15 Feb 27th-March 5th, 2025 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | Dennis DeConcini The three-term senator and Democrat is largely forgotten these days. That may be a good thing for him, though his name still pops up whenever anyone mentions the Keating Five scandal. Along with McCain, DeConcini went to bat for the infamous flim-flam man in two meetings in 1987, pressing government regulators to lay off Keating’s doomed Lincoln Savings and Loan. Both meetings took place in DeConcini’s Senate office. When the regu- lators warned the Senators that a criminal referral was in the works for Keating, DeConcini “kept working on Keating’s behalf for almost another two years,” according to a 1993 piece by New Times investigative reporter John Dougherty. That same piece detailed how two of DeConcini’s top aides did millions of dollars in deals with Keating, though DeConcini denied being aware of this. DeConcini reportedly accepted $81,000 from Keating and Keating’s pals but painted himself as a victim during Senate ethics hearings on the scandal. He never recovered as a result, choosing not to run for a fourth term in 1994. He was also accused of enriching himself while in office, purchasing land (along with other members of his family) in 1979 that was in the path of the Central Arizona Project and selling a portion of it to the government for a 540% gain. At the time, the senator claimed he had “no inside information” on the CAP expansion. The Tucson Democrat was a bit of a nepo baby, the son of Evo DeConcini, an Arizona attorney general and Arizona Supreme Court justice. According to famed New Times political columnist Tom Fitzpatrick, Evo was tight with mafia boss and Tucson transplant Joe Bonanno. The younger DeConcini did his best to down- play the connection, saying his family only knew Bonnano as a, ahem, retired Wisconsin cheesemaker. Kyrsten Sinema Consider Sinema as the arriviste who failed miserably, and all because she had such open contempt for the voters who put her in office. The Green Party activist- turned-Democrat-turned-Independent ultimately went down to the crossroads and sold her political soul to Old Nick, all of it to end after one six-year term in the Senate. Sinema finally announced the inev- itable in early 2024: that she was not running for reelection due to being near- universally despised by the Arizona elec- torate. She claimed it was, “Because I choose civility, understanding, listening, working together to get stuff done,” and that’s “not what America wants right now.” In reality, she went from leading protests against war and SB 1070 to voting against a $15 minimum wage with an insensitive, curtsied thumb down on the Senate floor. To supporters who took umbrage, she had a message: an Instagram shot of her sucking down sangria while flashing a “Fuck Off” ring. She defended tax loopholes that benefitted her billion- aire backers, and high-fived her fellow obstructionist, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, at the World Economic Forum in Davos. And if she was not to the manor born, she definitely felt entitled to the luxury befitting her newfound stature. Sinema drew a Federal Elections Commission complaint over $180,000 in campaign expenditures before she’d announced she wasn’t seeking reelection. Those expenses included “luxury hotels, posh resorts, Michelin-star restaurants, international travel and winery visits.” Even after leaving, she outspent all of her colleagues on security during her last two years in office to the tune of $1.7 million, which included $300 to suit up her security detail in tuxes. Fife Symington The political career of John Fife Symington III, great-grandson of steel baron Henry Clay Frick and Arizona’s 19th governor, came to a cataclysmic end on Sept. 5, 1997. That’s when he resigned after being convicted on seven felony counts involving bank and wire fraud for “knowingly submitting false financial documents to three lenders.” Symington was already tarnished by having to file for bankruptcy while in office, with a debt of over $24 million when his real estate investments tanked. In February 1998, a federal judge sentenced Symington to 30 months in prison, which the former governor avoided serving while his case was on appeal. A year later, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the convictions, finding that the lower court erred in dismissing a juror during deliberations. The feds seemed poised to go after him again and Symington reportedly was ready to enter into a plea agreement to avoid trial, only for old pal Bill Clinton to pardon him before Clinton left the White House. The pardon was apparently payback for Symington having saved Clinton from drowning off the coast of Massachusetts in 1964. Tom Horne Despite the sleaze and scandal of his one-term stint as Arizona Attorney General — in addition to his lifetime ban on involvement in the securities trade from the Securities and Exchange Commission — Horne somehow returned to his previous post as Superintendent of Public Instruction in 2022 with a win over Democratic incumbent Kathy Hoffman. Such is the benefit of sitting out a few cycles and relying on the short attention span of the public, which had forgotten all about his tawdry time as the state’s top lawyer. Back then, the FBI investigated him, looking to nail him on alleged wire fraud, tampering with witnesses and obstruction of justice. Alas, prosecutors never pursued charges, even though a brave whistleblower named Sarah Beattie came forward to detail how Horne had improperly used his office and staff to run for reelection. Perhaps most embarrassing for Horne was an incident that sprang from the FBI’s investigation. While the FBI was tailing him, agents saw him commit an act of vehicular hit-and-run on a parked car. Horne was allegedly en route to an assigna- tion with his mistress, whom he had hired for a job in his office. (Of course!) Horne was married at the time, earning him the unoriginal sobriquet “Horne-dog.” When Horne’s wife passed, he married the mistress, so true love triumphed in the end. Accusations that Horne had improperly colluded with an independent expenditure committee hung over his head for years, as did the possibility of a $400,000 fine. But it ultimately came to naught, and Horne never had to pay penny one. Now, the 79-year-old oversees the state’s public school system and is making a right mess of it, partnering with the right-wing nonprofit PragerU, nearly losing $29 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Education (which he thinks should be abolished) and making it easier for parents to exploit the ESA voucher system. The one good thing we can say about Horne is that he’s said he doesn’t want ICE hunting for undocu- mented kids in Arizona schools. So kudos on that one, at least. Sen. Dennis DeConcini was so bruised by his involvement in the Keating Five scandal, he chose not to run for reelection after three terms in the Senate. (Win McNamee/Getty Images) Kyrsten Sinema was despised by the entire Arizona electorate by the end of her only term in the Senate. (Gage Skidmore/Flickr/CC- BY-SA 2.0) Fife Symington was convicted on seven felony counts involving bank and wire fraud, though the conviction was thrown out. President Bill Clinton pardoned him before prosecutors could retry the case. (Gage Skidmore/Flickr/ CC-BY-SA 2.0) Tom Horne was investigated by the FBI during his time as Arizona attorney general and now is making a mess of things in his second stint as the state’s superintendent of public instruction. Gage Skidmore/Flickr/CC-BY-SA 2.0 >> p 17
