She Has Sold Us Out: how Gail Griffin has placed special interests over Arizona's future water security
Part 1: placing the interests of developers and wealthy out-of-state investors above the future needs of Arizonans
In recent years, Arizona State Representative Gail Griffin has gained a reputation as being perhaps the biggest obstacle our state faces to any attempt at reigning in our growing water crisis.
Even as homes and municipal wells run dry in her own district-- as roads are torn apart by earth fissures caused by unchecked and rapacious groundwater use-- the Hereford-based lawmaker has sat as head of the Arizona House of Representatives' water committee and killed every common sense attempt at legislation to secure our future water supply.
Given this track record, Cochise Regional News has conducted an investigation of the lawmaker's activities, in the hope that we can help shed some light on Griffin, her values and motivations.
What we have found is the story of how one inveterate lawmaker, from a sparsely populated rural district, has held water policy for the entire state hostage-- for the clear benefit of the special interests who serve her interests.
This is the first part of a three-part series. [Read Part 2.]
Part 1: placing the interests of developers and wealthy out-of-state investors above the future needs of Arizonans
Regina Cobb entered the Arizona Legislature in 2015. She would go on to serve as a Republican representative for then-Arizona LD 5 (covering most of Mohave and La Paz counties-- now redistricted to LD 30) until 2023.
Cobb, a Kingman-based dentist with her own practice, began her time in the Legislature with plenty of experience at the crossroads of private sector interests and public law. Prior to entering the House, she had served as legislative liaison for the Kingman Chamber of Commerce, and had served as both president of the Arizona Dental Association (AZDA, a trade association and registered lobbying group) and chair of that entity's council on governmental affairs. Cobb currently serves as executive director of AZDA.
In the House, Cobb would, at times, sponsor legislation beneficial to her industry. For example, in 2020, Cobb introduced a bill calling for substantial state funding to boost Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) rates paid to physicians and dentists.
An AZDA statement at the time blurred the line between elected lawmaker and lobbyist: "[the bill] has been introduced by our own Dentist/Representative Regina Cobb, who also happens to be the chair of the House Appropriations Committee."
Review of Cobb's campaign finance disclosures shows she was not averse to funding from lobbyists and special interest political action committees-- including, notably, the private prison corporation, Geo Group, which has a troubled history of operations at its facility in Kingman.
Given this background, it is surprising to hear Cobb reflect on her time in the Legislature in terms of her own naivete. It was, according to Cobb, her interactions with Gail Griffin that caused the scales to fall from her eyes, making clear the true scope of special interest influence in the Arizona Legislature.
Cobb told CRN that, early in her tenure in the House, she knew water regulation in rural Arizona needed to be addressed. No meaningful groundwater legislation had passed in the Legislature in four decades, and her constituents were facing a growing crisis.
Yet, looking back, she said she was "naive" to think that all that would be needed to pass such reforms would be "massive research, determination and consensus building."
Cobb worked hard as a lawmaker to get the facts of groundwater depletion on record and build consensus. In 2019, she succeed in passing legislation that resulted in a legislative "study committee" focused on the water crisis in Mohave and La Paz counties, as well as the state at-large.
Cobb's water study committee served as a public forum for education and debate over issues of water regulation in rural Arizona until it expired in June 2022.
The former lawmaker told CRN that, by bringing these issues to the fore, she felt she "had all the components to get meaningful water reform accomplished." Nevertheless, she said, her efforts fell short.
"Taking on some of the life-long history of lobbyists and a few legislators that rebel against progress and protection of our most valuable resource was my largest challenge," said Cobb.
"I do not feel that water protections are either Republican or Democrat, but should be evaluated for protection of Arizona's future growth and sustainability,” she added. “My efforts for reform were stifled by the old water guard's unwillingness to modify their personal interests above the betterment of the state."
Chief among that "old water guard," said Cobb, was House Natural Resources, Energy and Water Committee (NREW) Chair Griffin.
"She's done nothing, and, pretty much, that's what she said she wanted to do-- so I think she's accomplished what she wanted to accomplish," said Cobb, reflecting on her interactions with Griffin.
Gail Griffin, a Pennsylvania-born real estate agent, currently based in Hereford, entered the Arizona Legislature in 1997 as a member of the House, serving Cochise County and portions of Graham, Greenlee, Pima and Santa Cruz counties, through what was then LD 8 (now LD 19).
