Maricopa County Supervisor Thomas Galvin was slammed by his Republican primary opponent for nominating Congressman David Schweikert’s 2022 opponent to fill a vacancy in the Arizona State House.
Former State Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, who is challenging Galvin, blasted Galvin on X.com:
Instead of appointing a placeholder, Democrat enabler @ThomasGalvin appoints Congressman David Schweikert’s 2022 Dem challenger to the Legislature. What a slap in the face!
Yet another reason why we need a real conservative on the @maricopacounty Board of Supervisors.
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors announced on Wednesday the appointment of former congressional candidate and former supervisor candidate Jevin Hodge to the Arizona House of Representatives.
Hodge fills the vacancy in Legislative District 8 left by Athena Salman.
“Jevin Hodge has proven himself to be an independent thinker and business advocate who puts community wellbeing ahead of politics,” Galvin said in a press release.
“I appreciated his thoughtful answers to my questionnaire, and I believe he will be a voice of reason and a potential consensus builder at the State Capitol,” said Galvin of Hodge, a seasoned political insider.
Yet in 2020 and again in 2022, Republicans campaigned against Hodge and what they said was his liberal positions on issues that placed him well outside the mainstream. Hodge narrowly lost the 2020 Supervisor race and was also very competitive 2022 when he ran against Republican David Schweikert for Congress. Hodge also served as Vice-Chairman of the Arizona Democratic Party where he has been an enthusiastic cheerleader for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
“At the same time, is anyone really surprised at who the Supervisors let into their clubhouse?” asked one county observor, adding “Plus they had to pick one of the three Democrats on the list, and the other two were hardly prizes.”
Galvin’s own status as a political insider who was loyal to powerful interests in the County, was largely credited for his surprise appointment to the vacant Supervisor seat last year. According to reporting from The Intercept, Galvin’s connections and loyalties extend all the way to Saudi Arabia, as he was outed as a lobbyist for the Saudi company buying up drought-stricken Arizona’s groundwater for use in producing agricultural crops for export back to Saudi Arabia.
That revelation does not sit well with his Arizona constituents as Arizona faces drought-related restrictions and Lake Powell, situated behind Glen Canyon Dam on the Utah-Arizona border, inches closer to dead pool.
When Thomas Galvan was named as a potential replacement for Steve Chucri on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, conservative members of the Republican Party grassroots were disappointed and surprised. Normally, replacements are chosen from the ranks of Party faithful who work tirelessly to get their fellow Republicans elected to boards and offices, and the little-known Galvin was not one of them.
Still, Galvin’s appointment to replace Chucri made sense to observers who noted that he was a slavish supporter of Board policies and, as an attorney and lobbyist with a well-connected firm, he might be just the kind of loyalist the oft-under fire Board might be seeking.
Galvin lobbied on behalf of the Saudi-owned farming company, which is using Arizona’s most depleted natural resource for foreign exports.
State lobbying disclosures show that Galvin is a partner at Rose Law Group, which lobbied on behalf of a subsidiary of the Saudi corporation Almarai currently tapping U.S. groundwater in drought-stricken Arizona and California to grow alfalfa. The animal feed, which is grown in harsh desert environments, is shipped overseas to support livestock on Saudi dairy farms. In 2014, Almarai bought almost 10,000 acres of farmland in Vicksburg, Arizona, through its wholly owned subsidiary Fondomonte, spending nearly $50 million on the purchase. The near-nonexistent water regulations in La Paz County, where Vicksburg is located, mean that Fondomonte can pump vast amounts of water out of Arizona’s water table, which has declined by over 50 feet in the past two decades.
Before joining the board of supervisors, Galvin appeared at the Arizona State Legislature to lobby against H.B. 2520, a bill instructing the Arizona Department of Water Resources to monitor the wells and water levels in the Upper Colorado River water planning area. At the hearing, Galvin told Land, Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee members, “I am not sure that this bill is right for this time right now. … I’m afraid that, if this bill passes, what we’ll be doing is singling out farms and large agricultural users. You might actually be forcing farms to release proprietary data.” The bill ultimately failed, but not before Galvin called residents concerned about foreign capital draining their aquifers, racist.
Galvin’s decision to support Hodge, who narrowly lost to Schweikert in 2022 is considered a slap in the face to a Republican Party that is struggling with infighting.