Will Vote For Tickets: Sunday’s Comic

Fiesta Bowl Scandal Did Not Change Arizona Legislators’ Free Ticket Perk

Despite the blustery demands for reforms in the wake of the Fiesta Bowl scandal in 2011, little changed for Arizona politicians and the special interests who lobby them. As a result, Arizona legislators have regularly been offered, and have accepted, tickets to the three state universities’ athletic events for free.

So on Saturday, while Arizona’s cash-strapped families figure out a way to get in front of cable television to watch the UofA Wildcats take on the ASU Sun Devils, some Arizona legislators will take in the game gratis.

According to a March 2012, press release from the FBI, “The former executive director of the Fiesta Bowl has admitted his role in the making of illegal federal campaign contributions by the bowl. He admitted that while serving as the Fiesta Bowl’s executive director, he conspired with others to solicit political campaign contributions from Fiesta Bowl employees and to later reimburse those employees in the guise of employee bonuses. Although Junker acknowledged that he knew that making campaign contributions in the name of others was illegal, he nonetheless instructed Natalie Wisneski, the Fiesta Bowl’s chief operating officer, to use bonuses to reimburse employees for their contributions.”

…. But nothing changed according to legislators. The universities can still give away tickets as long as they offer them to all legislators.

Some legislators like Rep. Rosanna Gabaldon, a democrat out of LD2, are more eager to snatch them up than others. Emails produced in response to a records request by the Arizona Daily Independent in its investigation of a “trade mission” to Mexico earlier this year, show that Gabaldon is a fan of the Wildcats…..

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