In her first term, Griffin was appointed vice chair of the House Natural Resources and Agriculture Committee (a forerunner of today's House NREW Committee, currently chaired by Griffin).
Early in her legislative career, according to records contained in the Arizona Secretary of State's Legislative Information System (ALIS), Griffin also took up positions on several state boards revolving around the themes of development and water resources. These included: the Arizona Housing Commission, the Arizona Department of Water Resource's (DWR) Arizona Water Protection Fund, the Arizona Water Banking Authority (a state commission dedicated to storing and crediting unused portions of the state's Colorado River water allotment), the "Rural Business Incubator Commission," and others.
According to ALIS records, Griffin also assumed roles in several private organizations concerned with water issues. Notable among these was her involvement in the "Environment Committee" of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
ALEC is a private entity funded by corporate special interests, trade groups, and lobbyists. It pairs corporate/special interest lobbyists with state-level lawmakers in various “task forces,” for the purpose of advancing "model legislation" intended for introduction and passage in state legislatures. This “model legislation” is often written by corporate/special interests lobbyists, friendly to their respective industries.
Supported largely through the network of activist policy organizations funded by oil giants Charles and David Koch (of Koch Industries), ALEC was actively pushing an industry-friendly deregulatory environmental agenda-- which included climate change denialism and erosion of environmental standards as chief tenants-- around the time of Griffin's initial involvement with the group.
According to Griffin statements of financial disclosure, she has maintained two sources of professional income throughout her time in the Arizona Legislature: her income as a state lawmaker, and her income from real estate. The former, according to records, consists of her income as a longtime real estate broker with Sierra Vista Realty, along with her own personal real estate investments.
Griffin's statements of financial disclosure also reveal a perk related to her office: frequent gifts (in the form of paid travel expenses) to luxury resorts, for attendance of conferences hosted by ALEC and their private sector underwriters.
ALEC's Arizona private sector underwriters-- who provide these travel/lodging luxury resort expenses to lawmakers like Griffin, through ALEC-- include professional associations, utility corporations, lobbyists, and others dependent on the state's real estate development industry.
This has included the Arizona Association of Realtors (of which Griffin is a member, and which is one of her most regular campaign finance contributors), private electrical utility provider Arizona Public Service (APS), and electrical/water utility provider Salt River Project (SRP).
Some recent examples of Griffin's perks associated with this special interest group:
In 2023, Griffin received “$1,000 to $25,000” in gifts of travel, meal, and lodging expenses related to an ALEC event held in Florida. This event was likely the ALEC annual meeting, held at the JW Marriott Grande Lakes luxury resort in Orlando in July of that year.
In 2022, Griffin disclosed another “$1,000 to $25,000” in paid travel, food, and lodging expenses for an ALEC even held in Utah in 2021. This appears to be a reference to the July 2021 ALEC Annual Meeting, held at Salt Lake City's Grand America luxury hotel.
[Note: ALEC was founded by Paul Weyrich. Weyrich also co-founded right-wing think tank, the Heritage Foundation.
Weyrich was a far-right Christian nationalist and an early, very influential, luminary of the modern American Christian right.
Through his work in advancing an agenda of radical industry deregulation through ALEC, Heritage, and other policy organizations, Weyrich played a pivotal role in welding right-wing Christian social ideology to the financial and political power of the nation's wealthiest corporations and special interest groups.
The Heritage Foundation's recent work at the head of “Project 2025” is a prime example of this.
The fruit's of Weyrich's merger of Christian nationalist ideology and corporate power/influence may also be felt through decades of state-level legislation aimed at limiting reproductive rights and implementing voter restrictions.
“Model legislation” authored and advanced by right-wing ideologues toward these aims is often distributed to member lawmakers at ALEC events, alongside legislation written by corporate lobbyists seeking to increase the profit margins of their employers (I know-- I have been to an ALEC conference and seen this myself. As it turns out, ALEC doesn't like it when critical reporters attend their events).
Most ALEC member lawmakers are members of the Republican Party. The Arizona Legislature's Republican caucus has long had a substantial number of ALEC members within its ranks.
In this context, it is worth noting that Cochise County Recorder David Stevens, formerly a Republican Arizona state representative, was an ALEC member lawmaker. Stevens has attracted a fair amount of criticism for his actions concerning recent elections, as well as his ties to far-right extremists.]
