The AZGP is demanding Lombardo’s removal from the November ballot—and calling on Arizona Greens who witnessed, experienced, or documented her campaign’s conduct to come forward.

August 31, 2026

The Arizona Green Party has formally asked Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes to remove Risa Lombardo from the November general-election ballot as the Green Party candidate for Governor and replace her with Carlos Melendez, the candidate endorsed by the Arizona Green Party.

The request comes as the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission continues an investigation into allegations that Lombardo, Green Party Secretary of State candidate Duwayne Collier, and Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Neely improperly obtained millions of dollars in public campaign financing.

The AZGP's August 31 letter to Secretary Fontes argues that the circumstances surrounding Lombardo's candidacy raise serious questions about election integrity, campaign financing and the integrity of the Green Party's primary election.

The party is also asking Arizona Green voters to come forward with firsthand accounts and documentation concerning their interactions with the Lombardo campaign.

The controversy began before the primary

The Arizona Green Party's concerns about Lombardo did not begin after she won the July primary.

In December 2025, the AZGP publicly raised concerns about Lombardo and other candidates seeking Green Party nominations, stating that the candidates were unknown to the party and had not previously been involved with the organization. Phoenix New Times later reported that party officials also said petition circulators were describing the candidates as independents.

By April, independent news organizations were examining Lombardo's political background and the circumstances surrounding her candidacy.

Phoenix New Times reported that Lombardo had significant Republican political connections, including service as a Republican precinct committeewoman and involvement with conservative organizations. The newspaper also reported that a conservative petition firm, Uncle Sam Petitions, collected signatures on Lombardo's behalf and that its owner had donated to Republican campaigns.

The newspaper reported that Lombardo's campaign finance reports showed no expenses or donations at the time, despite the use of paid petition circulators to collect the signatures necessary to qualify for the Green Party primary ballot.

An April 24 investigation by Arizona Agenda similarly examined Lombardo's Republican connections, her use of paid petition circulators and the involvement of conservative attorneys when her ballot qualification was challenged. The article placed Lombardo's candidacy within the broader history of disputes over candidates running under the Green Party banner without representing the party's platform.

Those reports were published months before the July primary and before the current Clean Elections investigation became public.

Lombardo's ballot qualification was challenged

Lombardo submitted 3,250 signatures to qualify for the Green Party gubernatorial primary.

Her ballot qualification was challenged in court.

A judge ultimately ruled that Lombardo had enough valid signatures to remain on the primary ballot. However, 1,296 of the 3,250 signatures were invalidated, leaving 1,954 valid signatures—enough to meet the required threshold.

The court's ruling did not find that Lombardo's candidacy was fraudulent. She remained legally qualified for the primary.

The invalidated signatures nevertheless remain part of the documented history of the process through which Lombardo obtained access to the Green Party primary ballot.

The AZGP gave Lombardo an opportunity to seek its endorsement

The Arizona Green Party's opposition to Lombardo should also be considered alongside the party's documented effort to give her an opportunity to participate in its endorsement process.

On May 29, the AZGP sent candidates an email explaining that the upcoming endorsement meeting would provide candidates with an opportunity to introduce themselves, discuss their campaigns and answer questions from Green Party members.

Lombardo attended the May 30 meeting but subsequently complained that she had not been called upon to speak before she needed to leave for another event.

On May 31, AZGP Treasurer Liana West responded to Lombardo in writing.

The response acknowledged Lombardo's frustration and explained that the party wanted Green voters to have an opportunity to hear directly from candidates seeking endorsement.

The AZGP then postponed the gubernatorial endorsement vote until June 6 and scheduled a governor-focused endorsement meeting specifically to give candidates another opportunity to speak and answer questions.

Lombardo was invited to participate.

According to the contemporaneous correspondence, Lombardo did not attend the June 6 meeting.

She also did not complete the AZGP candidate questionnaire that had been provided to candidates as part of the endorsement process.

The party subsequently endorsed Carlos Melendez for Governor.

That distinction is central to the current dispute:

Carlos Melendez was the Arizona Green Party's endorsed candidate. Risa Lombardo was not.

Lombardo won the primary despite the party's opposition

Lombardo nevertheless won the July 21 Green Party gubernatorial primary.

