Dan Farley is the President of Tea Party AZ, he's a precinct committeeman, and he's the AZ GOP Legislative District 4 Chairman. Dan is passionate about working to keep our republic, to keep Arizona as free as possible, and to grow the number of citizen activists who get off the couch and get involved to make a difference in their communities.
Dan Farley is the President of Tea Party AZ, he's a precinct committeeman, and he's the AZ GOP Legislative District 4 Chairman. Dan is passionate about working to keep our republic, to keep Arizona as free as possible, and to grow the number of citizen activists who get off the couch and get involved to make a difference in their communities.
Twitter:
@realDanFarley @jennybethm
Dan Farley (00:00):
Here in Arizona, the conservative grassroots are winning. If we compound that success, imagine in another election cycle and in another election cycle, this state will be in very good hands. And if we could replicate this at all, 50 states, oh baby,
Narrator (00:18):
Keeping our Republic is on the line. And it requires Patriots with great passion, dedication, and eternal vigilance to preserve our freedoms. Jenny Beth Martin is the co-founder of Tea Party Patriots. She's an author, a filmmaker, and one of time magazine's most influential people in the world. But the title she's most proud of is Mom To Her Boy, girl Twins, she has been at the forefront fighting to protect America's core principles for more than a decade. Welcome to the Jenny Beth Show.
Jenny beth Martin (00:50):
Unless you're living under a rock, you know, we've had some major problems with our elections the last several years. When you look at the direction of our country and then what is happening with our elections, it can be quite discouraging. But now is not the time to lose hope. Even in Arizona where one of the most egregious election situations occurred, there are still hope. In the next several episodes, I sit down with some amazing people in Arizona that are committed to saving their state, and in turn our country. Today I visit with Dan Farley. Dan is the president of Tea Party az. He's the Arizona Republican Legislative District four chairman, and he's a precinct committee man. Dan is working to align like-minded groups and individuals to work towards common goals and restore the proper representation of the people to the government of Arizona. Dan Farley, I'm so glad you're with us today. You are a man who is working to save our country and save Arizona. You're a grassroots leader and you're an activist, um, an entrepreneur and somebody who is just committed to doing what's right for America. How did you get involved and what motivates you and makes you want to continue to, to be so active?
Dan Farley (02:10):
Uh, thank you Jenny Beth. Uh, and the same could be said for you. I, I think that, uh, your leadership and having, uh, tea Party Patriots even exist, uh, helped create an avenue for me to get involved. Uh, I, uh, I have been a lifelong Republican. Uh, both my folks started with humble beginnings and the land of opportunity and were fiscally responsible as CPAs. And, um, and, uh, I was raised as a Republican in part, uh, because of that, uh, my whole life. And when I did a trip around the US for three months and decided, uh, Arizona Deep Red State was where an an entrepreneurial state, uh, that was growing, was, uh, was a good home. That wasn't too far from where I grew up in California. That's where I started my life in 93. And, and I, uh, I had, I used the free markets and the stock market and sales.
(03:01):
I'd become, uh, bus successful in business, uh, before 30 and was giving money to the, uh, to the Republican party here in the state. But I wasn't getting callbacks for involvement. I wanted to learn more about how, uh, politics worked and, uh, in our state. And, uh, and then the Tea Party emerged in oh eight. And, uh, and then in, um, in 2009, um, our state legislature passed SSB 10 70, which was to replicate our border, our, our federal border laws. And our state was called racist for that, which didn't make sense to me. And so, uh, there was a Stand with Arizona event, I think, uh, in the early second, uh, quarter of 2009. And I decided to attend that. And when I did, uh, that's when I, uh, said, well, the Tea Party's not racist. Like the press says there's Hispanic keynote speakers and black keynote speakers, and there's Hispanic and black people in the audience.
(04:05):
Uh, this is, the press is dishonest. And, uh, and, uh, and I didn't understand why the press was dishonest. And then in time, um, I started to figure out that, um, that we were kind of told about that through this movie, the Matrix and, uh, like how unsustainable entitlements of the press might be dishonest in, in, in, uh, 1999. And then I, uh, went to a tea party meeting in, uh, in 2009. And they were mostly small business owners struggling to pay their own employees that they didn't wanna lay off. They were working longer hours, paying themselves less. And, uh, and they were all about giving back to the community. And I said, these are the best people I've ever been around. I'm a tea party guy. I made that decision in early oh nine. And, uh, and the tea parties only stood for three things, which shouldn't be really controversial.
(04:56):
It's been fiscal responsibility. It's been that the constitutions, the supreme law of the land, and that we believe in free markets or, or certainly domestic free markets. And those free markets, we've seen how important those are. When, when Trump was, uh, blocked from being on Facebook or Twitter, true social was an avenue, or Elon Musk, free markets acquiring Twitter, you know, uh, free markets are critically important to retaining our freedom. And so, uh, so as Trump became president in 2016, I decided that, uh, that, um, I wanted the legacy of the Tea Party to continue. And, uh, because it was kind of losing momentum and I agreed to be tea or to run as Tea Party Scottsdale president was unanimously elected. And that's what kind of got me started. And, and as a leader in the Tea Party, which I met you shortly thereafter, um, there were some people that were precinct committeemen within the Republican party.
(05:54):
And, uh, and they, they liked my leadership outside the party, and they highly encouraged me to get involved within the party. And I'd say about three and a half, just over three and a half years ago, I was persuaded to do so. And, um, and, and most people that have been involved for the last three and a half years within the party would agree that there's been a material impact and change in that period of time.
