36 B EST P O L I T I CA L P E N M A N S H I P Austin Smith The Republican lawmaker from the north- west corner of Maricopa County came to the Arizona Legislature in 2023 with a cowboy hat and disdain for anyone who didn’t share his far-right views. Smith, an election denier who supported making it easier to challenge ballot initiatives and wanted to carve Mari- copa County into four smaller parts, quickly carved out a legislative agenda focused on knee-capping opponents. He and his rural neighbors didn’t want to keep rubbing elbows with the progressives, drag queens and abortion rights advocates that fill the politically blue streets of Phoenix. It’s an orthodoxy he fine-tuned in the hallways of Turning Point Action, a part of the Valley- based right-wing political empire that aims to replicate little Austins and implant them across the country. But somewhere along the way, Smith failed to learn the finer points of cursive writing. As he prepared to run for reelection, he did what lawmakers must do — gather signatures of registered voters to get on the ballot. But Smith, who ironically sits on the House committee that oversees elections, was accused of forging 100 of the signatures. When faced with the accusations, Smith did what you’d expect from a member of the far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus — he tucked tail and ran, dropping his reelec- tion bid and blaming everyone but himself. 22222 B EST M I S O GY N I ST Sonny Borrelli The election-denying state lawmaker who hangs with QAnon bros in Vegas has a trou- bled history with women. The Lake Havasu City Republican has yet to outrun allegations from the early 2000s that he punched his second wife in the mouth and pushed her to the ground during an argument. He’s also accused of breaking down a door and ripping a phone out of the wall as his wife called 911. It all resulted in him pleading guilty to a class 1 misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge. Fast-forward to 2024, and Borrelli, now Senate majority leader in the state Legisla- ture, floated this misogynistic trope to explain his vote against a bill guaranteeing women the right to contraception: “Like I said, Bayer Company invented aspirin — put it between your knees,” the lawmaker said. In other words, if women didn’t have sex, they wouldn’t need birth control. 22222 B EST P OW E R L ES B I A N Kris Mayes In 2022, voters in Arizona helped Kris Mayes shatter the lavender ceiling, making her the state’s first LGBTQ+ attorney general — and just the second LGBTQ+ person elected statewide. Since taking office, she’s become a consumer champion, suing apart- ment landlords for price gouging, fighting housing discrimination, going after troubled assisted living facilities, snagging $15 million from Johnson & Johnson over deceptive advertising of some of its baby powder, securing the first conviction in the state’s massive Medicaid fraud scandal, suing Amazon, fighting robocalls, investigating gift card fraud and so much more. Mayes also built a bulwark against election fraud, indicting Arizona’s fake electors, and vowed to fight discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. 22222 B E ST P OW E R G AY Oscar De Los Santos With his natty blue suit and an educational pedigree that includes being a Rhodes Scholar, a Yale law degree and a master’s degree in Christian social ethics, Oscar De Los Santos can be spotted wherever there’s a progressive political cause to be supported. In his first term as a state lawmaker, he already makes for an impressive opposition figure as the second-highest ranking Demo- crat in the Arizona House and co-chair of the LGBTQ+ Legislative Caucus. He’s also the first LGBTQ+ person elected to represent Legislative District 11, which includes South Phoenix, Laveen, Guadalupe and Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. De Los Santos has pushed for a statewide queer- inclusive antidiscrimination bill, though it’s likely that won’t pass until the Legislature flips to Democratic control. Earlier this year, when Republicans stood in the way of repealing a 160-year-old abortion ban, he joined Rep. Analise Ortiz in shouting “Shame!,” “Hold the vote!” and “Blood on your hands!” at Republicans. After the House finally approved the repeal of the abortion ban, De Los Santos was stripped of his seats on two powerful legislative commit- tees as punishment. 22222 B E ST M E A N G I R L Justine Wadsack Justine Wadsack is the QAnon Karen of the Arizona Legislature, and there seems to be no end to the targets of her venomous outbursts. The far-right MAGA queen from Tucson has, literally, turned her back on Gov. Katie Hobbs as the new Democratic governor called for bipartisanship. In her first term as a state senator, Wadsack targeted LGBTQ+ people, unsheltered folks, drag queens and deaf and blind students. She also supported book bans and dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion training. Her latest outburst came at the expense of a Tucson police officer, who had the audacity to try to write Wadsack a speeding ticket after allegedly clocking her doing 71 in a 35. She was later miffed when another officer addressed her as “Mrs.” instead of “Senator.” With three homes and tenuous ties to the legislative district where she’s legally supposed to live, Wadsack also is the political epitome of this quip from “Mean Girls”: “She doesn’t even go here!” 22222 B E ST R E P U B L I CA N Stephen Richer When Stephen Richer ran for Maricopa County Recorder in 2020, he did so on a plat- form of making the job “boring again.” The job, though, has become anything but thanks to his party taking a sharp right turn and embracing every election-denying conspiracy theory they can articulate — and many they can’t. Richer has stood firm, defending the county’s elections as sane and secure, which is no small feat thanks to his own party’s histrionics. Richer has taken on Twitter trolls, stared down those threatening physical violence and sued Kari Lake for defamation and won. He does it with a smile, earnestly running the most transparent elec- tions around, operating an open door policy with the media and even hosting a contest for residents to design new “I Voted” stickers. It’s why we honored Richer in 2021 and why we’re throwing accolades his way again this year. This time, though, it’s more of a political obituary. The election-denying wing of his party put an end to his bid for a second term during the July primary. B E ST D E M O C R AT Mark Kelly Kelly is not the bluest of Democrats, but the U.S. Senator deserves credit for helping to turn Arizona into a purple-verging-on-blue state. The former astronaut and Navy pilot won election to the Senate twice since 2020, becoming the first Democrat to win multiple Senate elections in the state since Dennis DeConcini in 1988. Since taking office, Kelly has reliably voted with his party but hasn’t been afraid to buck it from time to time. Kelly routinely cuts through the dogmatic clutter surrounding Arizona’s border issues to approach things in a common-sense way, winning the respect of many hardline Republicans in the southern part of the state. And there are no better advocates for ending gun violence than Kelly and his wife, former Congresswoman and shooting survivor Gabrielle Giffords. Other Democrats deserve more credit for pushing Arizona into more progressive territory. But Kelly has done as much as anyone to convince Arizona’s inde- pendents and moderate Republicans to vote Democrat, which is why he was seriously considered to be Kamala Harris’ running mate this year. 22222 B E ST M I C D RO P Paul Penzone It’s hard not to like Paul Penzone. The sensible Democrat would likely have coasted to a third term as Maricopa County sheriff in November had he opted to run. Instead, worn down by court oversight and six years of cleaning up the mess left for him by former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Penzone resigned in January just a year shy of finishing his second term. It’s refreshing to see an elected official give up power without the threat of indictment. Penzone’s tenure wasn’t perfect, but he dismantled Arpaio’s Tent City, worked to repair the agency’s reputation among the communities it persecuted and racially profiled for decades, and tried to combat a staffing shortage while also facing the increasing use of fentanyl and other drugs in the jails he oversaw. Along the way, he sometimes got sideways with the federal judge overseeing the racial profiling court case left behind by Arpaio. That’s what ulti- mately led the mild-mannered sheriff to call a press conference and quit with this zinger: “I’ll be damned if I’ll do three terms under federal court oversight for a debt I never
