Arizona lawmaker loses police endorsement after calling her speeding ticket ‘political persecution’

After an Arizona lawmaker called her speeding ticket “political persecution,” she lost the endorsement of one of the largest law enforcement bodies in the state.

Republican state Sen. Justine Wadsack received a speeding ticket in March for going 71 mph in a 35 mph zone. Now, the largest police union in the state is withdrawing its endorsement, just a week out from Arizona’s primary election.

“While Sen. Wadsack has been a consistent supporter of public safety in her official capacity, this incident and her decision to publicly impugning the motives of police personnel is conduct unbecoming an elected representative,” Arizona Fraternal Order of Police President Paul Sheldon said in a statement obtained by the Arizona Republic. The organization has over 9,400 members across the state.

When an officer with the Tucson Police Department Specialized Response Division tried to arrange a time for her to sign the criminal speeding citation in June, Wadsack said she was under political persecution.

“[Wadsack] immediately became defensive and argued that she was in fact not speeding,” the TPD officer wrote in the report of the call, noting Wadsack declined to sign the citation.

Wadsack told the officer that she was upset the citation was coming months after she was pulled over, which the officer said was because she was issued the ticket during Arizona’s legislative session. Legislative immunity prevented her from receiving the ticket at the time but “did not prevent her from receiving a ticket once the legislative session adjourned.”

“She demanded to speak with the chief of police and said she was under ‘political persecution,’” according to the report. “She also said that I was being aggressive and got upset when I called her Mrs. Wadsack and not Senator Wadsack. She then abruptly ended the conversation and hung up the phone.”

Tucson City Attorney Mike Rankin pointed out the difference between “persecution,” as Wadsack claimed, and criminal prosecution.

“Citing someone – Ms. Wadsack or anyone else – for putting other people in danger by driving at speeds more than 20 miles per hour above the posted speed limit within city limits is not ‘persecution,’” he told the Arizona Mirror. “It is prosecution.”

At the time of the ticket, she told the officer she was “racing to get home,” because the battery on her Tesla was dying and only had four miles left. That reasoning may not hold up, however.

“That doesn’t make any sense at all,” Michael Ahern, who was a Tesla senior staff engineer for 11 years, told the Arizona Mirror. “There’s no car that gets more efficient as you floor it,” electric or gas, he said.

Her claims of legislative immunity also may not hold up. In 2018, Republican state Rep. Paul Mosley, was pulled over for going 97 mph in a 55 mph area and claimed legislative immunity. At the time, Republican lawmakers in the state did not believe the defense applied to traffic violations.

“Nothing short of an emergency justifies that kind of speeding, and assertions of immunity in that situation seem outside the intent of the constitutional provision regarding legislative immunity,” then-House Speaker J.D. Mesnard said.

The Washington Examiner reached out to Wadsack for comment.