According to a report in yesterday’s Yellow Sheet (subscription required), State Representative Adam Driggs failed to pay the property taxes on his home for nearly two years, resulting in a tax lien being filed and eventually sold to an investor. The Yellow Sheet also noted that Driggs paid off the lien the same week that he told the Yellow Sheet that he was “99%” certain he would be running for Congress in CD3. Driggs’ defense was that “…the unpaid taxes were little more than a misunderstanding, and one that was cleared up almost immediately.” and he added “”I didn’t realize that until [we received a notice] that said, ‘You’re late.’ As soon as I found out, I went down and paid it immediately.”
Voters in LD11 will know that Driggs had earlier attacked his opponent Rich Davis for claiming a tax exemption on a property he no longer lived in. News that Driggs was a tax delinquent himself will strike more than a few voters as hypocritical.
Same deal as Treasurer candidate Doug Ducey. What is it with these Paradise Valley RINOs? Don’t they realize they are supposed to live by the same rules as the rest of us?
Apples and oranges.
Where to start? First of all, Driggs wasn’t claiming any tax exemptions, was only late, and therefore paid a penalty for being late. Davis’ indiscretion has much greater implications. Under ‘penalty of perjury’ Davis claimed that it was his ‘primary residence’…if that was indeed true then he wasn’t a residence of AZ and couldn’t run. So either he was running for office in Arizona illegally or he was claiming a tax break illegally. Fair point to bring up in an election I would say. He didn’t do a thing about it until it was exposed, then claimed ignorance.
According to Driggs’ explanation in the Yellow Sheets (which you didn’t care to post here) he had changed from a conventional loan to a construction loan and didn’t know the mortgage company was not paying the taxes with an escrow account as most mortgage companies do. Certainly doesn’t sound like he was trying to evade taxes.
The main point of difference is that Driggs took care of this months ago, long before the campaign season began and without having been “caught” by his opponent. This is so irrelevant, but because Constantine & Company want to mimic other campaign strategies, they try to “Doug Ducey” Driggs.
Nice try guys, this is such a non-story.
No matter which way SA spins this (including their usual omissions of inconvenient facts)Driggs is still the clear winner. CQ needs to crawl back under his wet, slimy rock.
How much longer do we have to endure SA’s lies, misinformation and fascist propaganda? Hopefully only until the Primaries are over, and ALL of their candidates lose.
I see that “Mr. Friend of the Taxpayer” Scott Bundgaard, LD4 candidate for Senate is behind in paying his taxes, too, on seven of his eight properties. http://www.maricopa.gov/Assessor/ParcelApplication/Detail.aspx?ID=504-66-001-R
City of Peoria has filed a lien on him also:
http://www.azsos.gov/scripts/ucc_search.dll/DisplayImages
Must be something in the RINO water.
Hi Mrs. Harper; how are you? How’s your psycho-ass husband Jack?
Yep, apples and oranges. If you don’t pay the property tax, someone else buys the debt, pays the tax, and then recovers from the taxpayer (principal and interest) when he does pay. So the public is not “out” any money and the risk (and reward) is put on the debt buyer.
If you just go ahead and outright cheat on your taxes by taking the exemption for a primary residence when it’s not, then the public loses the tax revenue it’s entitled to.
So Driggs has fully paid the taxes he owed. Has Davis sent Washington DC a check yet for his bogus tax break? $67,000 in value for every year he claimed DC as his home? plus penalties?
Did someone also forget that they had to have a license to perform escrow transactions?
http://www.azdfi.gov/Final/Forms/Driggs_Title_Agency_Inc_Consent_to_ULA-.pdf
Also, what happened in the Houston market? I’m still trying to find out about that.
Posted too quickly. A cursory search finds the same thing in Texas. What is it with these unlicensed escrow businesses, Mr. Driggs?
http://www.tdi.state.tx.us/news/2010/news201015.html
I saw the yellow sheet article and it didn’t have near the spin as the blog post. It appears that Driggs owns a home in LD 11 which is where he lives. He has always paid property taxes through his monthly mortgage payments. He remodeled his home with a construction loan which he probably thought was also paying his property taxes. The big difference between Driggs and Davis and Ducey is that Driggs corrected it on his own. He never evaded taxes. He paid them. And the Yellow Sheet reported that he even pre-paid the next years taxes 8 months early. That seems to be a person who is a responsible taxpayer.
Is Sonoran Alliance or Davis claiming something sinister here??? Driggs took care of the mistake when nobody was watching, and was responsible. Is this the type of mistake that should exclude a person from public service? If so, no good people will run for office.
I still don’t believe how Davis’ spin has avoided the question that the Driggs mailer originally brought up. Where does Davis live? I am not a political groupie, but I know many people in LD11 and I had never heard of Rich Davis until he announced he was running for State Senate. I think it is a completely fair question: Where does Rich Davis really live? How long has he lived in Arizona?
