The Senate had just voted to pass Senate Bill 1424, which cracks down on people who lie or exaggerate military service — known as stolen valor — for material gain. An Air Force veteran, Rogers had voted in favor, helping to send the bill to Gov. Katie Hobbs to become law.
“I'm honored to have facilitated meaningful changes on an earlier version of the stolen valor bill, so that this legislation can now better provide a practical solution for holding bad actors accountable,” Rogers said in a statement after the vote. “The compromises made by the bill sponsor helped get this legislation across the finish line. The final product of SB 1424 reflects a team effort to ensure military imposters are held accountable.”
For many veterans who have followed the bill’s progress — including Army vet and Republican state Rep. Walt Blackman, the bill’s sponsor and biggest champion whom Rogers declined to name in her speech — all that back-patting was especially rich. After all, just a few weeks ago, Rogers used her authority as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee to singlehandedly prevent Blackman’s bill from receiving a hearing.
What's it called again when you claim credit for something you didn't do?
"It’s disingenuous that she did that — took credit for herself and no one else," Blackman told the Arizona Republic. "This bill is not about her. It's about the veterans."
Rogers did not respond to questions from Phoenix New Times about her role in the bill’s passage.
Other veterans — including retired Master Sgt. Jack Dona, the son of the man after whom Blackman’s Master Sergeant Orlando Dona Valor Act is named — went at Rogers with even more fury.
On social media, Dona called Rogers an “absolute scum bag” and a “disgraceful, dishonorable reprobate” to veterans of the U.S. military in Arizona and across the country. He added that Rogers’ speech “epitomizes why people despise liars, frauds and those who take credit for work they actually tried to sabotage!” and that the senator “did absolutely nothing but hinder, scheme and connive to end this Bill.”
After Rogers’ self-congratulatory statement, several other self-proclaimed veteran accounts blasted her on social media:
Liar and coward. https://t.co/2l2SHnYBXK
— Trey Terry (@treyterry) April 15, 2025
So Wendy spends a massive amount of energy and effort fighting the Bill, and defending Slaton’s clear Stolen Valor. Now, she wants to steal credit for the bill 🤯 “birds of a feather flock together”
— Jay Hicks (@Jayhix0311) April 16, 2025
FRAUDS!
How are you going to “steal credit” from a Stolen Valor bill. 😂😂😂 She has some nerve!!! Not one mention of the actual people who put in the work on something she tried to kill. Wicked I tell you.. wicked!
— Stolen Valor (@StolenValor1) April 16, 2025
Needs a @CommunityNotes! https://t.co/MQ5uPfmiVJ
She didn't champion sh*t. She fought against this bill until it was clear she couldn't win. https://t.co/TKAqyzWeFo
— R T (@RDog861) April 15, 2025
How we got here
At the center of the drama surrounding the otherwise resoundingly bipartisan bill — it passed with only one no vote in each chamber, both from iconoclast far-right lawmakers — are three Republicans from Legislative District 7.Last year, Blackman ran in the Republican primary for the Arizona House against Rogers ally Steve Slaton, who runs the Trumped Store in Prescott. During that campaign, news reports revealed that Slaton had been falsely claiming to have seen combat in Vietnam. Despite that, Rogers endorsed Slaton over Blackman.
After winning the election, Blackman made a stolen valor bill a legislative priority. His first version passed the House easily, but it hit the skids in Rogers’ Senate committee. When Rogers pulled the bill from the committee agenda — after dozens of veterans had traveled to the Capitol to speak in favor of it — Blackman blasted her.
"We had 70+ veterans here. We had some that came from out of state just for this, some Vietnam veterans," Blackman said at the time, according to FOX 10. "When she did that to those veterans and looked at them and basically gave them the middle finger to protect someone who was proven to have stolen his valor, that's disappointing."
Republican state Sen. Shawnna Bolick resurrected the bill with a strike-everything amendment, replacing the text of a bill she’d sponsored and that had passed the chamber with Blackman’s. That repurposed bill re-passed the House with a few changes, though Blackman again unleashed his anger on a Republican — state Rep. Alexander Kolodin — who voted against it. That brought it to the Senate, where only state Rep. Jake Hoffman voted against it.
“Walt Blackman and Shawna (sic) Bolick did all the work and saved” the bill, Dona wrote on X.
Hobbs is expected to sign the bill.