(06:54):
Um, uh, so we've got an election integrity team, we've got a school board team, um, uh, a lot of, uh, uh, parents don't like what they're seeing in their schools. Uh, and so we're attending school board meetings and we're developing activism and candidates from that. We've got, uh, city council teams, which is, I think, helping because, um, the, uh, the, the bill, the, uh, the quote unquote inflation reduction act that actually creates inflation. Uh, they're actually using our money to bribe our city councils to take away roads that we paid for with our own taxes, uh, uh, that are referred to by the, those in the know as road diets are basically getting rid of roads and building up, um, mass transit and concentrated living after we just went through a pandemic. And we understand how important it's to maybe have individual, uh, transportation, you know.
(07:50):
But, um, but that aside, so we've got a city council team. We've got a state legislature team, very proud of our state legislature team. Um, we've, we've brought in, uh, a number of, uh, people into that. We developed a number of candidates. We won a lot of primaries last cycle. We increased our conservative, um, uh, fighters in our state legislature, and those that are serving constituents by almost 80% in one election cycle. That was very good. And then we've got, um, we're trying to get a federal activism team going, but it, we need more activists. And there's a maturation process. And because it's volunteer, you know, some people come in and out and you've gotta kind of restart all over again with some of them. But the good news is, uh, in Arizona, we have doubled the size of, uh, the, we've largely doubled the size of involvement within the party, uh, uh, that's referred to as precinct committeemen in the, uh, state constitution. And those, uh, precinct committeemen, many of them have turned into candidates and activists. And, um, and we've won a number of down ballot races, and we've won, um, a number of state legislature races. And, um, and I think that's reflected if you look close. And we also went on redistricting.
Jenny beth Martin (09:05):
Okay. Hold on one moment. Yeah. All right. Let, let's unpack because you've gone through a whole lot of things. Yeah. So let's unpack some of
Dan Farley (09:11):
One thing that
Jenny beth Martin (09:11):
At time. Yeah. One thing at a time. First, you mentioned that the party did not call back. And I think that it's that, one of the things that I noticed when I was in my twenties, and then, especially as I was in my thirties and active in the state of Georgia before the Tea Party movement began, when I would reach out to the party or to the campaigns, oftentimes I would get like this college student answering my, my phone call, um, or returning my phone call, who thought they knew more than than I did. And they did, they understood more about what was going on within the, the confines of the campaign. But they discounted oftentimes the experience of people like you who were entrepreneurs and, and knew how to run a business or knew how to make a difference. And I think it's great.
(10:02):
And I'm not picking on the party, and I'm not picking on campaigns. Campaigns exist, and then they go away, and then they come back in two or four years and they go away again. And the parties oftentimes only have one or two people working as a ped employee at, at the state level, especially if you're not a swing state. So it's hard to return every call. So I'm not picking on, on them. I've just, I, I think it's interesting that you mention that be and that that helped you realize, oh, there's a, a spot to fill and a way I can make a difference and help other people like me, other small business owners and other people who wanna make a difference. Um, and I think it's great that you, that you did that, um, precinct committeemen, can we talk about that for ju just a minute? We often hear, go be a precinct committee, man, and in Arizona, the way to be a precinct committee man is a little bit different than some states and similar to others, because you get elected on the ballot to be a committee, man, is that right?
Dan Farley (11:03):
So, okay. Uh, I'd like to address, um, uh, uh, first of all, I believe our state party today is, uh, is a healthier state partyer than when I, when I got involved. Uh, as I've been involved in the Republican Party, I've noticed that there's three factions to it. Uh, one, uh, which does not want involvement and wants to use the party to monetize for an individual and to centralize influence for themselves. Uh, and that doesn't serve the party well of bringing younger people in. It doesn't serve us well with having multiple candidates. It doesn't serve us well as a brand to be proud of either, because they're not fighting as much for constituents. And so, uh, so there's that faction and, um, and that was the culture. Um, unfortunately under the McCain leadership, and we, uh, and within the party, uh, we want the party to fight for election integrity within the party.
(11:59):
We didn't really even have election integrity, which is, which was an issue. If your party doesn't even have it, how are you gonna fight for it? Uh, uh, outside of that, then you've got those like myself that, um, uh, recognize that, uh, grassroots wins when we bring in volunteers and appreciate them when we give them tools that make them productive and when we celebrate our victories. And so, uh, that's what I would call the collaborative grassroots. And then, and then there's another faction that grassroots, which is, uh, frustrated, maybe not ha, hasn't had as much maturation in politics where they just, they're willing to do and fight and, and, and, and, and sometimes their fight is misdirected at those that are trying to help them. And, uh, and so there's three factions to it, and I believe, uh, well, the only faction that's gonna win is the one that grows the numbers, and the one that leads where honesty is trust, uh, creates trust, knowledge and respect, and hard work and dears loyalty.
(13:05):
And so today, within the party, um, we brought in, um, precinct committeemen and, uh, precinct committeemen are, so the Republican party is considered a club. Um, well, I guess, uh, for those that are watching, um, I'll kind of give you, uh, so like, if I knew to do this, I might've figured it out on your own, and you might have to do this for yourself. There's 51 constitutions in the, in the United States. There's one for the, for the federal government, and then there's one for every state. And if I had taken the time to read our own state constitution, I would've learned all about precinct committeemen. It was in there. Okay. Um, uh, I learned it from others, but if you don't have someone to learn from, you can pull your own state constitution and teach yourself. So, uh, so within our own state, uh, there are odd years and even years, um, and those odd years, uh, or even years, you, you will run as a much like a candidate on the ballot if it's a competitive election for precinct committeemen. If it's an odd year and we have vacancies, then it can be appointed through a chairman of the party. So,
Jenny beth Martin (14:18):
Um, and how are the party chairman elected or appointed, or how did they become a chairman?