The certified statewide canvass shows:

• Risa Lombardo: 430 votes

• Carlos Melendez: 202 votes

Lombardo received 68% of the statewide vote and Melendez received 32%.

Lombardo's name appeared on the printed primary ballot, while Melendez ran as a write-in candidate.

The geographic results also show an important contrast.

Lombardo won Maricopa County, where she received 244 votes to Melendez's 100. Melendez narrowly won Pima County, 82 to Lombardo's 79.

Pima County has an active Green Party organization that has continued grassroots organizing and direct voter outreach. While county-level election results cannot establish why individual voters chose one candidate over another, Melendez's narrow victory in Pima County occurred in a county where the Green Party has maintained an active local presence, over many decades.

The statewide result, however, gave Lombardo the Green Party gubernatorial nomination.

Then came the Clean Elections investigation

The controversy surrounding Lombardo's candidacy took a much more serious turn in August when reporting by Arizona Mirror raised questions about the qualifying contributions used by Lombardo, Collier and Neely to obtain public campaign financing.

Candidates participating in Arizona's Clean Elections program must collect qualifying $5 contributions from registered Arizona voters before receiving public campaign funds. For 2026, gubernatorial candidates were required to collect 4,000 qualifying contributions.

The Arizona Mirror reported that Lombardo, Collier and Neely collectively reported qualifying contributions from nearly 4,000 of the same voters, including more than 2,600 people whose names appeared as contributors to all three campaigns.  

The newspaper contacted more than 50 people whose names appeared among those contributors and reported that none of the people who responded said the contributions attributed to them were legitimate.

Six people specifically told the Mirror they had not made the $5 contributions attributed to them, even though forms submitted to the Secretary of State's Office appeared to contain their signatures.

Several of the voters told the Mirror that they remembered signing unrelated petitions at places such as grocery-store parking lots, marijuana dispensaries or concerts.

The reporting raised the possibility that information collected during petition drives may have subsequently been used to create qualifying contribution records.

The precise source of the money and the circumstances surrounding the contribution forms remain subjects of investigation.

As of December 21st, 2023, The Arizona Secretary of State's Office has once again granted official statewide party recognition to the Arizona Green Party. On the afternoon of November 28th, 2023, the AZGP turned in a total of 62,749 eligible signatures, which exceeded the statutory minimum requirement to qualify for new party status. This qualification entitles the Arizona Green Party to access to the ballot for federal, statewide, and legislative races for both the 2024 and 2026 election cycles. In addition to statewide party recognition, the Green Party of Coconino County and the Green Party of Pima County have also achieved county-level party recognition. We are incredibly excited and grateful to all of our members, volunteers, donors, and supporters for making this historic victory for our party, for Arizona, and for democracy possible.

While the AZGP has regained our party recognition and ballot status, we did not qualify in time for the deadline to participate in Arizona's upcoming Presidential Preference Election (PPE). This means that we will not be able to run a Green Party Presidential Primary through the State of Arizona's election process. Instead, we will run an internal ranked-choice primary for all qualified Green Presidential candidates, as we've done in past election cycles where we have not had statewide party recognition. Federal, statewide, and legislative candidates are not affected by this missed deadline, and the Green Party primary for these offices will occur through the state's election processes as usual.

We encourage all AZ Green Party members to consider taking advantage of this huge victory for our party by stepping up to run for office as Green Party candidates in 2024! If you are interested in running for federal, statewide, or legislative offices as a Green candidate, please reach out to us and we will happily assist you in that process.

Thank you all so much for your dedicated support of our party and its mission. Because of you, the people of Arizona once again have a real choice to vote for a party that is committed to putting people, planet, and peace over profits and is not controlled by corporations and the super-wealthy.

We are excited to continue to grow and build the Green Party in Arizona in 2024 with your help.

The Arizona Green Party is proud to announce that on December 7th, 2023- after several years without an organized Green Party presence in the County- the Green Party of Coconino County was officially recognized as an official County political party by the Coconino County Elections Department. The Green Party of Coconino County submitted a total of 1,955 valid signatures from registered voters in Coconino County, which exceeded the 1,042 minimum signatures required to gain County political party status.

