The race for State House in Arizona’s Legislative District 14 has been relatively calm and low key. The biggest spender in the race is former lobbyist and political operative Lalani Hunsaker, who is running against incumbent Laurin Hendrix, and three other candidates for the two State House seats. Hendrix is running as a team with Senate President Warren Petersen and long time East Valley businessman Kyle Powell.
That calm was shattered when members of Hunsaker’s family charged the podium while Representative Hendrix was speaking at the district’s monthly meeting last night.
According to people familiar with the race, the race has been largely positive, although Hunsaker has been taking some hits for the years she spent working for Nevada Senate Democrat Harry Reid, and some of the campaigns she ran or helped run against local Arizona conservatives.
For her part, Hunsaker has been attacking Hendrix’s vote to cut funding for the Arizona Commerce Authority and her supporters have been encouraging voters in the district to #BreakTheSlate, referring to the team of Petersen, Hendrix and Powell.
Regardless, attendees at the meeting were unprepared for what occurred when Hendrix was on the microphone speaking. According to attendees, he was contrasting his record to Hunsaker’s, focusing on his time spent working for Ronald Reagan to her time spent working for Reid. He also addressed the Arizona Commerce Authority, which Arizona’s Attorney General found guilty of illegally spending taxpayer money and funding all sorts of inappropriate expenses for visiting executives, including Super Bowl tickets, unlimited alcohol, and even expenses at a strip club.
Hendrix then tried to defend himself against accusations that he was “some sort of villain” and pointed out that he had tried to give friendly advice to Hunsaker early in the race when he came across pictures posted on social media of one of her kids with some of the Gilbert Goons. He thought it might expose her or them to unnecessary negative exposure, so he reached out to the district chairman to pass along a message to her, advising her to take them down so people couldn’t make trouble for her.
At that point one man loudly charged Hendrix, followed by a second. The first was reportedly Hunsaker’s brother-in-law and the second was her husband. While the first clearly had bad intentions, witnesses couldn’t ascertain what the husband had in mind. Fortunately for Hendrix, they were intercepted by the district chairman, Andrew Adams.
The confrontation was moved outside and, according to security footage, Hunsaker’s husband angrily headbutted Adams while he was attempting to defuse the situation.
“It is hard to believe that we are just a couple of days after Trump was almost assassinated and these people still can’t control their tempers.” said one Republican precinct committeeman, “Lalani is running for office and we’ve got a nice community here. She can’t have her family members assaulting opponents or Republican party officials.”
The issue quickly caught the attention of other Republicans. State Representative David Cook tweeted that “It should be clear after the incident involving President Trump and the victims this past week that in no cases should violence be tolerated regarding political events of any kind. I feel for those elderly (I was told there were many) in attendance that felt they were in danger and affected by this unforgivably(sp) incident.”
**Breaking ** This morning I have been informed that @LaurinHendrix AZ State House Representative was almost assaulted at a local district meeting in Gilbert last night while speaking to his constituents. The police were called, the chairman of the group intervened and as was…
— David Cook (@RepDavidCook) July 16, 2024
According to Wayne Schutsky, a reporter with KJZZ, he “spoke with LD14 GOP chair, who confirmed what happened. Says family members of candidate Lalani Hunsaker were asked to leave meeting after disrupting Hendrix and one of them head butted LD chair outside of the meeting later on.”
Just spoke with LD14 GOP chair, who confirmed what happened. Says family members of candidate Lalani Hunsaker were asked to leave meeting after disrupting Hendrix and one of them head butted LD chair outside of the meeting later on. https://t.co/alJ3orWJyC
— Wayne Schutsky (@WayneSchutsky) July 16, 2024
It is unclear whether formal assault charges will be filed against Hunsaker.