Dan Farley (14:24):
Um, so, uh, every, the way our state is structured mm-hmm.
(15:17):
So we've got five legislative districts in Pima County and 20 in Maricopa County. We've got a total of 30 legislative districts. But some of 'em overlap multiple counties. Uh, and, uh, and so the, we organized by counties, so the rural counties don't get overwhelmed by just the metro area for the state party. So, uh, so long and short is the precinct committeemen, uh, more or less have a thousand times the power of an average voter, because you're able to select the leadership of your, of your party, uh, and your party then in turn creates a culture which develops candidates. Now, you can develop candidates through activist groups outside, and sometimes that's constructive because you don't have as much intraparty conflict. But, uh, but the importance of being a precinct committeeman is what culture is the party, uh, showing to, to the state, uh, and what, and, and what is that brand projecting? And from my vantage point, I want that brand to lead with honesty creates trust, knowledge, and respect, and hard work and dears loyalty.
Jenny beth Martin (16:20):
See those three again, slower.
Dan Farley (16:22):
Okay. So, so, uh, I, in my lifetime, I've learned that, uh, people will follow you if they, if they feel like you're an honest person and they can trust you, uh, they feel like you're more knowledgeable than they are, and knowledge is probably first you gotta be trustworthy. The knowledge is the second most important thing. Because for example, if you want to go through a door, I can work really hard and take an ax to that door and damage the door, but if I have the knowledge of turning the handle, I do less damage and less effort. So knowledge is very important because then you optimize your time, your effectiveness, and then hard work and dears loyalty. If someone is more honest, more knowledgeable, and working harder, why would you get in the way of them leading you? Right? Right. Uh, and so, so I, I try to embody that within our own grassroots, and I try to push for that culture within our own, uh, party. Um, and I, and I'm, uh, candidly, if we can get our party to do that, then we can get the state to lead in that way. And in turn, we can get the nation to lead in that way. And, uh, and if all of us dealt with each other in that way, there wouldn't be a world conflict that we have today.
Jenny beth Martin (17:37):
Yeah, that's right. Those are three very important values. Um, so keep, I interrupted you and asked you to elaborate on that, but you, you
Dan Farley (17:46):
Were talking so, so on a precinct committeeman level. So, uh, uh, so, uh, to answer your question, the precinct committeemen elect, the legislative district chairs and the county chairs, but because, uh, there can be so many people as precinct committeemen, so in our state, we have, um, right around 1.5 million registered Republicans. And, uh, and our state allows for, um, uh, one precinct committeemen for every 125 registered Republicans. And the same is true for the Democrats, although they don't utilize the system, they use non-profits, they don't, the Democrats for some reason, don't like self-governance
(18:49):
And so, um, uh, that, uh, and usually, so what happens is the state's broken up by county, it's broken bound by legislative district, and then even smaller, it's broken down by, um, by, uh, precinct. And the precinct, you know, the average. And it ranges from three to like, you know, 35 precinct committeemen per precinct, depending on the size of the precinct. But, uh, it's based on one for every 125 registered Republicans, uh, or Democrats in that particular area. 'cause each one has precinct committeemen options. And so, uh, if we have, let's say 10 in one precinct, uh, that, and you've got 11 people interested in, in becoming one, then in April of a new, of a, of a even number year, you've gotta submit your signatures. There's only 10 needed in this, uh, generally 10 needed in the state of other people that live in the precinct from your same party to submit.
(19:47):
And then you wind up going on the ballot and who, whatever top 10 get the most votes, they become the precinct committeemen. And that primary occurs in August. If you don't have, let's say there's only four people out of those 10 that want to be in an even number year, then going into February of an odd number year, we've gone through the election of our, uh, of our state committeemen and of our state party. So we transitioned into February to where chairman I, I wound up becoming one of the chairman in Maricopa County. Chairman, like myself, uh, can appoint a precinct committeemen generally between February and late October of an odd number year. And, um, uh, but you, you don't have as much power because you're coming in midway through a cycle. These terms are, are for two years. If you get started at the beginning of the cycle, you get to vote for the leadership of the state party, you get to vote for the leadership of the county, you get to vote for leadership of your legislative district.
(20:45):
You come in midway through, you're only participating partially in some of those elections. So it's best to get your signatures and become a precinct committeeman prior to April of an even number year. And so my objectives have been to try and meet people through doing meet and greets and neighborhoods, uh, or, uh, by, uh, inviting, uh, other registered Republicans. And there's a G O P data center that is available to precinct committeemen to identify in your precinct who are Republicans, who are Democrats, who are independent, and how often they vote, um, uh, as well. And so you can utilize that to invite people in for meet and greets. And then one of the other things that, uh, that, um, I've done to try and bring people in is, uh, there will be rallies. So for example, Trump had done a number of rallies, c lakes doing a number of rallies, and, uh, there can be a line outside.