If you look at the Arizona Republic candidate questions, it asks: How long have you lived in Arizona? All the other candidates answered this simple question except Davis, who simply wrote, “I am an Arizona native.” Another non-answer from the mysterious Davis. Answer the question. And show some proof. How about showing where your wife works? Did she work in Arizona or D.C. over the last four years? I notice she comes to District 11 meetings all the time now, but she used to never come. Maybe she was in D.C.?
I don’t know the answer to that question, but it seems that if Davis has been in Arizona since 2006 like he claims, and he is such the big shot that he claims to be, it would seem he would be better known by people in the area. Nobody knows him.
Did you know that he and his wife were max donors to Jon Kyl in 2006 and Jon Kyl still endorsed Driggs? Why? Because Kyl knows Driggs is a solid conservative and he doesn’t even know Davis. Not even a photo-opportunity picture for Davis to use on a “wannabe” mailer.
I predict when the analysis is done, that it will show that Davis bought his place in Phoenix in 2006 so he could run for office in 2010. That he maintained his primary residence in Washington, D.C. where he does most of his work, but established a slight paper trail to claim residency in AZ, everything but actual, physical presence.
He is a carpet-bagger and I am not voting for him. Carpet-baggers don’t end up helping the conservative cause in Arizona, Rick Renzi and John McCain come to mind. Driggs has a very conservative voting record and self-corrected his error without a news story or opponent catching him. That tells me all I need to know.
Looks like I’m late to this party, but look at Team Driggs covering tracks here. Too funny guys. A couple of days ago, making an error on your taxes disqualified you from office, not its a “relative” thing. Driggs claims he paid as soon as he got notice? What a liar. They don’t let you not pay for 18 months before sending you a notice. He paid up because he was ready to run for Congress. At least he was until that race filled up with big dollars and he wimped out and bounced back to the Senate race.
I love Chris N musing on the post-election “analysis” that will reveal motives behind Rich Davis moving home to Arizona. Hey, nutjob, who do you imagine performs that sort of analysis work? I’ve never heard of it. Or are you just sounding our your conspiracy theories to try and help your pal Driggs out?
Also, love the McCain bashing from the Driggs people to try to make him sound like he’s a conservative. Of course, the truth about Driggs screws you every time, like his endorsement of McCain. Too funny guys. But you get an “A” for effort.
And I think what is lost in all this faux smoke you are blowing is that Driggs knew he was a screwup on his own taxes but tried to use a tax screwup to beat up his opponent and declare him unfit. Hypocrite is the right word alright. Typical sleazy seat-shopping career politician is the right six words for it.
That silly Davis. He screwed up and applied for a homestead tax break for a DC home he didn’t live in, then screwed up for the last several years and accidentally never read his tax bills that showed him saving a bunch of cash in DC taxes. Good thing Driggs is running, or Davis still wouldn’t know about his screwup.
If this is actually the Davis spin from now until Tuesday, Driggs should win in a walk.
DEAR AVERAGE VOTER – LET’S CLEAR THE RECORD.
I looked up Driggs Title on Arizona Corporation Commission online records It is owned by Adam H. Driggs, date of birth is 1971, and he lives in Scottsdale, 85262, as on other public records.
State Rep. Adam D. Driggs has a date of birth of 1965 and of course, lives in Phoenix, not Scottsdale. HENCE, NO RELATION!
So, before we go off on these political frenzies, let’s fact check.
There may always be someone else with the same name – but not the same person. Let’s be careful with people’s good names.
Dear Jon Altmann
Good idea to look it up. All of it that is… http://www.maricopa.gov/Assessor/GIS/TreasMap.html
DRIGGS ADAM DORSEY/LEONORE M parcel number 127-11-031
Property Address: 4231 E CLARENDON AVE
PHOENIX 85018
Redeemed Tax Lien – tax year 2008
CP Base Tax $1,917.52 CP Base Amount $2,365.76
CP Base Interest $332.36 CP Interest $0.00
CP Base Advertisement Fee $95.88 Fees $0.00
Lien sales happen in February after several notices go out telling the property owner they are past due.
Thanks for the suggestion!
I gotta side with PV Conservative on this one. We ALL get noticies from our mortgage loans and the taxes are list on there. Davis’s post in response to Driggs says the discrepancy has been rectified. It does seem a little hypocritical. What is most clear in all of this is that none the posters here want to discuss any of the real issues in the campaign. If anyone had been to one of the LD11 debates they would have seen how good a candidate Davis realy is. As for being “mysterious”? His website has a contact phone number. I don’t think he’s hiding from anyone.
Hey Average Voter, you are an idiot. Those two posts you have up above (8 and 9) are referring to a completely different Adam Driggs that owns a title agency in Phoenix and lives in Scottsdale as Altman was trying to point out. Nice research Sherlock. Maybe I can find some other Richard Davis that is a felon and bring it to life on Sonoran Alliance! Get a clue.
