Arizona Republic: “Andy Biggs’ shifting account” of Protecting Pedophile Cult “haunts governor bid”

Arizona Republic: “Andy Biggs’ shifting account” of Protecting Pedophile Cult “haunts governor bid”

New reporting from Arizona Republic digs into how Andy Biggs’ protection of a cult of sexual predators has become an “inescapable issue,” and his “shifting account” of his harmful record continues to “haunt” his campaign.

Biggs has spent most of the campaign refusing to answer questions or offering changing explanations for why, as Arizona Senate president, he blocked bipartisan legislation that could have protected women and children who were trapped in a sexually abusive and predatory cult that forced girls as young as 12 years old into marriages.

According to the Arizona Republic, the issue has become “a higher profile problem than Andy Biggs’ campaign was prepared to respond to,” and has left “Biggs on defense.”

Read more about how Biggs can’t explain his changing answers about disturbing controversy haunting his campaign:

Arizona Republic: Andy Biggs’ shifting account of Colorado City bill haunts governor bid

• A controversial bill that died in the Arizona Senate 13 years ago has haunted gubernatorial hopeful Andy Biggs as he hopes to unseat incumbent Democrat Katie Hobbs, becoming an inescapable issue in the race.

• Biggs’ comments on the bill, which would have allowed the takeover of a police force friendly to a polygamous sect in Colorado City, have shifted in the months leading to the November election.

• The bill’s sponsors have said it was Biggs who killed the bill, using his powerful position as Senate president at the time. They said Biggs assigned bills to multiple committees to kill them, a practice that is still used at the Arizona Capitol today.

• The bill’s sponsors, Reps. Michelle Ugenti-Rita and Kelly Townsend, in 2016 accused Biggs of killing the bill.

• Townsend said Biggs kept her bills bottled up. She and Ugenti-Rita were among four GOP lawmakers who publicly criticized Biggs, a fellow Republican, describing his leadership style as bullying or petty. The lawmakers complained their bills floundered or they were marginalized because of political spats with Biggs.

• “Women and children suffered three years longer than they should have because he protected the bad guys,” Ugenti-Rita said at the time. “That’s what bothers me.”

• [Biggs] said lawmakers were “still trying to get all the information that we possibly could on whether somebody was corrupt because that was the accusation,” and he wasn’t sure if they ever heard evidence to justify a state takeover of the police force.

• Biggs later said he couldn’t remember a lot about the bill. And in the recent debate, Biggs claimed he did not stop the bill though law enforcement asked him to do so.

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