(21:40):
And so for those rallies, you can work that line to build up people that don't know how to get involved. Uh, a rally may be good for the camera, but it doesn't effectively change policy. And so when I'm able to explain that you can increase your influence by almost a thousand fold by getting involved within the party, um, a number of them get curious about that, and that's kind of allure for them to learn more. And some will choose, I don't want to allocate that much time, or I don't want to get involved in inter-party drama, but I do want to help where I can. And so we try to find roles through, uh, grassroots groups where they can do partial things or even within certain legislative districts where they can do partial things to help the cause. And, uh, and that's working really quite well. I mean, we only started this within the party. Um, I mean, I guess it's existed in some capacity, but my own involvement within the party has been just over three and a half years. And I can tell you we doubled the precinct committeemen in like, uh, almost, uh, what was it? Seven months?
Jenny beth Martin (22:52):
That's, wait, say that again.
Dan Farley (22:55):
So, so, um, we only had about 20 to 25% full precinct committeemen for the state party. And so we didn't really have candidates for school boards or city councils. So, um, when we could appoint them, one of the fortunate things of, of having a county and state party that was in alignment, uh, in 2021, uh, that was willing to bring in precinct committeemen, uh, we really needed to do that for a variety of reasons. One was, uh, it was a redistricting year. So the more people we could bring in to help us with redistricting, the redistricting happens once every 10 years. If we could win that fight now, it benefits us for a decade. So we really wanted to bring in precinct committeemen and get them involved from that perspective. Then the other issue we were having in the party was, um, I talked about how we didn't have election integrity within the party, um, from the faction that didn't want involvement. And so by bringing in, uh, so many precinct committeemen, we went from like, what was it, like 3,500 to almost 7,000 precinct committeemen from February of 2021 to October of 2021.
Jenny beth Martin (24:02):
That's
Dan Farley (24:02):
Amazing. It is amazing. Uh, I personally brought in about five to 600 myself, and I traveled the state, uh, turning point U s a, uh, helped with about another five to 600 themselves. So collectively, that was almost 1200 there. And then, um, a lot of others, uh, kind of jumped in and the county was really busy processing a lot. And it was great because when we had our, uh, county and state meetings, then we were stronger to, uh, identify the problems and the bylaws that govern our, our party, uh, because there was abuse that was being used, kind of like mail-in ballots, our concern proxy voting of precinct committeemen that you never saw, and you wondered if those people even knew they were precinct committeemen or not. There were being proxies used to manipulate control of the party. So when you overwhelmed the, the party with a bunch of activists, we were able to get a two-thirds majority to change the bylaws, to limit proxies to no more than three per person per precinct in the county. And then when I became chairman, where we had the biggest problem in our legislative district where that abuse is happening the most, I helped to lead on the bylaws committee to where we allow zero proxies where we had the biggest problem. And today in the, uh, paradise Valley, John McCain, uh, uh, district zero proxies are allowed and grassroots now has firm grasp of what we had no control of before.
Jenny beth Martin (25:31):
That's amazing. That's the story of hope. And, and it shows that when you get active and you learn the rules, you can make a real difference because you, you take the knowledge and you work hard, and you apply that knowledge, and, and there's, there's a real benefit to doing that.
Dan Farley (25:49):
A hundred percent. You know, I, I think one of the, um, I think one of the frustrating things, uh, from my activism, and I think you've observed this too, is, uh, because, uh, the, the Dems have a tendency to launder money through big pharma or launder money through foreign aid. And, uh, uh, and they tend to set up these c fours and these non-profits to pay activists to harm their own discretionary income, their own, um, uh, election integrity, their own freedom, um, uh, self. I, this is a saying I made, and I I really think it's, it's spot on. It is a selfless that establish and protect freedom. It is a self who destroy it. And so those, uh, that are selfless, uh, maybe not, are not always in a position to be selfless consistently. So what happens is our discretionary income or our freedom gets harmed enough to where people become activists as volunteers, and they say, well, I just can't continue to do this.
(26:46):
And they tire out and they go away. That's what happens, uh, largely on the Republican side. But if you look on, on the Democrat side or the C C P, they're always, uh, advancing an agenda that is a multi-decade agenda where they're compounding. And what I've been trying to get our grassroots to think about and our own party to think about is compounding freedom, compounding success on freedom. And so, um, I've tried to lead in that way. So as I brought in about a hundred people a month, I compounded that every, every, uh, every month. And got in three years, about 3,600 people on my email list. And from that, we were able to get a bunch of precinct committeemen. And from that we got activism teams. And from that we got candidates for school boards and city councils. And from that Scottsdale Unified School District, uh, the cycle prior, uh, we last minute tried to put three candidates together.
(27:40):
'cause the state party only focused on the state legislature, the, the congressional races and that type of stuff, but they didn't focus on city councils and school boards where we were losing our culture. And so, uh, I, I worked to try and create teams with another grassroots person for a parallel, uh, party to the party where we would develop school boards and city council candidates. And I'm happy to report that out of three Scottsdale City Council races, we won two of them out of two Scottsdale City ca or, uh, Scottsdale Unified School District races. We had lost three the last cycle. Um, we, we had oversubscribed candidates. This time we had three Republicans running for two spots. So we were dividing our votes and we still wound up beating the Democrats. We took both seats. So, so we, we, uh, so we've won school board races, we've won city council races, we advanced on bylaws, we've won on redistricting.
(28:34):
The redistricting got us 50% more congressional seats. I don't think any other state can say that they got 50% anywhere close to 50% more. Our redistricting efforts from, uh, from recruitment, uh, helped us advance going from four, uh, cong congressmen to six congressmen that a Republican in the state from our redistricting work, and then we won on Arizona Corporation Commission. Most people don't, when you look at, uh, the new Green Deal, to try and pass that through the state, in our state, you need 31 house representatives, 16 senate representatives, and a governor to sign off on it. You need all these things that are put in place, and they, they can be very expensive state legislature races, but there's a races that people don't, uh, don't pay attention to the Arizona Corporation Commission. There's only five people, three elected on a presidential year, two on and off, uh, off year.