All you Davis people are grasping at straws here. Some of you are even citing a different Adam Driggs in your attacks. What’s next, out of your camp? “This just in, Driggs finds a quarter in a vending machine dispenser and fails to report income!”
……………………
LD17 Says:
August 18th, 2010 at 3:59 pm
How much longer do we have to endure SA’s lies, misinformation and fascist propaganda?
………………
Fascist? Ae you lazy, dishonest, don’t know the meaning of it, or just a typical Democrat?
T Johnson is so busy calling folks names that he misses or ignores the point that was already made and has been unanswered by the Driggs loyalists. Driggs lied when he said he paid as soon as he found out, because they don’t wait 18+ months to tell you that you are late. He would have been notified several times during that 18 months and he ignored the notices until he was set to run for Congress. I guess he figured it wouldn’t look too good to run for Congress if you had decided to just stop paying your taxes. So Driggs lied about this stuff, but so far nothing from his friends about that. Anything? Or just attacks on Davis to distract?
I think everyone is missing the point here. For the sake of discussion, let’s assume that Driggs and Davis are both reasonably intelligent people that understand if you own property, you are supposed to pay your property taxes. Especially if you are planning to run for elected office, because it can become pretty embarrassing if you don’t. So, assuming all that, there is really no other rational explanation for either of their tax mistakes than it was a complete unintentional oversight on both of their parts. Which is how both candidates explained their inactions — Driggs thought the taxes were being paid by his mortgage company, and Davis forgot he was receiving a discount he was not entitled to. Simple and completely believable explanations; and completely irrelevant to their candidacies and the election.
The difference here is Davis’s mistake IS relevant for a completely different reason as it raised two very relevant questions: (1) where his primary residency was, and (2) where he was registered to vote. Because both of these questions bear directly on a person’s qualifications to run for state office, it is certainly reasonable to ask the question: has Davis resided in and been registered to vote in Arizona for the past three years, or has Davis been living in and registered to vote in Washington D.C. Driggs’s raising the issue was both reasonable and relevant. In his response Davis intimated that the tax oversight was his accountant’s. Fair enough, but what can his accountant tell us about Davis’s voter registration? Mr. Davis very well may be an “Arizona native” (not a requirement to run for office, fortunately), but he hasn’t yet offered any explanation or evidence of when his voter registration changed from Washington, D.C. to Arizona. I’m guessing that this is easier to find out than finding a copy of President Obama’s birth certificate.
Look, I’m sure both candidates will be more careful in the future about paying their property taxes. Driggs did rightfully self-correct his mistake without any political embarrassment (or so he thought). The 18 month time period is certainly understandable if you get your tax bill in the mail, but think that the mortgage company has already paid it — obviously something finally got his attention and he paid it even prepaying this year. Davis, on the other hand, probably wishes his accountant was a little better bookkeeper and discovered Davis’s oversight three years ago so as to avoid the embarrassment of being labeled a “carpetbagger” (Davis — note to self: hire a new accountant). It appears that Davis has spent the majority of his adult and working life in California and Washington, D.C., he should feel lucky to receive any consideration at all from Arizona voters.
Lucky, you ask? Yes, lucky, because Mr. Davis would be pretty lucky to win an election without any record upon which the voters can make an informed decision. Native Arizonan — CHECK. Worked at Homeland Security for a couple of years — CHECK. CEO of a research company formed right after his time at Homeland Security and that has been awarded government contracts worth millions — CHECK (Noted Davis endorser Juan Zarate is listed as a contributing author on the $1.3 million contract — interesting). President of an energy company that we can only speculate what it does as Davis has never explained how his “company [is] working to lessen dependence on foreign oil” — CHECK. All in all, not much of a record to speak of. Not to mention that his primary work experience is with an agency that is primarily to blame for Arizona’s border woes.
Driggs, on the other hand, has a record, and a thoughtful record at that. Any suit can be conditioned to salivate every time an extreme conservative vote is placed before him, but true conservative leadership takes wisdom, creativity and the ability to work with fellow legislators with differing viewpoints all the while staying true to one’s conservative principals. Driggs has done just that, and has been publicly recognized for such leadership. Driggs may not have voted with Washington, Jefferson and Franklin (especially since they are all dead), but he did vote for SB1070 (Senator Pearce himself thanked Driggs for helping to make SB1070 a better bill) and many other important conservative efforts that the legislature dealt with to make Arizona a better place to live.
Unless you are blinded by science, Driggs seems to be the logical conservative choice here.
T Johnson – your and idiot. post #15 is correct. follow the links or just look it up yourself.
sorry about the spelling, still asleeeep………..
Mole, I never said post 15 was incorrect, it is old news. I called Average Voter an idiot because he was blaming candidate Driggs for issues from a different Adam Driggs (posts 8 and 9), or can you not read? I realize Driggs was late in paying his property tax and he explained it. How exactly was he enriched by paying late? What did he gain? He gained nothing except paying MORE money on his taxes! Why would someone CHOOSE to not pay their property taxes if they indeed wanted to remain in their residence? It was an honest mistake. Davis on the otherhand WAS enriched by his tax gaffe. He RECEIVED tax benefits by claiming it as his primary residence. We KNOW Driggs is paid in full…we have NO proof that Davis is squared up with the District of Columbia.