Upon consensus or majority vote of the AZGP's membership at our next Statutory Meeting in January of 2024, the Green Party of Coconino County will be internally accredited as a recognized county chapter of the AZGP, which guarantees the Coconino Greens all the rights and privileges associated with County chapter membership (including representation on the AZGP State Committee, sharing of resources, etc.), as are outlined in our Bylaws.

The AZGP would like to thank all the dedicated members and supporters of our Party that reside in Coconino County for their passion, hard work, and tenacity in achieving official recognition for the Coconino County chapter. We are excited to welcome this new County chapter into the AZGP family. It is an exciting time to be an Arizona Green Party member, and our Party seeks to continue to grow and bloom in new areas of the State where we are not yet organized in 2024 and beyond.

October 18, 2023

To:
Congressman Raul Grijalva
101 West Irvington Rd., #4
Tucson, Arizona 85714

STOP THE GENOCIDE!

Dear Sir,

In the Monday, October 16, 2023 issue of the Arizona Daily Star, the article titled “Grijalva Voices Concerns About Siege,” by Laura Gersony, reported that you joined 54 other House Democrats to “voice concern” about Israel's plan to enact a complete siege of Gaza and cut off water, food and electricity to the helpless hostage population of Gaza. Concern?

This is GENOCIDE!

Under international law, the crime of genocide is defined by “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such,” as noted in the December 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. (Raz Segal, A Textbook Case of Genocide, jewishcurrents.org Oct 13.2023) Voicing “concern” is an ineffectual way to respond to a textbook case of genocide unfolding in front of our eyes.

Apparently your concerns only lasted until the end of the article when you brushed them aside and shared your plans to vote in favor of sending supplemental military aid to Israel, because “the whole paradigm after Hamas attacked Israel completely changed.” The paradigm has not changed. This cycle of violence has been going on for 75 years.

While coverage of the attacks on Israel saturate the news cycle of almost every medium of mass communication, often without substantiation, opposing viewpoints are suppressed as part of the coordinated atrocity narrative to inflame public opinion and justify a genocidal response in retaliation to Palestinian resistance to occupation.

• 75 years of ethnic cleansing
  
  
• Scores of violations of UN resolutions with impunity
  
  
• 15 years of blockade
  
  
• Constant humiliation of a entire people
  
  
• Theft of Palestinian lands with impunity
  
  
• Bulldozing of homes and orchards Terrorist attacks by settlers Pogroms on Palestinian towns
  
  
• Bombing of hospitals, homes, schools, mosques. Desecration of Palestinian sacred sites
  
  
• Daily raids into Palestinian homes
  
  
• Denial of water, food, power
  
  
• Constant humiliation of an entire people
  
  
• Genocide while the whole world watches

We are very outraged by your stated desire to join the Israeli genocidal campaign against the Palestinians by sending supplemental aid. Perhaps you are serving the corporate interests, the oil companies, and the arms manufacturers, but you are not representing us. History will not remember you to be kind to you. Genocide is a crime but so is funding it.

Anyone who has followed the Green Party of Pima County for any length of time is well aware that we condemn anti-Semitism, occupation, racism, injustice, apartheid, murder, rape, torture, kidnapping, war crimes, the mistreatment of civilians and Genocide. But we are not neutral. We support the just resistance of the Palestinians to the 75-year assault on their land and their goal of freedom from the illegal Israeli occupation. The Israelis and their U.S. corporate enablers are carrying out genocide of the Palestinians in real time and in front of our eyes. This must stop. Stop funding the Israeli genocide of Palestine. Stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and genocide of the Palestinian people.

We remain true to our principles, our moral ethics and hold fast to our strong commitment to justice for all. We ask that you reconsider and withdraw your support for the ongoing genocide.

Eduardo Quintana
GPPC Chairperson

Jason Reichenberg
GPPC 1st Vice-Chairperson

Bob Aros
GPPC Treasurer

Mike Cease
GPPC Secretary

Kira Ogola
GPPC Gender Outreach Representative

Dear AZ Greens,

Thank you all for being members, supporters, contributors, and voters of the Arizona Green Party this year. After an admittedly turbulent start, the dedicated volunteers and activists in this party have once again shown the strength of our conviction in this organization and our Ten Key Values. It is because of all of your invaluable support and participation that we are proud to end this year on a note of relative success.