In 2001, Griffin left the House and re-entered private life-- though she kept at least one foot in the world of local politics. She served as chair of the Cochise County Republican Committee from 2002 through 2006. Around this time Griffin also served as third vice chair of the legislative district's Republican committee.
In 2010, Griffin successfully ran for the position of State Senator for her district (having been re-districted from LD 8 to LD 25, which would soon become LD 14, followed by our current designation of LD 19).
In January 2011, Griffin entered the Senate and was appointed chair of the Water, Land Use, and Rural Development Committee.
Griffin's work within the Republican party, and her networking with lobbyist/special interest groups, had clearly paid off; aside from her plum placement as head of the Senate water committee, she served much of her time in the Senate as majority whip (2015 through 2018), and served as Senate president pro tempore in 2013 and 2014.
In 2018, having run down the clock on the maximum of four consecutive two-year terms she could serve in the Senate, Griffin ran for her old seat in the House. She won the election and re-entered the Arizona House of Representatives as chair of the Natural Resources, Energy and Water Committee (NREW).
She won re-election in 2020 and 2022, and has served as chair of NREW through the duration of her time in the House. Griffin is running for re-election this year as well.
When Cobb entered the House in 2015, she approached then-Senator Griffin to see what could be accomplished to alleviate her district's-- and the state's-- growing water woes.
"I can tell you, I've had eight years of working with her-- a nice lady. The first couple of years, she was over in the Senate, before I dealt with her in the House-- and I would go over there and talk to her about my bills, and ask her if there was anything I could do. She was very nice, listened to me, but never once heard my bills," said Cobb, reflecting on her efforts.
"And then, when she was over in the House, every year I would go to her during the interim and talk to her. It's just what she said: 'oh, I'll talk to anybody'-- and she's right: she will talk to anybody. Will she do anything about it? No.
"I would take her a bill and say, 'we've got to have some kind of groundwater legislation in rural Arizona-- help me with this, figure it out. What's doable, and what's not doable?' And she would say it every year: 'let me read it, let me see what I could do with it,' and then she'd throw it in the drawer. She wouldn't look at it."
Review of legislative records demonstrates that Cobb began feeling heightened intensity around water issues in 2019. In that year, she introduced several bills intended to address aspects of the deepening water crisis-- including legislation that resulted in the formation of her rural water study committee.
Also in this session, Cobb introduced legislation, HB2143, that sought to create temporary "West Basin Advisory Councils," comprised of local officeholders, representatives, and stakeholders in Mohave and La Paz counties in order to study groundwater withdraw data from each of the region's groundwater basins and make recommendations for "sound groundwater management plans and policies" to the director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources (DWR).
According to legislative position reports, the bill was publicly supported by the County Supervisors Association of Arizona and Mohave County Supervisor Jean Bishop. Nevertheless, the bill died in the House Rules Committee and was never even transmitted to Griffin's NREW committee.
Two other water bills introduced by Cobb in the 2019 session pertained to allocations of Colorado River water.
HB2468 sought to create "emergency rules" governing reviews conducted by DWR for any proposed transfer of water allotments from the Colorado River to portions of the state not adjacent to the river. The bill also required public hearings and comments for any proposed transfer of Colorado River allotments.
According to legislative records, the bill had public support from Mohave County Supervisor Bishop. Nevertheless, the bill died in Griffin's NREW committee-- with no hearing, no debate, no vote.
A second bill introduced by Cobb in this session, HB2434, prohibited the transfer of certain Colorado River water entitlements outside of water districts adjacent to the Colorado River.
Specifically, the bill sought to forbid the transfer of "fourth priority" Colorado River water entitlements that were allocated as part of local water or irrigation districts in counties with county water authorities, to areas such as Phoenix and the ever-growing suburban sprawl of Maricopa County.
"Fourth priority" Colorado River water rights are essentially those issued after 1968, under certain agreements with the U.S. Department of the Interior.
While "fourth priority" rights have been issued in counties adjacent to the Colorado River, such as Yuma, La Paz, and Mohave counties, Mohave County is the only such county with a county water authority. As such, HB2434 would have only prohibited Colorado River water transfers out of Mohave County. Kingman is both seat of Mohave County and Cobb's hometown.
Cobb's district, containing Mohave and La Paz counties, borders the Colorado River and contains several irrigation and municipal water districts dependent on fourth priority Colorado River entitlements. In 2019, it became clear that the allotments her constituents depended on were in growing danger.