PV Conservative–sorry for calling people names, so sorry for offending you. But me calling Average Voter an idiot came a few posts after you called Driggs “a liar”. I was just having a little bit of fun with AV, noting how stupid it was that he thought he found some dirt on Driggs by posting issues relating to a different Adam Driggs. You have to admit that is pretty lame. On the other hand, calling someone “a liar!” is pretty serious stuff. I can prove AV is an idiot by pointing out his stupid posts. You cannot prove Driggs is a liar, you can only throw that name at him with nothing to back it up. Questioning someones integrity without any proof is a little more serious than calling out someones lack of smarts. Pretty cowardly if you ask me.
This is what it is getting down to – name calling. Assertions without foundation.
Why, in either the LD11 House or Senate races, do we see such high numbers of out of state campaign donations? It gives the appearance that forces outside Arizona wish to control our state legislature. If that’s not a “border” issue, then what is?
I am concerned when I see a candidate use a photo a 4-Star serving U.S. Army General in a campaign photo and then it turns out there was no permission granted for use of such photo in a campaign mailer. And the candidate using that photo served in Federal service at a higher service grade so there should have been no excuse for knowing the Hatch Act and DoD regulations on such photo usage.
Taking tax advantages when such tax advantage is not correct, deserved or qualified leaves me wondering if that person seeking office can make good judgements concerning Arizona tax policy.
This political season has given rise to a lot of just plain nastiness. I have cleaned up several of my candidates’ signs. Several had poronographic, vulgar, mean-spirited writing on them. One such sign was immediately in front of a church and what was put on it should never be seen by children! Another candidate is having his signs cut out in the middle only a week before the election.
Two supporters, one in the south part of the district, the other in the north, both living on busy residential streets have had someone come onto their property in the dark of night and steal 4×4 signs, poles and all – came onto their private property front lawns!
Another candidate is using Facebook to call another candidate a liar. Calling names on Facebook! Is that decorum?
I’ve heard people tell me in the last election and this one that because one candidate is of a certain Faith, that it is “widely known” said candidate has everyone in his Faith “single shotting” that candidate. Really? I am a church leader in my faith and well aware of the others worshipping in our district. I find such silliness just that – silly and without basis in fact.
We need to elect Legislators whose resume speaks to qualified community participation, educational background, experience and some vision on how we get out of a bad economic situation. We need Legislators who turn from partisan platforms that propel them into office to then molding those platforms with others to simply do the business of Arizona – not necessarily the business of one ideology or another. The math of the Arizona Legislature is 16 & 31 – right now, I’m not sure most candidates have that basic math skill.
Statesmanship is a quality demonstrated.
We need less of these sophomoric exchanges and more discussion on who is best prepared to fill the shoes of what we need – Statesmen. Until then, we will continue to see great numbers register as Independents, not as Republicans.
All politics today is retail. And the voters are not buying a lot of this rhetoric and symbology that is on sale, no matter how many smiley faces, photo ops and catchy one-liners we put out there.
We’re Republicans. We should be better than that.
Jon, you’re such a suck-up on this and every other blog when it comes to LD11 incumbents that its impossible to take you seriously. I know you want to run for office yet again someday and are still trying to build bridges, but folks in the district aren’t fooled by it.
T Johnson, Driggs is a liar, or you can call him an idiot if you prefer. Anyone who gets notifications that they haven’t paid property taxes for 18 months and claims that they didn’t isn’t being honest. If we accept the excuse you are trying to craft for him — that he got them but thought the mortgage company was paying them — then maybe you ought to go back to your “idiot” label because Driggs is a lawyer that we’re now supposed to believe started getting “you haven’t paid your taxes” notices and just plain ignored them? He didn’t call anyone to check? Notice after notice for more than 18 months and he NEVER checked on it? Nope, sorry, not believable. And probably good for you that its not, because if we believed that, we would seriously have to question his judgment.
Please Mr. PV…a little civility…this isn’t really about you.
Again, PV, you are missing the point. It really doesn’t matter whether or if Driggs is a liar or an idiot. Simple fact: he missed his property tax payment and then later paid it with penalties — plus he prepaid for the following year. Done, all on his own without any prodding from the peanut gallery. Not only is this completely irrelevant to the election, but why or how it happened is also completely irrelevant.
