A Texas state senator defeated in his bid for reelection earlier this year is now helping Gov. Jan Brewer elect candidates she likes to Congress. Arizona Public Radio’s Howard Fischer explains.
John Carona was ousted in the GOP primary by a tea party candidate. But, Carona remains chairman of Associa, a Dallas-based company that works with homeowner association boards across the county. So, in the second quarter of this year he and his firm gave more than $21,000 to Jan Pac, the governor’s federal political action committee. Company spokesman Andrew Fortin said it’s easy to paint Brewer as an ideologue given her hardline stance on immigration.
“But then you see how she approaches issues about providing access to health care for Arizonans and how she deals with the budget situation. And that’s the kind of strong governance that, from a corporate and from Mr. Carona’s personal standpoint, that we want to support,” Fortin said.
The latest reports show Brewer now has more than $313,000 in the bank to spend on congressional races. The governor told Arizona Public Radio she has not yet decided on which races she will make independent expenditures.
“We’ve got our eyes open and we’re looking. And we’re going to spend that money appropriately — and probably not all of it in the state of Arizona,” Gov. Brewer said.
In 2012 Brewer did mailers and robocalls on behalf of some GOP candidates, but with mixed results.