Our party has survived attacks by the corporate establishment duopoly, held our heads high, and refused to be silent and meek in the face of oppression, regaining our ability for voters to designate their party preference with us in Maricopa County, and beginning the first stages of active rebuilding of membership in Pima County.

We've put in the hard work this year of improving our internal operations through a long period of critical self-reflection, changes in leadership, and recommitment to the ideal of participatory, grassroots, democratic decision making; and we're seeing the real proof of these concepts organizationally at the end of this year.

Even without party recognition or ballot access, we dug deep to recruit and run write-in candidates for office from within our active membership, and with all of your support, we were able to endorse our first full slate of candidates, up and down the ballot, since 2018- and these candidates over-performed all of our expectations!

We rolled up our sleeves, put on our comfortable shoes, and got directly involved with our communities at the local level, engaging in more direct action and mutual aid than we have in several years.

To illustrate our progress, the AZGP-SC has created a 2022 retrospective slideshow for our members to view a presentation of our party's notable accomplishments throughout the past year.

AZGP_2022_Retrospective_Slideshow.pdf

In short, while we've had to scale back our party's operations and make some serious internal changes in recent years, the changes we've made and the strategies we are implementing now are beginning to show slow, but real success. We are growing, learning, and changing as a party, and on behalf of all of us in the 2022 AZGP State Committee, I want to thank you for being flexible, active, and committed participants of this evolution. We are so excited to work closely with all of our AZ Greens for even further growth and success of our party in 2023 and beyond.

The AZGP State Committee and Working Committees will be on a short break from November 20th through the month of December for the holiday season. County chapters will continue to meet on their own schedules.

Monthly AZGP-SC Meetings will resume January 12th at 7PM via Zoom.

The AZGP will be hosting our Annual Statutory General Membership Meeting on January 21st, details TBD, in which we will be electing new Officers to the State Committee. If you are interested in serving on the 2023 AZGP-SC, please contact us with your name, contact information, and what position you would like to run for. The positions up for election are;

• Co-Chair (1 seat up for election, term expires January 2025)
• 1st Vice-Chair (term expires January 2025)
• 2nd Vice-Chair (term expires January 2024)
• Treasurer (term expires January 2025)
• Recorder (term expires January 2025)
• Media Outreach Coordinator (term expires January 2024)
• GPUS National Committee Delegate (1 seat up for election, term expires January 2025)
• GPUS National Committee Alternate Delegate (1 seat up for election, term expires January 2025)

From the bottom of my heart, I thank you all for being Greens and wish you the happiest of holiday seasons. Here's to a new year of growth and success for the Arizona Green Party!

In Solidarity,

Cody Hannah, AZGP Co-Chair

Statement from AZGP on Court Ruling to Uphold AZ Abortion Ban

Saturday, September 24th, 2022

The Arizona Green Party stands firmly in opposition to the decision by Pima County Superior Court Judge Kellie Johnson allowing the State of Arizona to enforce a near-total ban on abortion-related healthcare in the state that is over a century old and not in line with current views of the electorate on the issue of abortion. This decision puts the lives, livelihoods, and liberties of all Arizonans in grave danger, and we hope and expect for an appeal of this disastrous and regressive decision.

While the GOP are currently relishing in the fruits of their decades-long attack campaign on reproductive healthcare and bodily autonomy for people who can get pregnant, the Democratic Party has sat on their hands the whole way, promising each election cycle that if we just elect a few more Democrats, they would codify Roe into law, among other progressive promises that would never come to fruition like universal healthcare, meaningful climate action, etc. However, what we’ve seen from the Democratic Party leadership in action is support for incumbent anti-abortion legislators like Henry Cuellar in TX, as well as active financial support of the very same right-wing extremist candidates that the Democrats claim to be ‘defending’ us against. 

It is clear to us and to many others that neither corporate duopoly party actually cares for the needs of working people, our communities, or our environment. They see our lives as games to be toyed with for their own short-term gain, be it through the hoarding of money or the procuring of institutional power. If we want to truly codify the right to an abortion as law, we as the progressive working class will need to organize ourselves into an independent, grassroots political vehicle to do it. Our belief is that the Green Party is the best-prepared organization to serve as that vehicle.

