Arizona Clean Elections Commission
Audio By Carbonatix
Thursday night, the two GOP candidates for Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction contorted themselves in an effort to make it seem like they don’t share the exact same beliefs.
Tom Horne, the incumbent on whose watch the state’s school voucher program has careened out of control, claimed that challenger and current state treasurer Kimberly Yee would allow parents to use state money to buy Rolex watches. Both said teachers need to be paid more. Both advocated for phonics-based reading instruction. Both advocated for securing more school funding from the state land trust by asking voters to renew Proposition 123.
All that made for Thursday night’s Arizona Clean Elections Commission debate between the two rivals rather wonky and dull. That is, until the subject of DEI arose. Then, the candidates devolved into personal sniping and even prop comedy as each tried to prove their anti-DEI credentials over the other.
In the second Trump presidency, DEI — that is, diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives meant to correct historic biases and give people from underrepresented communities a fair shake — has become a dirty word. Trump campaigned to rid it from government in favor of a system built on pure “merit,” an effort that’s resulted in the whitewashing of historic monuments and the firing of minorities, including top military officers.
If you’re a legit Republican, you detest DEI. And no one’s doubting the GOP bona fides of Yee and Horne. Or so one might assume.
In his opening statement Thursday, Horne renewed a recent line of attack on Yee, whom he has claimed once chaired a DEI committee for the National Association of State Treasurers. The current schools czar began by slamming “left-wing” policies he’s tackled, including DEI, and then quickly turned his aim to Yee. Then he ran out of time and got cut off by the moderator, Danielle Lerner.
DEI received little mention again until the end of the debate, when Lerner asked a question about social-emotional learning. Yee pivoted to DEI and a defense of her anti-DEI track record. Horne had been spreading lies about her, she said. It’s a bit of slander that Yee seems to take quite seriously. Prior to the debate, she’d sent Horne a cease-and-desist letter demanding that he stop “publishing, republishing or otherwise disseminating false and defamatory statements concerning Treasurer Yee.” The notice, which she shared on social media, included a letter from NAST’s chief operating officer, confirming that she’s never served on a DEI committee.
Horne responded by quoting-tweeting Yee’s post with an archived link from the NAST website that showed a “Diversity Equity and Inclusion Committee” under Yee’s profile.
At the debate, Horne and Yee attempted to recreate that online tiff. Defending herself from Horne’s earlier allegation — which she called “truly false,” if you enjoy a good oxymoron —Yee pulled out the letter from NAST to show viewers that she’s never served on a DEI committee and has “fought, in fact, against these types of issues that distract from real representation on merit.”
As she spoke, Horne began frantically digging in his pocket, eventually pulling out a folded piece of paper with a black-and-white printout of Yee’s page on the NAST site. Before he could explain what it was, though, Lerner cut him off, warning both candidates that “we’re not supposed to have props today.” Instead, she pivoted Horne to a question about what current DEI classroom programs he’s concerned about. Before answering, Horne told viewers to go to TheRealKimYee.com, a website the campaign created to label Yee as a “DEI Champion & Liberal Spender.”
Once Horne finished answering the actual question — claiming that DEI would cause the U.S. to “become a mediocre country and the Chinese would be calling the shots” — Yee bristled about not being given a chance to answer it herself. She’d apparently forgotten that it was she who had broached the subject mere minutes earlier, when she’d chosen to launch into a defense of her anti-DEI resume instead.
Finally deciding to answer the question, Yee claimed that as treasurer, she’d told companies with DEI policies that they would be less effective as businesses, leading the state to divest from them. Then, mercifully, everyone moved on from the subject.
But DEI came up again during post-debate press interviews. Finally able to make use of his printout, Horne immediately passed out his sheet of paper to reporters and launched into a tirade about Yee’s alleged DEI-affiliation.
Later, Phoenix New Times asked Yee about why she sent a cease-and-desist letter to Horne, which clearly hadn’t worked. She said she decided on the move because Horne has a “long record of lying.” She then chronicled Horne’s long and varied list of scandals, including his past issues with the Securities Exchange Commission, his speeding tickets, the alleged misuse of state money during his previous run for attorney general and, of course, the hit-and-run he committed while under FBI surveillance as he tried to drive away from meeting his then-mistress, a woman who has since become his wife.
In the end, both Horne and Yee made passionate pitches for why ideals like diversity are in fact poisonous concepts. Ironically, given this was a debate to oversee Arizona schools, we all got a little bit dumber as a result.