Davis’s underpayment of his property taxes and later payment with penalties (has he paid?) would have also been completely irrelevant, if it were not for the questions it raised: (1) where he resided, (2) where he was registered to vote and (3) where he filed his tax returns — all questions that bear directly on Davis’s qualifications to run for office in Arizona. Davis was pretty gratuitous in thanking Mr. Driggs for pointing out his mistake so he (or his accountant) could correct it. Maybe Mr. Davis will be kind enough to humor us with when he changed his voter registration from Washington, D.C. to Arizona, or show us his first tax return that he filed in Arizona after moving back from DC. Davis shouldn’t be too worried about someone seeing how much money he made, all the government contracts and the millions that he made are well published on the internet. I am happy to wait till Tuesday for an answer.
Dear PV Conservative (Oscar)
Your blood is really boiling ain’t it? Your REDFACED rants show a lot of anger and hate. Candidate Driggs must have caused you so much pain and grief. So far you have ranted on and on calling people nutjobs, liars, and suck-ups. You really need to relax. Don’t worry, it will all be over soon and then you can crawl back into your garbage can Mr. Grouch.
Same technique from so many of you, I’m starting to think I’m debating one person with lots of screen names. First, you try to steer people in the wrong direction with innuendo, claiming that Davis’ tax error “raises questions” when it doesn’t. “But where does he live?” you whine, when according to the other side of the same Driggs mailer, his Phoenix home is clearly referenced. “Where is he registered to vote?” when its publicly available and already searched for by Team Driggs. You can be certain that if they’re scouring public records in other states looking for dirt that they checked right here in Arizona to see if he was registered to vote or if he was voting. “Is he qualified to run in Arizona?” when his presence is a pretty clear indication that the answer is yes. If Driggs thought otherwise, he would have asked Tom Haney to file another complaint for him. No, Driggs knows better and so do you all. Your goal is simply to see if you can raise enough false questions to scare away voters. Sad, and likely ineffective, but that you spend your time like this instead of defending Driggs’ voting record is the most telling of all.
That’s not “REDFACED”, its just stating it like it is. And is there some computer language meaning in REDFACED being in ALL CAPS that I don’t know? I thought ALL CAPS meant yelling or shouting, so why yell/shout at me during a complaint about rants? Very inconsistent, much like your posts.
For Tom, you claim that Davis has made “millions” and that it is well published on the Internet. I’m sure you’re not just throwing around half-truths, so could you please direct us to the “millions” that Davis has made? Of course I wonder why a “multi-millionaire” like you claim Davis to be hasn’t spent freely to defend himself from the Driggs attack mailers? Oh well, maybe he knows something we don’t.
His residency is relevant simply because, should he win, Democrats will surely make the case that Davis doesn’t meet the residency requirement since he declared Washington DC his primary home.
What bothers me is his so-called “error” itself. Giving him the benefit of the doubt that he has lived here for awhile, he applied for and got himself a tax exemption he wasn’t entitled to. There’s a phrase for that: tax fraud.
PV Conservative
You keep talking about Driggs’ liberal voting record. Please cite examples. Prove to us his is liberal in his voting record. Please provide 5 examples of him voting against Republican bills. Put your money where your mouth is. All I ask for is 5 examples in his four years at the Capitol. Come on, you call him a “career politician” so since 4 years is a career you should be able to give us lots of examples of his liberal voting record. Can you do it? The way you talk you about his voting record, you should be able to give 20 or more examples. There should be too many to choose from. List them out, one by one.
New to this thread, but not to this story. AZDryHeat is completely misrepresenting the facts, either on accident or to make Davis look bad. Since this is Sonoran Alliance, we can safely assume it is deliberate to make someone look bad. He claims that Davis was living in Arizona and “applied for” an exemption he wasn’t entitled to in DC, thus committing fraud. But all of the coverage out there is that David applied for it while living in D.C. and the error was in not “unchecking” the box after he left. That’s a far cry from any of us living here in Arizona and just suddenly applying for the credit in D.C.
Just thought you all might appreciate a little fact with your steady diet of spin. Well, all of you except AZDryHeat, T Johnson, and Tom. They might not appreciate it too much at all.
Also worth pointing out, in case there are any actual undecided voters reading this stuff, is how exhausting it must get to keep responding to outright lies. In Post #30, T Johnson writes “PV Conservative – You keep talking about Driggs’ liberal voting record.”
Except PV Conservative isn’t talking about Driggs’ liberal voting record. Its like some sort of bizarre straw man argument. You can look at every post on here from PV Conservative and there isn’t a single “liberal voting record” comment on here from him/her. Not a single one. Of course, there should be several, because T Johnson doesn’t say “You mentioned one time” but rather “You KEEP talking about” so the assertion is that it has happened again and again and again.
Except that it didn’t. Not even once. It was just a lie, designed to put PV Conservative on the defensive over some comment he/she never made. That’s pretty weak when that’s all you’ve got left.
Again with the “it was just a paperwork error” spin. If Davis applied for the tax break, he knew he was getting it, yes? So at what point did he supposedly forget? Does he not read his tax bill every year?