(29:23):
So it's, it's staggered. All you need is three of them to change the utilities, to drive the new green deal and make it more expensive for, uh, individuals to own, uh, and more expensive for businesses to operate energy. So, um, as grassroots, we started pointing out the Arizona Corporation Commission. The Dems were this close to three seats on there, which then they could have dri driven the new green deal. Uh, and so grassroots today has advanced, and we've taken four of those five seats. So we're in a pretty comfortable position now, not to say that this next election, there's three that are up, we've gotta keep up our work. It'd be nice to have a hundred percent of it. Currently we have 80% of it. So, uh, uh, then, uh, uh, the Arizona Water Board. So, um, the, the developers, uh, always want to create concentrated living, which anytime you put concentrated living, it's easier to harvest ballots, stems seem to benefit from that. And our state is used to growing. But when you do concentrated living, which developers try to influence both sides and city councils, then, then you wind up, um, you wind up lowering the standards for water. So in our state, we had a hundred year water, ground water supply required for developing real estate. And, uh,
Jenny beth Martin (30:37):
With a and you're in a desert Sioux, that's important, right?
Dan Farley (30:41):
Incredibly important. And, and we seem to be on the lower end of the pecking order for the Colorado River because of a deal that was cut. And California's part of this group, California wastes a lot of water over this Delta smelt. Uh, and, uh, and, um, and they could desalinate, but if they're just like, they waste money, they're wasting water unnecessarily, and they've got a fair amount of claims on the Colorado River. So, uh, and we rely on that. And so how do we get water here? Uh, we can repurpose some of our groundwater, but you can't really move it from one area to another without changing the rules. Uh, it, it, so anyway, and we've had open borders now where we've got tens of thousands of people coming over. Uh, we've how many millions, I mean, our state of 7.4 million people population-wide, and I think we've had close to that in the last two and a half years, crossing the southern border here into the, into the country. So how many more people have come in that are creating homelessness, um, uh, demand for more concentrated living? We're creating more concentrated living where we have, where we don't have as much water. And, uh, and the real problem is we don't have border security. So, so, you know, anyway, we, uh, so, uh, so I guess, uh, we're getting a little bit off track, but, but, uh, but, but
Jenny beth Martin (32:00):
You were saying that the, the developers and the concentrated living and the concentrated living benefits, the, the left
Dan Farley (32:07):
It does, it does benefit the left. And so, um, so, uh, you know, I, I guess, uh, what we've tried to do from a grassroots perspective is we've tried to get people elected into the state legislature and into the city councils that will support law enforcement. So we can try and get, uh, we're short about almost a thousand officers in the city of Phoenix right now. Uh, and when you couple that with all this illegal immigration, and then you couple that with, with even voter voter registration, which the federal government allows voter registration without requiring proof of citizenship, um, it puts our state in a very precarious position. So, uh, the importance of us and a grassroots perspective, bringing in people, uh, training them, and then, uh, getting them onto a team and doing what we're, what we're doing today is we're doing meet and greets.
(33:01):
So we bring in 30 people in a neighborhood or so into our homes, and we introduce them to the candidates, and we teach them how they can become candidates themselves. And, um, and, uh, my experience in politics is people can say a lot about stuff about you on social media that is dishonest, uh, or in the media, that's dishonest, and that happens in elections all the time. Um, but if your neighbors get to know you, or if people have a personal relationship with you, it doesn't matter what they say about you, it's not gonna change their opinion of you for the most part. And so the goal today is to get more candidates in the down ballot races, uh, because, uh, we largely didn't have candidates, the, the, the McCain element would focus on the top stuff. And we didn't have candidates for school board and city councils we're winning those now.
(33:46):
So as we bring more people in through meet and greets, and we're bringing in more precinct committeemen, and we're teaching them how to run, what's happening is, uh, and we're doing, uh, what's happening is we're developing a relationship within, and people are learning about the follies of the Democrat policies and how they can play a role in self-governance. And we're winning school board and city councils we're winning the water that I think that's where we were at. We won, uh, water, uh, we won congressional seats, we won, uh, extra water, uh, seats. And the developers want to get the city councils developed on, uh, or, or dependent on the AZ water Board. They want the water board to tax more for water and then make the cities develop, uh, or dependent on it. So then the developers have strings on all the cities. So what you wanna do is you want to try and get a handle on the water board.
(34:35):
So we advanced on the water board, so less of those strings can exist. Um, the federal government also works on strings for the city councils by, uh, trying to get them with the, uh, with the inflation reduction act to try and buy them, to take away our roads, um, with road diets as opposed, uh, what we paid for, for, uh, with our own taxes locally. So there's always those trying to influence our city councils. And the more people that are aware of that, the better off we are. So the AZ Water Board, the Arizona Corporation Commission, we've advanced on school boards, we've advanced on city councils, we've advanced on and redistricting for congressional seats. We've advanced on, and in our state legislature, we won, uh, eight more, uh, uh, seats against those that were serving lobbies more than constituents. So we increased our, our conservative caucus from 10 to 18 in the state legislature by winning in those primaries.