Beginning in 2013, a company called GSC Farm LLC, began buying up agricultural properties near the Colorado River in the area of Cibola, La Paz County.
According to Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) records, GSC Farm is a limited liability company incorporated in Delaware, which lists a Remington L&W Holdings LLC (also incorporated in Delaware) as its managing principal.
According to ACC records, Remington L&W Holdings' managing principals are Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance (incorporated in Connecticut), multi-billion-dollar global investment firm Barings LLC (a subsidiary of Mass Mutual, also incorporated in Connecticut), as well as a Carlsbad, California businessman named Michael Schlehuber.
According to California Secretary of State records, Schlehuber is the incorporating agent of Greenstone Management Partners LLC in that state. Greenstone Management Partners (a Delaware corporation) is registered to do business in Arizona as well. ACC records list its managing principals as Barings, Mass Mutual, and another Connecticut-based Mass Mutual subsidiary called Lakewater LLC Series V.
Records indicate that, under the banner of Greenstone Management Partners, Mass Mutual, Barings and related entities, out-of-state investors established a network of corporations and real estate holding companies dedicated to the capitalization of water resources in Arizona. ACC and county property records show that much of these efforts were focused on land and water resources in La Paz and Mohave counties.
In 2019, Greenstone, through GSC Farm, entered into an agreement with the town of Queen Creek, through which GSC Farm would sell and transfer fourth priority Colorado River water rights appurtenant to its Cibola-area properties to the rapidly growing Phoenix suburb.
Given the fact that this would result in the transfer of water away from the small agricultural community of Cibola to suburban real estate developments nearly 200 miles away, news of the GSC Farm/Queen Creek deal sparked alarm and outrage among Cobb's constituents.
HB2434 would have allowed the GSC Farm/Queen Creek deal to proceed because the relevant GSC Farm entitlements were tied to land in La Paz County, which has no county water district. However, HB2434 would have prohibited any future Colorado River water transfers out of neighboring Mohave County (where Cobb is based), because Mohave County does have a water district.
Records indicate that GSC/Greenstone/Barings/Mass Mutual entities and their partners had been buying up agricultural properties in Mohave County under the banner of Hualapai Valley Farm, Hassayampa Storage LLC, and other related entities.
According to legislative records, HB2434 had public support from Mohave County Supervisor Bishop and was opposed by Maricopa County Director of Emergency Management Robert Rowley.
The bill was held, and died, in Griffin's water committee-- with no hearing, no debate, no vote.
Griffin's failure to act on the bill left the door wide open for out-of-state investors and real estate developers to purchase and remove Colorado River waters from the rural agricultural communities dependent on them.
In 2020, Cobb stepped up her efforts to protect both Colorado River waters and groundwater for her constituents.
In that year, she introduced HB2895, which would, among other things, allow the Arizona Department of Water Resources to consider "reasonable projected rates" of groundwater withdraw, based on "credible evidence" indicative of likely changes to rates of groundwater use, when weighing whether to designate an area as an irrigation non-expansion area (INA).
INA law, as enacted through the 1980 Arizona Groundwater Management Act, only allows DWR to consider whether an area has sufficient groundwater to "provide for a reasonably safe supply for the irrigation of cultivated lands in the area at the current rates of withdrawal" when determining whether to designate a new INA.
As such, Cobb's bill would have allowed the department to consider things like well drilling records and purchases of lands by out-of-state investors and industrial growers as potential evidence of projected future rates of groundwater use in weighing potential INA designations and groundwater protections (which include a freeze on irrigable acres and required reporting of non-exempt groundwater use).
HB2895 also sought to define current INA statutory language pertaining to "reasonable safe supply for irrigation" as "a reliable source of groundwater for irrigation for one hundred years," in DWR's INA designation balancing test.
The intent of Cobb's bill was clear: to protect local growers in areas with no current groundwater regulation from industrial-scale growers flooding into the state from other areas.
Around this time, in Cochise County-- Griffin's own district-- Minnesota-based industrial dairy, Riverview LLP, was making headlines for the sheer amount of land it was purchasing and number of new wells it was drilling in order to grow feed for their dairy operations in the Willcox Groundwater Basin.
Riverview had moved into the Willcox Basin around 2015, with the aid of a $35 million loan from the agricultural lending arm of New York-based Metropolitan Life Insurance, according to Cochise County Recorder's Office records.