Of course there’s no way to prove whether or not Davis forgot about it, it just doesn’t pass the straight face test. The spin that he’s a really, really smart guy, who was completely oblivious that he was getting a $67,000 tax break.
i don’t deal in half-truths. Here is the truth:
Air Force Contract: $1,378,642 – “MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF MORAL VALUES, MENTAL MODELS AND SOCIAL DYNAMICS ON INTERGROUP CONFLICT” awarded 4/30/10
https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=4a385c3138a15b1edc8d8a98685d02a7&tab=core&_cview=0
Defense Dept. Contracts: $787,427 – three (3) separate contracts from 2008-2009 totaling the above amount.
http://www.governmentcontractswon.com/department/defense/artis-research-risk-modeling-800098472.asp?yr=09
At this point we can only speculate what other government contracts Mr. Davis has or will be pursuing as President of Davis Energy, Inc.
I hope this helps sway your decision on election day — a carpetbagging self-described conservative political opportunist OR a conservative local public servant who has a record of protecting Arizona and Arizonans and making this a better place to live and raise our families.
PV Conservative sure sounds like sour grapes Don Hasselbrock. Hasselbrock had no one to blame but himself for losing in 2006 and letting DeSimone get the Dem foothold that continues today. He’s still telling people that Driggs screwed him by having all the Mormons single-shot vote for him in 2006. Yeah, Don, how many Mormons do you think live in LD11 – not enough to throw an election, even if it were true.
I’ve gone to some of the LD11 meetings. What a bunch of sour grapes in the place. I’m in my own hell in 7, but wow, the fighting in 11 should be made into a tv sitcom.
Thanks Goodyear, but I wasn’t going to take the bait in any case. This thread isn’t about Driggs’ voting record, its about the hypocrite he is for having his own tax problems while acting all virtuous and casting stones at Davis for his. At the last district meeting Col. Tom Smith asked him (Driggs) if his first dishonest attack piece was his own idea or his father’s. I haven’t been around long enough to know what the first generation of Driggs politicians was like, but Col. Smith has, and I take it this nut didn’t fall too far from the tree.
Now they’ll attack Col. Smith, but something tells me that ol’ guy could care less what a bunch of bloggers don’t dare say to his face.
And Tom, I think there is a difference between gross receipts that exceed a million dollars and “making” millions of dollars. Your initial claim is that Davis “made” millions. That is clearly false. I wouldn’t call it a half-truth because it is not any truth at all. Gross and Net are two vastly different things, and using Gross because it suits the argument you’re trying to spin is just a dishonest way of doing things. i don’t expect you to admit your mistake, that’s not the Driggs way. But it is still your error in any case.
Bedtime for me, but I’m appalled at Tom’s attacking Davis for having contracts with the Department of Defense given that Davis’ company produces product that appears to be almost exclusively suited for use by our armed forces. If you have a company that makes tanks, the fact that the military uses taxpayer money to buy them from you doesn’t make you a bad guy. it means you’re providing our armed forces with tools they need to stay alive and win. This seems to be a real pattern with you Driggs folks where you trash the folks who are working to keep us all safe and free. I think its pathetic.
You also ignore the fact that if Davis has non-government contracts, they wouldn’t be on any website, so you can’t say for sure if the government work is the bulk of his business or 5% of it. I assume its the bulk given the nature of the product, but none of us know for sure. You’re just attacking it to make him seem like he’s living off of taxpayers in some ugly way. Again, pathetic.
Goodnight all.
million…millions…half…quarter…gross…net…what difference does it make? one penny should be enough to tip this balance (pardon the hyperbole). it should be pretty clear to everyone that Mr. Davis parlayed two years of national service into a pretty lucrative venture. no spinning necessary.
PV, why are you defending Davis on this issue?…you sound conservative…no?
Goodyear GOP…
PV Conservative IS attacking Driggs’ record. Here is a quote from him…
“but that you spend your time like this instead of defending Driggs’ voting record is the most telling of all”…again, sounds like he’s talking about his “horrible” voting record.
Still waiting for PV Conservative to tell us how Driggs does such a horrible job in the legislature and sides with the democrats so much.
All I hear are crickets.
His conservative voting record speaks for itself. And when he is voted to the Senate next week, Mr. Sour Grapes PV will continue his rants, for reasons unknown.
P.S. Way to go after a candidate’s father. John Driggs has done a lot of great service for this state and this country. Why he would be brought into this fray is beyond me, but just speaks volumes about your character, PV Conservative.
Goodyear GOP…
PV Conservative IS attacking Driggs’ record. Here is a quote from him…
“but that you spend your time like this instead of defending Driggs’ voting record is the most telling of all”…again, sounds like he’s talking about his “horrible” voting record.
Still waiting for PV Conservative to tell us how Driggs does such a horrible job in the legislature and sides with the democrats so much.
All I hear are crickets.
His conservative voting record speaks for itself. And when he is voted to the Senate next week, Mr. Sour Grapes PV will continue his rants, for reasons unknown.