(35:31):
And we still retained a majority. So because we have a 31, uh, seat, uh, to 29 majority the house and 16 in the Senate to 14 in, in the, uh, uh, to the Dems in the Senate, we have a, a very conservative agenda. And grassroots, this was also very exciting, having won those seats and being more organized. We did something that the lobbyist class couldn't stand. We asked borderline demanded for who we wanted as speaker of the house and who we wanted as Senate president, and we got one of them. So that helps us to control the agenda on what even gets to the floor. So getting involved in grassroots, I can tell you, and that happened, arguably, I say three and a half years, but really it was a year just to kind of set up to bring in the PC precinct committeemen. This has all transpired in just about two years in our state. Uh, and if we compound that success, imagine in another election cycle and in another election cycle, this state will be in very good hands. And if we could replicate this in all 50 states, oh, baby
Jenny beth Martin (36:38):
You're, you're right about that. Um, it's, it is remarkable what what you've done, and you're giving people,
Dan Farley (36:46):
I think we, we've done
Jenny beth Martin (36:47):
Yeah. What, what you and your team have done. Yeah. And, um, you are giving people hope around the country because they're looking at Arizona and they're looking at Georgia and Wisconsin and going, oh, we have to win these three states in order to win the White House. And, and if we don't do that, I hear people across the country going, if we don't win the White House next time, and, and it isn't, and the election isn't stolen, even if we do win, then our whole entire country is doomed and all is lost. And, um, I, I can't necessarily completely argue against that, that if, you know, we have to, to work to make sure that, that, that we are winning. But you can't lose hope because there is a pathway to win and and you're teaching people how to do that.
Dan Farley (37:37):
Yeah, I mean, I would say from my own observations, uh, your involvement has a remarkable impact on the party itself, uh, within your involvement, has a remarkable impact on school board, city council races, and has an extended impact on the Corporation Commission and the water board, uh, and, uh, and on your state legislature. Um, uh, and, and we've really had successes in congressional races. Now, um, Arizona has not seen those same successes over the last couple of years in the governor's race, the president's race, or the Senate race. And there are those that have concerns about election integrity at the top of the ticket because, um, there's those down ballot races, there's hundreds of ballots. So they take into account, and they're nonpartisan races like the school board and city councils. So they're harder to identify what's Republican, what's Democrat. So it seems like we have election integrity on the lower end, on the top end.
(38:31):
Um, there, uh, uh, uh, unfortunately, we, we've, we've had very limited success on advancing election integrity. The Dems, uh, are consistently trying to erode it in on a federal level. They, with Nancy Pelosi, they did HR one, they try to do HR four, they did try to do the NASA bill locally. They try to get, uh, paid people to do signatures. They said to those paid people, this is to help people in old people homes and, and, uh, handicapped to be able to vote. You're not against that. Right? But if you actually looked at it, they were destroying all election integrity in the state through a proposition, and they were looking, uh, and you would have no legal recourse, so you could never get it back again. That the quote unquote, free and fair election was a horror show for election integrity. Fortunately, by the razor's edge of, of activists, we were able to stop the destruction of all election integrity in the state.
(39:21):
And the AZ Free Enterprise Club helped to lead on that here in the state. Very, that was a very important win for us. Otherwise, you know, there, there would be no point in even having this conversation. We wouldn't have election integrity. Now, we would like better election integrity. The Dems are always looking to destroy that. And there are those that are looking at rank choice voting, which re require multiple counts. Uh, our, our county has, does not have a very good track record of counting on, uh, in a timely manner, or, or making sure machines work well with ballots. So
Jenny beth Martin (39:50):
The, with one, one cycle through the ballots, much less if you had to count 'em over e
Dan Farley (39:54):
Exactly.
Jenny beth Martin (39:54):
Multiple different times. You can't even, we weaning out ballots each time. Exactly.
Dan Farley (39:58):
You can't even do your job once, and you want us to let you do it multiple times. Uh, that's not a No, that's a heck no. You know, so, exactly. So, so, um, so I wish we had better election integrity, uh, than we do. Uh, it's not for lack of trying here in the state. Um, but, uh, but I, I will say one of the things that, uh, a lot of the General Electric doesn't look at, just like they didn't look at the Arizona Corporation Commission for the New Green Deal. Mm-hmm.
(40:46):
Um, and one demo, uh, uh, or, or five four Republican and one Democrat, those four Republican have actively worked against transparency, actively worked against grassroots, uh, have fought with our state legislature. They don't feel like they're on the same team. And, uh, and, and they've, uh, so anyway, so this cycle, uh, those five board of supervisors are elected every four years. Uh, uh, they're up to be elected now. Um, I very much hope this is one of the great challenges of the grassroots is when you strengthen self-governance, um, can you put the cause before your ego that's very key to your success. Uh, I've tried to lead by putting the cause before ego. When you put your ego first, what happens is you wind up having multiple grassroots candidates dividing votes, right? And then you've got one maybe establishment person, uh, that doesn't have a vote, uh, divided, and they win by default because we divide our votes.
(41:48):
And, um, I wish I could say that grassroots is organized enough to put up one candidate in each district so we could concentrate our efforts and our money that way. Uh, but I'm not sure enough put the cause and humility, uh, above that. It's, we still have time. We still have another 10 to 11 months before signatures are due for the ballot. So we'll see how it goes. But, um, I'm doing all I can to deliver that culture to grassroots. So if the cause is first you put a candidate to beat those others, 'cause the Dems are very good, top down with strategy to say, we're not wasting our money and we're not gonna harm our own reputation attacking one another. And I believe in self-governance, I believe in multiple candidates, but when you have key races that you have to win, if you wanna advance election integrity, you really should be putting up one grassroots candidate in all five districts and trying to win those in a concentrated way.
