Find an updated and extended version of this story here.
The tension was thick between Congressional candidate Matt Heinz and former-Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick at a Congressional District 2 Democratic primary forum, the evening of Thursday, July 20.
The animosity between the two candidates widely considered to be the front runners, popped up repeatedly while all six candidates on stage debated a host of issues.
Represent Me AZ, who hosted the event, revoked an invitation to the seventh candidate, Yahya Yuksel, for the way he handled rape accusations at a press conference earlier in the week. Moderator Marion Chubon said Yuksel’s behavior lacked responsibility following rape allegations.
Heinz released three attack ads, earlier this week, against Kirkpatrick, a day after she sent out mailers accusing him of supporting the NRA during his time as a state lawmaker.
Heinz’s attack ads accuse Kirkpatrick of not having “progressive values” for a number of reasons. One, which persisted at the debate, was her checkered past on supporting or opposing gun-control legislation.
One ad has a two-second clip of Kirkpatrick saying she has an A-rating from the NRA. According to a 2012 New York Times article, Kirkpatrick did have an A-rating from the NRA. though they did not contribute to her campaign. In 2009, she welcomed the gun-rights group with open arms for their annual conference in Phoenix.
An article in the White Mountain Independent, which covers the White Mountain region in the eastern part of the state, quoted her saying, “I am proud that my state is hosting the group that has protected that right (to keep and bear arms) for 138 years. This is a chance for Arizonans to show our nation’s leaders we will not let them take away our freedoms.”
During her first term representing Arizona’s CD1, before she moved to Tucson, Kirkpatrick voted to allow guns in national parks and against reinstating a ban on the sale of semiautomatic weapons.
At Thursday’s debate, Kirkpatrick said she changed her tune on gun control after the 2011 mass shooting at a Tucson Safeway, where then-Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords survived being shot in the head and six people were killed, including a 9-year-old girl.
“I re-evaluated my position on guns, and changed my mind,” she said at the forum. “I not only changed my mind, but I changed the way I voted. And I supported legislation that would increase background checks. I supported legislation that would keep guns out of the hands of terrorists on the terror watch list. And I supported legislation that would keep guns from domestic abusers.”
In Kirkpatrick’s attack flyer on Matt Heinz, and on the debate stage, the Congressional candidate also accused her opponent of supporting the NRA when he was a state representative.
“In 2012, the NRA testified at the state legislature about a bill they really wanted to pass, a bill that would allow high-capacity magazines, and Matt Heinz voted for it,” she said. “He supported the NRA.”
Heinz, a doctor at Tucson Medical Center, said the idea that he would support the NRA when he treats patients with guns shot wounds is “ridiculous” and a “distortion of his voting record.”
The vote was on a 2012 bill that blocked the Arizona Game and Fish Commission from limiting hunters’ magazine capacity on authorized firearms. The bill received primarily Republican backing, but a few Democrats voted for the bill besides Heinz, including Reps. Steve Farley, Ruben Gallego and Macario Saldate. Former-Rep. Bruce Wheeler, also a Democratic CD2 candidate, voted against the bill.
Heinz says the bill didn’t have backing from the NRA and had no opposing groups. A representatives from the Arizona Wildlife Federation and Sandy Bahr, the conservation director for the Sierra Club Grand Canyon Chapter, signed up in opposition to the bill during a committee hearing but did not speak. And former NRA lobbyist Brent Gardner registered in support of the bill.
This article appears in Jul 19-25, 2018.
I find the headline offensive. It is false. No “blows were exchanged”. According to the dictionary “exchanged blows” means they hit each other. Please. This does not help political discourse in any way.
Agree. It is a really stupid headline.
Look, lets face it, Heinz is a back-stabbing ass who has never been elected to anything. Lea Marquez Peterson would LOVE for Heinz to be the Democratic candidate.
During Thursday night’s forum for the CD2 Democratic candidates, the crowd responded as they should have to the unseemly back and forth between Heinz and Kirkpatrick, but their exchanges were not the biggest takeaway from the event. The person who really stood out in a positive way was Bruce Wheeler, as he consistently demonstrated that he is the most informed, experienced and reasonable candidate in the field. He wasted no time attacking the others, but instead talked about pressing issues such as climate change, education, health care, financial regulations, federal tax policy and the ills brought about by mass incarceration. He showed how his years representing us in the Arizona Legislature and on the Tucson City Council have made him the most prepared and qualified choice for Democrats in this important race.
If anything good comes out of the bickering going on between the two supposed front-runners, it will be that voters will be more apt to notice Bruce Wheeler’s consistency, integrity and passion for service. He is someone who has earned our trust and we have always known where he stands. With early ballots set to go out at the beginning of next month, the Democratic voters in CD2 should take a hard look at all six of the candidates and what each one of them has to offer. Voters who do so will see that the best choice for all of us is clearly Bruce Wheeler.
I agree that Bruce Wheeler is the best choice for the CD2 Democratic primary. He has earned my trust also.
A mailer came to our house Tuesday from the Kirkpatrick campaign, which can only be described as a hit piece vs. Matt Heinz. A key point it makes is that Matt Heinz voted against gun safety. It lists two votes, and I think I have the following information regarding the bills and votes factually accurate. If so, Kirkpatrick definitely does not.
The first was referred to as HB 2640, supposedly cutting regulations on high capacity magazines. The bill was actually SB 1241of 2012, which was sufficiently non-controversial that it got 43 votes in the House. As I read it, it was a hunting-related bill that prohibited the Fish and Game Commission from putting limits on the size of magazines usually used by hunters.
The second, the real House Bill that prohibited municipalities from destroying firearms, was listed in the mailer as HB 2640. Its correct number was HB 2455; it was passed in the House on March7, 2013 by vote of 36 to 23 with one not voting. In the Senate on April 16 the vote was18 to 12. The votes were along party lines. And in the 2013 session LD 9 was represented by Senator Steve Farley and Representatives Victoria Steele and Ethan Orr. Kirkpatrick is right that Heinz failed to show up to vote on a bill that would have allowed local governments to destroy illegal guns seized from criminals. Perhaps because he might have been charged with impersonating a legislator?
Whoops, I really botched my analysis of the bills for which Kirkpatrick has excoriated Heinz in yet another mailer arriving in our mail today (Monday July 23). SB 1241 of 2012, short-titled forfeiture of weapons and explosives, passed with 43 votes in the House. Had all five who did not vote had voted nay it would have made no difference. And HB2640 of 2012, titled hunting; firearm magazine capacity, was so non-controversial that it passed the House 42-15-2.
If have any credibility left after my egregious errors above, Id urge folks voting in the Democratic primary to choose from among the four contenders who have had no part in the Heinz-Kirkpatrick nastiness.