P.S. Way to go after a candidate’s father. John Driggs has done a lot of great service for this state and this country. Why he would be brought into this fray is beyond me, but just speaks volumes about your character, PV Conservative.
PV Conservative:
You are clearly an ally of Rich Davis. I assume you live in Paradise Valley. I assume you are active in political circles.
Did you meet Rich Davis around the time he announced his candidacy for State Senate last year? Or have you known him since he claims to have been an integral part of LD11 in June of 2006. I am not a PC. My friends are. They say they never had even heard of Davis until he announced his candidacy. My guess is that you met him around the same time also. He wasn’t Adam Driggs, so you jumped on his bandwagon.
Driggs mailer asked a legitimate question about Davis’ residency.
Does Sen. Tom Smith condone Davis’ three hit pieces against Driggs before Driggs even responded? Does Smith condone Davis erroneously telling the entire district that Driggs’ law practice defends illegal immigrants when anyone who has been to a district meeting has heard Driggs say he has never defended an illegal immigrant in his career. At the debate, Driggs challenged anyone to check the Court dockets and they will know he is telling the truth. Did Davis check? No. He just threw out a completely false allegation.
Driggs cited facts in his mailer. There was no opinion. There was no spin. He asked two important questions all voters should want to know. 1. Where does Davis really live? and 2. Is he really a national security expert that he says he is. Driggs laid out a pretty compelling timeline that showed that Davis had no prior background or experience in National Security prior to getting the job at Homeland Security.
Has Davis answered the questions? No.
Davis has never provided any evidence that he has spent the majority of his time in Arizona. It would be easy for him to do. Show us your cell phone record for the last three years. Show us your wife’s W-2 form for the Arizona business where she has been working the last three years? Or has she been working in D.C.????
Davis has never shown us what qualified him for the job at Homeland Security. He never tells voters how short a time he was there. He doesn’t tell us why he left in 2006 when the Bush administration had two more years to go. Shouldn’t voters care why he bailed on Pres. Bush when Davis’ services were so needed to our nation at a “time of war.”(according to Davis himself)
No answers from Davis. But he did hang up on reporter Dennis Welch when he didn’t like how the interview was going.
PV conservative doesn’t like Adam or John Driggs. Proven commodities in Arizona. He loves Rich Davis. A complete unknown who has completely embellished his record to snow voters in Arizona. Luckily it is hot here and the snow is melting. We will all be better served if Driggs wins.
Dear PV Conservative,
At the risk of turning this into the exchange side for sidebars off subject of the main story….
You’re certainly entitled to your opinion of me. But, truly, what you see is what you get. I’m my own guy. It does not involve any vacuum action.
This has been an absolutely nasty election cycle.
I don’t know if I will make another run at a public office – but I may, just no immediate plans. Honestly, I stepped away from 2010 due to concerns with my business, making money and attention to my family and church. My church community and my family, especially my wife, have been great in the previous trials. And I say “trial” because of the sampling of nastiness that seems to be engrained in politics of late.
I am proud to stand with Adam Driggs, not because he is an incumbent, but because he has earned my respect. If Adam Driggs had been a Sailor like I have been, this is a man I would go to war with and count on. I would rely on him to faithfully stand the watch.
I have never heard Adam use a foul word or say anything nasty about anyone. I am molded by the Navy character words of Honor, Courage and Committment. Adam Driggs, for me, is the example to help define those words.
The same offer to enthusiastically help has been on the table and made to others in the past – incumbent or not.
But one thing you need to know, PV Conservative, is in the culture of a Navy Chief, “suck up” or butt kisssing or whatever graphic description you lay upon the water – well, you just don’t know so I can’t explain it to you. For me, simply not possible. And don’t confuse diplomacy and being nice with the other.
In the meantime, go forth and let’s finish this primary with civility and simply go forward and talk with voters. Regardless of our choices.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
Wake me up when PV Conservative comes up with some concrete information regarding Driggs’ liberal voting record in the House.
I’m still hearing crickets PV Conservative. Give us 5 votes that he made that should make us change our vote to Smigelski. It should be so easy, since you are a conservative and have such a distaste for Driggs and his record in the House.
Crickets.
Back home from work to settle in for another evening of fun on the blogs and what do I see? Apparently Team Driggs doesn’t have day jobs or their bosses let them blog from work.
Love Tom’s response in #39. How about “truth, half-truth, quarter-truth, no-truth, what difference does it make?” To you Tom, none at all apparently. You said he made millions, and when Goodyear called you on it, you didn’t admit to any sort of deception or even mistake but just kept on spinning. Sad man, really sad. I get it, you love Driggs, you’ll lie for Driggs, and you’re not really here for a debate or anything, you’re just pimping for Driggs. Fine. But now that we’ve established that about you, what’s the point in debating you?
Much the same goes for T Johnson who claims quotes on MY behalf and when he gets called on it, ignores the deception and pretends like nothing happened. “Move along here, nothing to see”.