Jenny beth Martin (42:50):
It's hard to accept that. Um, especially if somebody has been thinking of running for office for a long time, since, you know, there are people who, who support our cause and are, are well intentioned, and they weren't high school and college thinking, I'm gonna run for office and, and move up this ladder and, you know, whatever. They're very focused on winning and others who just think they can do a better job. So you have all these people who wanna run, but sometimes you have to be able to just take a step back and go, what is the most important thing? What is the way that we win the, the bigger picture? And maybe it's not quite my time yet, and if I, and if I wait, you don't know what, what the better opportunity will be in the future or what the opportunity will be in the future. But if, if you divide, if the, if the grassroots here don't understand this, and you divide your vote, um, between, in all of these four races against one another, five, yeah, yeah. In the five total, you've got one for the Democrat. And then in the existing four, certainly those existing four are, are much more likely to win win reelection. And that that doesn't help Maricopa, it doesn't help the state of Arizona, it
Dan Farley (44:04):
Doesn't help election integrity,
Jenny beth Martin (44:05):
It doesn't help election integrity, and it doesn't help the country because what's going on in the leader, the elected leadership or the elect, I don't know if it's leadership or not, but the elected officials in Maricopa are, the decisions they've made have had an impact across the entire country,
Dan Farley (44:22):
Without a doubt. Yeah. Um, uh, so you try to change, uh, election integrity through the state legislature. Um, and you hope that the governor will sign off on it. Our governor's done over a hundred vetoes in just a matter of months. Yeah. She's not gonna, yeah. Yeah. So, uh, then you've got a Secretary of State, uh, uh, well, this Secretary of State is a Democrat, so, uh, is that person going to apply it appropriately? And then, and then you've got a, a Democrat attorney general, unless, uh, Abe, uh, wins his lawsuits, uh, uh, then you've got, uh, a Democrat that will pick and choose which laws to enforce that suit themselves. So, um, so it's not an ideal situation from an election integrity standpoint, but, uh, but, uh, but, uh, but I, I will say that we have seen results in those down ballot races.
(45:13):
And I will say that we've got a lot more involvement for poll observers. And we did, uh, push for an audit here in the state, so we know generally what we're looking at and what we're going after. So, um, so I'm, uh, uh, and, uh, I did want to touch briefly on something that you said as far as like waiting. I can assure you there is no shortage of need for leadership in the Republican Party, whether it's inter-party for legislative districts, whether it's running for, we, we never have candidates for all of our races. We don't have candidates for every legislative district, for House and Senate. We, uh, we don't have candidates, uh, for school boards or city councils often. And so, um, what you do, what you should do if you're putting the cause first is you say, okay, this is my skillset. Where am I needed most that I touched on the matrix as far as like, you know, uh, the, the promise of entitlements that are unsustainable or, or the press, uh, you know, being dishonest with us, that that's the matrix, uh, or the, the false reality.
(46:18):
Um, another movie I like to reference is Bruce Almighty, uh, at Bruce Almighty. Um, you know, he wanted to be a news anchor and it was all about him. And then when God gave him the power, uh, uh, uh, or God's power for an area, he only served himself for a week. And he says, well, you said I didn't serve you. How many people have you served? And he sheepishly admitted he had only served himself. And when he realized the problems were all around him, him, him, and he said, you know what, what is best for the station? What is best for the community? That was the end of the movie. Everything worked smoothly, every uh, his relationships, everything went smoothly. And it's no different. Uh, whether it be your personal relationships, your business relationships, your par, uh, the the party, the state, the nation, or the world, if you say, how can I best serve with my skillset in a humble way, um, our party will be much better off. And you will, I can assure you, there's no shortage of places that you can find to help.
Jenny beth Martin (47:20):
That's a very, very good point. Um, I wanna, I wanna hit on two things. One that you mentioned and one that you haven't mentioned, but I've, I've heard you talk a lot about, first you mentioned the three different kinds of, of groups. You, the, the people who are elected or in party leadership and with active within the party, but they just care about themselves. They're not paying attention to, to others, and they're not really taking a lot of action that is conservative. Then you've got the grassroots who are educated and, and taking action, and they're, they're hardworking and you're making a difference in that group. And then you've got the third group of activists, um, who are very passionate. And yet maybe they aren't quite at the point where the actions that they're taking wind up being productive. They're, they're, they're, they're very, they're very motivated because they care. So very much, how can we help those people who, especially if they're just getting active around the entire country, take all that passion and turn it into action that makes a difference, rather than, uh, potentially getting sidetracked somewhere and going down the wrong path that, that doesn't lead to the results that they, they really want.
Dan Farley (48:39):
So, uh, I'm, I think in very structured ways. So, you know, I kind of program myself if it works this way, anything that doesn't go with that then has to be rejected. Uh, and so just as I had the programming for leadership, honesty creates trust, knowledge and respect and hard work and dears loyalty, I say, okay, grassroots, you should, uh, uh, you know, uh, it's the selfless that establish and protect freedom. It's a self issue. Destroy it. So those that are selfless and volunteering, you should always be appreciating them for their whatever time that they give. Uh, you should be providing them tools that make them productive so they can see a difference being made with their time. And then when you have victories to celebrate those victories. So we create more of a family atmosphere and friendships. 'cause you're using your social time to do political activism, so make sure you get a social outlet with like-minded people.