By 2020 public concern over the industrial dairy's water use had reached a fever pitch. As residential and smaller irrigation/business wells began running dry, many pointed the finger of blame at the corporate mega-dairy.
Around the same time, out-of-state investors began buying up land and water in Mohave County's Hualapai Valley, just north of Kingman.
According to Mohave County records, around 2015 two companies, Red Lake Ventures LLC and Wood Creek Capital Management LLC, began purchasing thousands of acres of vacant and agricultural land in the valley.
According to Arizona Corporation Commission records, Red Lake's managers consisted of Las Vegas developer James Rhodes and another man, Robert Saul.
Saul's given address in Red Lake incorporation records is the address of Barings LLC, the Mass Mutual Life Insurance-owned multi-billion-dollar investment firm based in Connecticut. Biographical information given by Saul's current investment firm, Fiera Comox, states he was working for "Wood Creek Capital/Barings" at the time of the Hualapai Valley land purchases.
According to Connecticut Secretary of State Records, Wood Creek Capital Management was an entity owned by Barings' parent, Mass Mutual.
Barings and Mass Mutual are also the primary managers and members of Greenstone Management Partners, the entity which had been buying up land with Colorado River rights in neighboring La Paz County and selling those rights to real estate developers in the Phoenix suburb of Queen Creek, some 200 miles away from the small agricultural community of Cibola that depended on those water rights.
This purchase and transfer of Colorado River Waters away from her district is what served as the impetus of Cobb's 2019 legislation aimed at prohibiting such practices.
According to Mohave County records, Barings (through Red Lake and Wood Creek) had also entered into a funding deal (of at least $20 million), related to the Hualapai Valley lands, with New York-based Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.
According to records, in 2019, Red Lake and Wood Creek transferred ownership of their Hualapai Valley properties to a new entity, Hualapai Valley Farm LLC. [Note: these lands had been operated under lease to Hualapai Valley Farm since 2017.]
According to ACC records, Hualapai Valley Farm is an entity incorporated in Delaware doing business in Arizona. Its corporate manager is Mass Mutual investment firm Barings, and its corporate members are Red Lake Ventures (which is also a corporate relative of Barings/Mass Mutual) and Al Dahra ACX, Inc., which gives a corporate address in Los Angeles.
According to California Secretary of State records, Al Dahra ACX is an entity incorporated in Washington State. Washington Secretary of State records show that Al Dahra ACX is a corporate subsidiary of Al Dahra Group, listing H.E. Khedaim Abdulla Al Derei as one of its corporate governors.
Al Derei is a co-founder of Al Dahra Group and is a career diplomat of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where Al Dahra Group is based, and serves as a delegate of the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to biographical information, Al Derei is also charged with managing the commercial business interests of the private office of Sheikh Hamdan Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who is a member of the royal ruling family of UAE.
Al Dahra Group is one of the world's largest growers and exporters of agricultural feed products. According to Al Dahra Group, Al Dahra ACX was the largest feed exporter in the United States in 2015-- which is the year Mass Mutual, Barings, and their various corporate relatives, began buying up land in Mohave County for their Hualapai Valley Farm partnership with Al Dahra.
The web of interrelated land purchases, shell companies, and water rights acquisitions in Arizona in recent years go on and on-- but I will leave it there, for now. I can sense some readers' eyes glazing over-- and I don't blame you, these are complex webs. I think you get the picture, though: there is big, often out-of-state money, vying for control of our state's dwindling water resources.
Predictably, Cobb's HB2895-- along with several other attempts on Cobb's part to protect the water resources of her constituents, up to the time of her departure from the House in 2023, died in Griffin's NREW committee-- with Griffin allowing no hearing or vote.
Here is what you really need to know, where Griffin's role in all of this is concerned:
During this time period, as well as subsequently-- as Griffin has played grim reaper to every piece of legislation meant to protect local water resources for the communities dependent on them-- the Hereford lawmaker has received substantial campaign finance support from political action committees (PACs) associated with real estate developers and industrial agricultural interests seeking to exploit the state's water supply.
