(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day: Mark Finchem- 2023 Update [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-13 Former Arizona state legislator and election fraud huckster Mark FInchem, who was subpoenaed by the Jan. 6th committee. On this date in both 2020, 2021, as well as 2022, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” had its original profile of Mark Finchem, who has served as a member of the Arizona House of Representatives from District 11 since first winning office in the 2014 elections. Our dismay that this man serves in government has something to do with the fact that he is simultaneously a member of the anti-government militia group known as the Oath Keepers. Perhaps it should come as little surprise that Mark Finchem spent the Obama administration ranting online about the 44th President becoming a dictator, and during political unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, he lauded members of the Oath Keepers who turned up to point guns at civil protesters as additional “security” in the town. Looking at Finchem’s voting record, and well… he’s just as awful as a legislator as he is a human being: February 18th, 2015: Finchem sponsors and votes for HB 2173, a particularly insane bill to allow gold and silver to be used as legal tender in Arizona. March 11th, 2015: Mark Finchem votes for HB 2643, a bill to prohibit the enforcement of the Affordable Care Act. In 2015. Because let’s nullify what was already being implemented and working, right? March 28th, 2017: Finchem votes for SB 1122, a bill to allow the sale of firearms without a background check. March 29th, 2017: Mark Finchem votes for SB 1367, an insane anti-choice bill that would require doctors performing an abortion to attempt to resuscitate fetuses after performing the procedure (that can’t survive outside the womb, anyway). February 25th, 2019: Finchem votes for HCR 2009, to declare pornography a public health crisis. April 10th, 2019: Mark Finchem is one of only 5 members of the Arizona House to vote against SB 1346, to include HIV prevention in sex education to school children. February 6th, 2020: Finchem co-sponsors and votes for HB 2804, to allow private citizens to build their own border walls without permits from cities and municipalities. March 3rd, 2020: Mark Finchem co-sponsored HB 2706, legislation to ban transgender girls from participating in girls’ sports in school. Now, we had all of the above listed as reasons to be concerned about Mark Finchem this time last year, and boy oh boy, did he spend the past calendar year solidifying our argument for why he would deserve a FRED profile. You see, among the many elected Republican state legislators who went to the Capitol on January 6th, 2021 to participate in the “Stop the Steal” rally that was a cover for an attempted coup against Congress was none other than Mark Finchem. Because he was a seditious wanker on January 6th, an effort to recall Mark Finchem was started by voters in his district over his continued and unabashed election fraud claims, and Finchem responded as one does when you’re a kooky Republican… he decided to make a run for Arizona Secretary of State. That’s right, the man who spent the past several months attacking the integrity of Arizona’s elections as fraudulent would like to instead be the one in charge of them. And of course Donald Trump has endorsed him. His efforts to sabotage democracy in Arizona could be hampered, believe it or not, by the January 6th Select Committee, who have subpoenaed Finchem to appear to testify about his work with the organizers of the “Stop the Steal” rally, Which, it would be great if they could prevent a guy who participated in the coup attempt in 2021 be stopped from taking part in another one in 2024 or 2025. While we can’t report on Mark Finchem being arrested (yet, we’re still hoping), we’re at least relieved to report he lost his election to try to be Arizona’s next Secretary of State in 2022 by over 120,000 votes. He of course, claimed “election fraud” and filed lawsuits to try to sue his way to victory, getting himself censured by a judge for filing a “groundless” challenge, and to pay the legal costs of his farcical and fruitless endeavor. His Twitter account remains a fever dream of Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about George Soros, election denialism in any race a Republican doesn’t win, and mutually re-Tweeting nonsense from Kari Lake. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/13/2163891/-Fanatical-Republican-Extremist-of-the-Day-Mark-Finchem-2023-Update Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/