The GOP-controlled Arizona House of Representatives expelled freshman Republican lawmaker Rep. Liz Harris in a bipartisan vote on Wednesday.
Harris was expelled by a majority of her fellow Republicans and all Democrats for disorderly behavior after inviting a speaker to a committee hearing who made unsubstantiated allegations of drug cartel bribery and election rigging against a number of elected officials, judges, and others.
The House 46–13 vote included 18 out of 31 Republicans and all 28 Democrats.
According to an ethics committee report, Harris was aware that the person she invited to the legislative hearing in February would make accusations of criminal activity against her colleagues. The report also stated that she tried to conceal this information from House leaders beforehand and provided misleading information during the committee’s investigation into her actions.
House Speaker Ben Toma, a Peoria Republican, introduced the resolution calling for Harris’s expulsion. The resolution alleged that she had violated her obligation to protect the integrity of the House and undermined the public’s trust in the institution.
“This comes down to the integrity, in my opinion, of this institution and us as leaders,” said Rep. David Livingston, a Republican who voted to expel Harris. “This is not personal.”
Harris had only been in office for three months, having been elected in 2022. She is now the fifth member of the Arizona Legislature to be expelled.
Harris’s precinct will now have five days to nominate three GOP candidates to fill the vacant seat. The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors will then choose which candidate will fill the rest of Harris’s two-year term.
The empty seat means Republicans have lost the one-vote majority they had in the House and will no longer have the 31 votes needed to pass legislation on a party-line vote.
The Allegations
Harris faced the expulsion vote after she invited Jacqueline Breger, an insurance agent from Scottsdale, to speak at a joint elections committee hearing in February.
Breger accused several high-level elected officials and other individuals and groups of being part of a scheme involving Mexican drug cartels, money laundering, fake housing deeds, and election fraud.
She provided no evidence to support her claims, which were widely condemned.
Breger pointed a finger at Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, legislators, the mayor of Mesa, judges, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Harris claimed she was unaware of Breger’s accusations, while an ethics committee report found that she knew ahead of time.
Rep. Stephanie Stahl Hamilton, a Tucson Democrat, filed the complaint with the House Ethics Committee, which ultimately found that Harris had violated the chamber’s rules and left it up to the House to determine disciplinary action.
‘I Stand for Honesty and Integrity’
Immediately after the vote, Harris addressed reporters’ questions as she carried boxes to her Tesla with the help of a handful of supporters.
“I stand for honesty and integrity,” Harris said. “The report is a lie.”
With respect to having a majority of the House Republicans voting to expel her, Harris said it was an “example of how you need to toe the line.”
“You need to toe the line. If you don’t toe the line, this is what happens,” she added.
When asked if she was upset or emotional about the vote, Harris, who appeared calm and collected, responded, “Am I crying?”
“Once again, I stand with the truth and I stand with integrity,” she added before moving to get into her car. As a final thought, she pointed to the Arizona State Capitol building and said, “This is the people’s house.”
Harris’s expulsion comes soon after state lawmakers in Tennessee voted to expel two out of three Democrats for participating in a protest on the House floor. Their actions were a breach of decorum. Both expelled lawmakers were voted back into their seats by their districts per Tennessee law.
The expulsion of Tennessee lawmakers was a similarly rare occurrence, having only happened twice since the Civil War.
