Glassman, vets slam ‘coward’ lawmaker for blocking Stolen Valor bill

Rodney Glassman is coming in hot.

Glassman, the perpetual Arizona political candidate who is now running for Arizona attorney general, convened a group of at least 15 angry military veterans for a Tuesday press conference at American Legion Post 1 in downtown Phoenix. Mad about a bill to criminalize stolen valor that has been stalled in the state legislature, they collectively aimed their ire at Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen for holding it up.

“He’s a coward — he doesn’t want the chamber to vote at all,” Glassman said of Petersen. “No one fathomed that that would be the case.”

Notably, Petersen and Glassman are expected to face each other in the GOP primary for attorney general. Petersen did not immediately return a request for comment. In a statement provided to FOX 10, Petersen accused Glassman of a "shameless effort to use veterans as political pawns in a disgraceful attempt to further his campaign."

The controversy over the bill has percolated for weeks.

The original bill, House Bill 2030, was sponsored by state Rep. Walt Blackman, a Republican from Snowflake and a 21-year veteran of the U.S. Army. Last year, Blackman faced off in a GOP primary against Steve Slaton, who owns a store selling Donald Trump merchandise in Show Low. News reports revealed that not only did Slaton lie about being a Vietnam veteran, but he also falsified military paperwork to reflect the lie.

Blackman’s bill, which would impose penalties for falsely claiming military service in order to seek a financial gain or public office, passed the Arizona House of Representatives in a 58-to-0 vote. In the Senate, Petersen assigned it to the Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by MAGA fanatic and far-right state Sen. Wendy Rogers, who endorsed Slaton last year. Last Wednesday, dozens of veterans traveled to the Capitol to testify in favor of the bill during the committee’s meeting. But Rogers, who served in the Air Force, struck the bill from the meeting agenda, effectively killing it.

Blackman was livid, turning to social media to call Rogers’ maneuver “a disgrace.”

“Senator Rogers, shame on you,” Blackman said. “You swore the same oath I did — to defend the Constitution and uphold the values of integrity and service. The Air Force Academy’s Honor Code is clear: 'We will not lie, steal, or cheat, nor tolerate among us anyone who does.' You violated that code the moment you chose political games over honoring those who served. You failed as a leader — and worse, you failed as an officer.”

Neither Blackman nor one of his staffers returned a request for comment. But at Glassman’s presser, plenty of other veterans shared his anger.

Jack Dona, another veteran, said Petersen’s refusal to bring the bill to a vote sends a message of contempt to all veterans and active military members.

“One person is holding this up, and that’s Senate President Warren Petersen,” said veteran Jack Dona. “I’ve heard every excuse in the book in the last week and a half.”

“What are we saying to them, the men and women that are serving on active duty, when we can’t even get this done because of one person?” Dona added, calling the veterans standing beside him “the victims of stolen valor.”

Vets upset

Blackman’s bill has been kept alive as a strike-through amendment in the House, but Petersen has said he won’t allow it to come to a vote in the Senate without changes, which Blackman has refused to make. In his statement to FOX 10, Petersen said he'd recently met with both Rogers and Blackman and is "optimistic that we can reach a compromise on the stolen valor bill."

Petersen’s concerns have mimicked those of Rogers, who argued the bill did not reflect federal law. Dona and Glassman refuted the claim and said the bill provided more tools to criminalize stolen valor.

“This was modeled after federal legislation, but actually has increased scrutiny because, as the House of Representatives demonstrated, Arizonans want heightened scrutiny when it comes to the issue of stolen valor,” Glassman said.

Dona said Blackman had met with Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, who told him she would sign the bill if passed, even if she thought it didn’t go far enough. (A spokesperson for Hobbs did not immediately return a message seeking comment.) Dona also noted that all of Arizona’s 15 county sheriffs unanimously endorsed the bill in a letter released last Thursday.

Petersen’s and Rogers’ stall tactics have pissed off other veterans, including Republicans. “It’s disgraceful that Sen. Rogers, a veteran, is damaging fellow veterans and that is inexcusable,” Vietnam combat veteran Jim Muhr wrote in a Payson Round op-ed on Tuesday.

Gary Morris, a veteran who drove down to Phoenix from Strawberry from the press conference, seethed with anger at the microphone and said he felt “great disappointment” about Petersen’s refusal to move the bill.

“It is extremely rare to get that kind of unanimous vote,” said Morris, a former Gila County Republican Committee chair. “Mr. Petersen needs to listen to that and listen to the veterans around the state and put this to the floor for a vote.”

Glassman said he intends to keep hammering Petersen, claiming that Arizona’s 600,000 veterans — as well as their families and descendants — will eventually hear the group’s message. “When you’re dealing with a coward, you just keep the pressure on,” Glassman said. Though, toward the end of his press conference, Glassman tried to walk back the “coward” comments.

Sort of.

“I’ve been instructed not to call Senate President Warren Petersen a coward for not being willing to allow the state Senate to vote on this bill, because that would not be a nice thing to say,” Glassman said. “What I can tell you is that, on behalf of the 600,000 veterans who live in Arizona, I do feel that when a bill gets passed unanimously out of the House of Representatives, it could be described as an act of cowardice for the leadership of the Senate to not be willing to at least take the bill to a vote.”