I’m not going to apologize for not looking kindly on Driggs. I don’t appreciate him quitting the floor on the Sanctuary City bill and I believe Russell Pearce when he says that Driggs worked against SB1070 and tried to weaken it or defeat it on several occasions. I don’t like Driggs towing the line for the Bar Association on issues of judicial reform. I don’t like Driggs raising money to help Democrats get elected and I don’t like that Democrats like Driggs so much that they are helping to raise him money to get elected. I don’t like his personal manner or arrogance, and I didn’t like the mud-slinging piece he did on Davis which at the time appeared dishonest and which we now know was also blatantly hypocritical. I don’t like him shopping for his next political job, first for State House, then Congress, then State Senate. The man is running to be something, not to do something, and that is not what our state or country needs right now.
You all feel differently, fine. Stick up for your friend. No real harm in that, so long as you’re not lying about the other guy in the process. Except that here, you are. So you ought to stop that.
Now, let’s see how Team Driggs explains Driggs taking money from that drunken, wife-beating no good SOB Mark Desimone. Another Democrat (no surprise there) who thinks Adam Driggs is a great vote. And Driggs has no problem taking money from a guy who beat on his wife in front of his five-year-old kid, before locking himself in the bathroom with the kid until the police came and got him out?
I know I know, you all will tell me its the wife’s fault, or Desimone is innocent, but I think its perfectly legit to judge Driggs on the company he keeps, and while he has a few conservative friends, he has far too many liberal friends, Democrat friends, and wife-beating friends (I know its “just one”, but I think one is too many).
http://seeingredaz.wordpress.com/2010/08/20/adam-driggs-hypocrisy-front-and-center/
Geez, talk about “crickets”, eh? One lousy Democrat beats up his wife and then your candidate gladly takes his money, and all of a sudden it just goes silent? Well its bedtime for me, but I’ll check back into this circus tomorrow, I’m sure they’ll have come up with an excuse for it by then.
Not crickets Goodyear GOP, just boredom. Just waiting for something that is relevant.
Driggs does not condone spousal abuse by taking $25 from DeSimone, just as I’m pretty sure Rich Davis does not condone spousal abuse by accepting the endorsement of a well known Arizona State Senator (apparently worth more than $25 because he touts his endorsement everywhere he goes). Or is republican abuse different than democrat abuse? PV Conservative, if “one wife beating friend is too many”, you better distance yourself from “you-know-who”.
Everyone has something in his or her past that they are not proud of or may be embarrassed by. I’m sure both political figures were embarrassed and saddened by their actions, asked for forgiveness from their spouses and tried to be better husbands going forward. Myself, I try to look past this with both men, because, as I said before, none of us are perfect.
Exactly what does this have to do with this election? Nothing.
Wow, nice spin job T, except “you know who’s” wife denies the events of 25 years ago while Desimone’s wife filed the police report and the five-year old was a witness just recently. Trying to equate a lie with the truth? The primary must be getting close.
Court documents from sworn affidavits don’t lie Goodyear GOP.
I’m sure Pearce’s wife denied her testimony later, probably for the same reason Desimone’s wife didn’t press charges. That’s what usually happens in these situations. The husband goes back to the wife on hands and knees and begs for forgiveness and they move forward. But it doesn’t change the fact that his wife filed for divorce and in court documents stated that he hit her. I’m not lying about anything. Maybe she lied the first time, maybe she lied the second, I’m just stating what’s out there.
February 1980: Lu Anne Pearce Filed For Divorce Citing A Physical Attack By Russell Pearce, Before Case Was Dropped. On February 5, 1980, Lu Anne Pearce filed for “dissolution of marriage” from Russell Pearce with the “Superior Court of the State of Arizona.” The document read, in part: “Further, the husband, RUSSELL KEITH PEARCE, is possessed of a violent temper, and has from time to time hit and shoved the wife, the last time being on February 3rd, when he grabbed the wife by the throat and threw her down.” [Maricopa County, AZ Superior Court, Page 4, 2/5/80]
I’m not posting this to go after Pearce but just to point out how ridiculous it is to go after Driggs for receiving a contribution from Desimone. It would be no different if I went after Davis for his connection with Pearce. Pearce and Desimone both have had domestic abuse situations. Neither are the devil and neither are perfect. I don’t condone what they did, but I’m not going to go around disparaging them because of an act that they are both probably ashamed of and have most likely tried to make restitution. If their wife’s stayed with them it’s their business, not mine.
There are people who do bad things on both sides of the aisle. George W. had a DUI. Does that mean because I voted for him or contributed to his campaign that I condone drinking and driving? Of course not. This whole thing is ridiculous.
Looks like all of Davis’ attacks on Driggs backfired. Driggs has about 50% of the vote so far with 80% reporting. All I know is that Adam Driggs is a honestly good guy, who does a fantastic job for us at the Capitol and this Davis guy just moved here to run for the office. The voters saw that a mile away.