The position of the AZGP is and will always be that abortions are healthcare, and healthcare is an unalienable human right that must be provided to all without financial, social, or legal barriers to access. Decisions about one’s health care should be made voluntarily between patients and their providers; the government has no business dictating what health care options a patient and their provider may or may not pursue based on outdated, puritanical, and anti-scientific views on abortion.

The Arizona Green Party supports an approach to reproductive justice in the State of Arizona that ensures all Arizonans have the appropriate and necessary resources, knowledge, and autonomy to make their own informed decisions about their reproductive health. This includes guaranteed access to abortion through a universal healthcare program, comprehensive sex education that is LGBTQIA+ inclusive and teaches consent, free and unrestricted access to menstrual products and contraceptives, and a science and equity based approach to public health, among other policies.

While this is, without a doubt, a heartbreaking turn of events for many of us, we must not allow ourselves to give up hope or our will to fight for our human rights. We urge you to let this radicalize you rather than lead you to despair. Connect with others that share your pain, and let a lush, vibrant, and strong community grow from the soil where our tears fall today. This is not and cannot be the last word on the subject of abortion rights in Arizona, and we must all collectively commit to continue the fight for the right to a free, legal, and unrestricted abortion for all Arizonans.

In Solidarity,

Arizona Green Party

State Committee

AZGP Statement on S.C.O.T.U.S. Decision Overturning Roe v. Wade

Friday, June 24th, 2022

The Supreme Court’s decisions in the past week have been incredibly troubling, and the official ruling out of SCOTUS today overturning Roe v. Wade is an attack on all of our rights to personal privacy and autonomy. Those who will inevitably be the most harmed by this decision will disproportionately come from economically and socially disenfranchised communities. 

While Republicans have made it clear for decades that this erosion of our fundamental rights is an essential part of their political program, the Democrats have sat on their hands and refused to codify these rights into law, despite having many opportunities to do so, while having no problem fundraising and campaigning on the fear of this day. Both corporate duopoly parties have failed us, and more people are waking up to this truth. Now, because of their hubris, incompetence, and inaction, we are faced with the unthinkable. 

We reaffirm our unflinching support for the rights of all people to personal privacy and reproductive autonomy, and specifically the right to a safe, free abortion on demand. We are committed to our work of building the AZGP and GPUS into a strong, progressive opposition party that will stand up for working people and the planet against the theocratic fascists and milquetoast corporatists who are responsible for these attacks on our rights.

If you are able, please consider attending a local demonstration to support abortion rights and/or donate to a grassroots organization providing abortion-related services on the ground to people who need it. We are strongest when we stand together for the greater good of us all. We will fight this, and we will win.

In Solidarity,

Arizona Green Party

State Committee

May 3, 2022

PRESS RELEASE

***FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE***

Let’s be real, either you believe that women have the right to decide when they want to subject their body to procreation; or you believe that society should make that decision for all people with uteruses.

Abortion advocates truly wish that we lived in a society where abortion was unnecessary. However, until healthcare is fair and equitable to all, then abortion rights will serve as the line in the sand.

Making abortions illegal will not stop all abortions. Nor will it stop the reasons that individuals seek out abortions. This blatant encroachment on women’s rights is a transparent attack on the most vulnerable of our society.

Wealthy individuals that have disposable income will continue to have access to any doctor or procedure they can pay for. This is specifically an attack on the healthcare of predominantly poor women of color. 

Restricting access to abortions does not stop them from happening, it just makes them less safe for people who give birth and their doctors. 

Democrats have had decades to codify Roe v Wade into law and have instead used the ‘fear of loss’ of that access as a political chess piece.

Why Congress did not codify abortion rights after Roe v. Wade

Green Party members believe that as a matter of right, all persons must have the opportunity to benefit equally from the resources afforded us by society and the environment. We must consciously confront in ourselves, our organizations, and society at large, any discrimination by race, class, gender, sexual orientation, age, nationality, religion, or physical or mental ability that denies fair treatment and equal justice under the law.

*** Arizona Green Party State Committee ***

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