These industry PACs showing love to Griffin include (but are not limited to): the Arizona Realtors Association (Realtors of AZ PAC), real estate developers (Homebuilders of Central AZ PAC, Southern AZ Homebuilders Association PAC), utility providers to developments (Pinnacle West Capital Corporation/APS PAC, Southwest Gas PAC, Salt River Valley Water User's Association PAC, UNS Energy Corporation PAC), industrial agricultural interests (the Arizona Farm Bureau's AG PAC, the AZ Dairymen PAC, Arizona Cattlemen's Association PAC, Western Grower's Association PAC, Arizona Cotton Grower's Association PAC, etc...), and even from PACs and lobbyists financed by Mass Mutual/Barings and Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.
In fact, review of Griffin's campaign finance reports reads like a who's who of Phoenix lobbyists and individual donors associated with the kind of rapacious real estate development and appropriation of water resources Cobb sought to protect her, and other, constituents from.
This special interest support for Griffin has continued to this day.
A recent example: in November 2023, Griffin's campaign committee received $2,000 from Jeffrey Garrett, founder and principal of Garrett Development Corporation (GDC). GDC is a prolific Phoenix-area residential and commercial real estate developer. The company's portfolio includes a 125-acre suburban residential development in Queen Creek.
Queen Creek is, of course, the Phoenix suburb that now, thanks to the efforts of Greenstone Management Partners/Barings/Mass Mutual and their many holding companies, has diverted Colorado River allotments away from the agricultural town of Cibola, some 200 miles distant, in order to feed its sprawling suburban development.
Campaign finance records also show that Griffin has received funding from lobbyists employed by Kutak Rock, LLP, as well as a PAC administered by the lobby firm, since at least the time of her 2018 House campaign.
Kutak Rock, according to Arizona Secretary of State lobbyist records, currently represents both the town of Queen Creek and Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (which Kutak has represented since 2017, and which had a role in financing a number of the real estate transactions we have previously discussed-- including the Cochise County Riverview dairy and the Hualapai Valley Farm/Al Dahra acquisitions).
More importantly, according to lobby records, Kutak Rock was the only Phoenix lobby firm to represent both Barings' parent company, Mass Mutual (which it represented from 2017 to 2023) and the Town of Queen Creek (which the firm has represented since 2012), during the period of the Greenstone/Barings acquisition of Cibola water rights for Queen Creek. Records show that Griffin received campaign contributions from Kutak during this period.
According to Arizona campaign finance records, Griffin even received direct campaign funding during the period of time surrounding the Greenstone/Barings transfer of Cibola water rights to Queen Creek from lobbyists contracted by Greenstone Management Partners (Barings' primary instrument in these Arizona water speculations).
According to campaign finance reports, Griffin has received multiple contributions from B3 Strategies founder and principal Russell Smoldon, as well as other lobbyists employed by B3 Strategies. Records indicate that Griffin has also received frequent contributions from several political action committees supported by Smoldon.
According to Arizona Secretary of State records, B3 was the sole Arizona lobby firm employed by Greenstone Management Partners, having represented the investment group from October 2019 to September 9 of this year.
Review of B3 lobby records shows that Smoldon and his lobby firm represent a number of corporations, special interest groups, and irrigation districts who provide electricity and water to real estate developments and agricultural land.
It is likely Griffin and Smoldon are well familiar with each other, even outside the realm of campaign finance.
Smoldon served for several years, during his time as in-house government affairs manager/lobbyist for Salt River Project, as the Arizona private sector chair of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
ALEC is, of course, the same special interest-funded influence group that Griffin has been accepting paid junkets to luxury resorts from throughout her time in the Arizona Legislature.
Griffin statements of financial disclosure indicate that she was an ALEC member, receiving “gifts” valued at $500 or more from the special interest influence group, during the period of Smoldon's ALEC Arizona private sector chairmanship.
Review of lobby records shows that Smoldon and B3 are still quite active in ALEC. According to records, B3 has helped foot the bill for special dinners held for Arizona lawmakers and lobbyists at many ALEC events in recent years. This included a special “Arizona dinner” held in conjunction with the July 2023 ALEC annual meeting at the JW Marriott Grande Lakes luxury resort, attended by Griffin.
Griffin did not respond to written questions from CRN regarding her relationship with Smoldon, or regarding what issues Smoldon advised/lobbied her on during this period.
Smoldon did not respond to written questions from CRN regarding his work for Greenstone Management Partners, or what specific issues or legislation he has lobbied for, or against, on their behalf.
Smoldon also did not respond to written questions from CRN regarding his relationship or areas of advocacy with Griffin.
Beau Hodai, Cochise Regional News— September 30, 2024