(49:33):
So anything that goes counter to that is a problem. So, uh, there are three, uh, I've noticed there's three primary factions to the party. There are those that care about monetizing the party and influence for themselves, and they don't really care about the health of the party or down ballot races. Uh, and that is problematic. And within the party, we've largely one. Um, so that's not as much of an issue within the party. There's still a lobbyist sector within the state legislature, but we're having more impact. Then you've got the, what I call the collaborator grassroots. The collaborator grassroots, understand that, that, uh, you know, appreciation and tools and that type of stuff, and the collaborator, grassroots helps grow numbers. And you need to grow numbers. In order to have candidates, you need to grow numbers. In order to have poll workers, you need to have numbers to, uh, to turn out elections.
(50:26):
And, um, whether we have perfect election integrity or not, you need people to vote to see where the problems are and point those out. If you see that there's no election integrity, then you discourage people from voting at all. And then you've got what I would call the, the Subjugator faction, uh, and the Subjugator faction. Um, uh, you know, it's almost like maintaining a house. Uh, one doesn't, uh, like the, the, the, the money and power focused ones, they aren't, uh, maintaining the house. They lock the doors and lock the windows, uh, or the shades. They pull the shades. They don't let you get involved. And they say, just give us money. Uh, the collaborators say, please come in, but respect those that have been maintaining the house. Learn how to handle it yourself, and then bring in what you can, what you can teach us.
(51:07):
So we'll bring in new technology as we grow, we'll add more rooms onto the house. And then you've got the subjugator that just burn the whole house down. Uh, and then when you burn the whole house down, you say, well, where are we gonna live now? You know, so, so the subjugator and the uh, uh, and the ends justify the means and, and they use a lot of tactics that are Democrat, which we're fighting the Democrats on. So you really don't, that's not constructive for growing numbers. So I think the key is, is to try and reach the subjugator to say, look, we feel your frustration. We wish that there was more election integrity. We wish we were winning, but we will never win elections if we don't develop candidates to, to even put up. So, so we must do voter registration, we must develop candidates, and we must have poll workers regardless of that one issue.
(51:55):
We will still focus on that issue, but we'll never, it doesn't matter how much election integrity, if you don't have candidates, you're gonna still lose. Okay. So, so, so try and do it in a balanced way. And that's why I created team concepts, because team concepts go where you care the most, focus where you care the most, advance where you care. And then report back to those of us on leadership on how things are going. So in our legislative district four, we have four teams, uh, uh, uh, and so we, we start with, uh, with the things that the body cares about the most. So each team works on their designated thing for a month, and then they come back and report to the legislative district body, this is how we've advanced, or this is where we are, and this is how you can help. And in the meantime, I'm trying to grow more people in and put them into these teams so they continue to grow stronger.
Jenny beth Martin (52:46):
I think that that makes a huge difference. And you wind up then with more mature grassroots. Correct. And that's something I've heard you talk about is that the grassroots are becoming more mature. It's a how, how do you think that, what, think about the differences and how, how does that help when the grassroots become more, more mature?
Dan Farley (53:05):
Well, I mean, you know, it's, it's no different than like, you know, so many of us are parents, and you start off initially where your child only knows how to scream to get a diaper changed or to get burped or to be fed. And, uh, and then in time the child learns, please and thank you. And, uh, it's easier to accommodate. And then you understand better how, how to find a way forward with your child and have a better relationship than just reacting to fits being thrown. And so, um, in many respects, a maturation process within politics is very similar. There are those that just are very frustrated. So they, they, they scream and yell, but they don't know a strategy from beginning to end to when they don't understand the steps to get to where they want to. They just are like, ah, fix it for me.
(53:59):
And, um, and then I think in time they start to realize, oh, it's not getting fixed because there's these obstacles and we need to work together to overcome those obstacles. And once they get involved long enough to say, oh, this is how we might be able to constructively overcome these obstacles, uh, I think the relationships become more constructive and grassroots becomes more effective. Um, some people never wanna make that transition, uh, but there, I would say those that are in it longer either say, this is more effort than I anticipated. Uh, or they say, I get it now. And then they try to do kind of a balanced way. So I view truth as gravity. If you stand in truth, eventually people come to you. So, um, so, uh, fortunately, uh, I try to stand in truth on a regular basis and, uh, and in time people come to me, maybe sometimes from my recruitment and sometimes from them figuring things out. But if you just stand in truth and you try to love on people and you try to empower them to be collaborative and constructive, uh, we wind up, um, winning and, uh, and it's, it's a lifelong service without a doubt. It, um, there's billions of people in this world and that all of us need to do it in a compounding exponential way to, to, to make a better world, in my view.
Jenny beth Martin (55:28):
Well, Dan, thank you so much for joining us today. I think that you are helping make a difference in the world, and you are compounding your, your activism and your results. And I hope that as people listen to this podcast and, and watch the podcast that they also see they can make a difference and help join the effort so we can can compound the results and we can have liberty and freedom in America. Once again, thank you so much for joining us. Thank
Dan Farley (55:55):
You for the platform and the time. God bless you.
Narrator (55:57):
The Jenny Beth Show is hosted by Jenny Beth Martin, produced by Kevin Mohan and directed by Luke Livingston. The Jenny Beth Show is a production of Tea Party Patriots action. For more information, visit tea party patriots org.
Jenny beth Martin (56:18):
If you enjoyed this episode and wanna stop Freedom Thieves from turning our country into a communist nightmare, be sure to subscribe to the podcast.