Arizona's governor. As a reminder, the Arizona primary election is on July 21st and early voting starts June 24th. All registered voters can participate in the primary, including independents. The voter registration deadline is June 22nd. If you would like to register to vote, head to azcleanelections.gov. There are a lot of offices up for election this year, [01:04:53] Speaker 1: and so we will keep hosting debates through the summer and fall. Head to azmedia.org to see a list of every local media partner plus upcoming debates and where you can find them on TV, radio and digital [01:05:06] Speaker 3: platforms. And you can also see the full debate schedule. Learn more about clean elections and submit questions for future debates by heading to azcleanelections.gov. On behalf of our partners at Clean Elections, the Arizona Media Association, Reister and Sneaky Big Studios, we thank you for joining us.