Sen. Justine Wadsack claims ‘political persecution’ over Tucson criminal speeding ticket

Sen. Justine Wadsack, R-Tucson. Photo by Gage Skidmore (modified) | Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0

Arizona Sen. Justine Wadsack, a Tucson-area Republican, is claiming “political persecution” over a criminal speeding ticket dating from a March incident that police allege saw her driving her Tesla down Speedway at more than 70 mph.

Wadsack was pulled over on Friday, March 15, just after 10 p.m., after being observed “traveling at a high rate of speed” heading east on Speedway near North Euclid Avenue by a Tucson police officer on DUI patrol, according to a TPD report.

According to Tucson police, Wadsack was clocked going more than twice the legal limit: 71 mph in a 35 mph zone.

She told the officer she was “racing home” because the battery on her car was low.

Wadsack was not cited at the time, as her immediate introduction of herself as “ Senator Justine Wadsack ” resulted in the officer contacting his superiors.

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Much like members of Congress, members of the Arizona Legislature cannot be arrested or sued while they are in session, under the legal concept of “legislative immunity.” Those limits are meant to keep authorities from arresting lawmakers to interfere with their ability to vote, but they can be charged once a session is over. This year, the Legislature adjourned on June 15.

Last month, Wadsack told TPD that she was refusing to meet to sign the citation, authorities said. TPD is moving ahead with charging Wadsack, with a summons filed Wednesday in Tucson City Court, and authorities expect she will be served in the case within a week.

Exceeding the posted speed limit by more than 20 mph is chargeable as a class 3 misdemeanor in Arizona, with possible punishments of up to 30 days in jail and up to a year of probation, up to a $500 fine, and three points charged against a drivers license.

Wadsack, who has been in Wisconsin as part of Arizona’s delegation to the Republican National Convention this week, did not respond to questions about the case sent to her by the Tucson Sentinel on Thursday, more than 24 hours before this report was published.

Tucson city officials pointed out that “persecution” and “prosecution” are different things, and said the “political persecution” claim “undermines the dangerous driving behavior” witnessed by an officer.

The March incident involving Wadsack began when Officer Ryder Schrage, a 12-year veteran of the force, was patrolling eastbound near Euclid when he observed the vehicle that turned out to be driven by the state senator, he wrote. The car, a red 2015 Tesla Model S 85, was clocked at 58 mph by his police radar, he wrote in a police report.

“The vehicle then came to a stop at a red light at the intersection of Speedway and Park,” the officer wrote. “As the light turned green I observed the vehicle accelerate at a high rate of speed. My vehicle mounted radar then read the vehicle to be traveling 71 mph in a clearly posted 35 mph zone. I activated my code three equipment and stopped the vehicle near Speedway and Wilson.”

The interaction between Schrage and Wadsack was captured on video by his body camera as he approached her car on the side of the street on North Wilson Avenue, just off Speedway between North Campbell Avenue and North Tucson Boulevard.

“Hello,” he said, as Wadsack, at the wheel of the Tesla, rolled down her window.

“Hello,” she responded.

“Do you have your drivers license, registration and insurance?” the officer asked.

“Yes, I do. My name is Sen. Justine Wadsack and I’m racing to get home because I have four miles left on my charger before I’m about to go down,” she said.

“OK, well, Speedway is a 35 mph zone…,” he said.

“I understand,” Wadsack interjected.

“… and you were going over 70,” the officer said.

“I was not doing 70,” she said.

“Yes, you were. I was behind you; I had my radar on,” the officer said.

“OK,” Wadsack said.

Wadsack wasn’t able to provide proof of insurance, explaining that she’d recently changed insurance companies.

“Do me a favor and hang tight in your car; I’ll be right back, OK?” the officer said, turning to walk back to his patrol vehicle.

He then turned off the audio recording on his body cam, but continued to record video.

For more than 15 minutes, he sat in his vehicle.

According to his report, the officer contacted his sergeant.

“After contacting our legal advisor it was decided that Sen. Wadsack was possibly under diplomatic immunity (sic),” he wrote in his report. “The traffic charges were long formed until this could be confirmed. They may possibly be issued at a later date.”

The TPD officer then returned to Wadsack’s car, making a motion in front of his camera as if he meant to turn the audio recording back on. But the remaining couple of minutes of their interaction is silent on the video released by the department.

Where’s ‘home’?

Wadsack’s place of residence has been repeatedly questioned, as the residence she owns with her husband in the Sam Hughes neighborhood lies outside the district she was elected to represent. Arizona law requires legislators to live in their districts at the time of their election.

Legislative District 17, which elected Wadsack in 2022, includes precincts in Pinal County’s Saddlebrooke and Pima County’s Oro Valley and Marana, as well as Tucson’s East Side and Vail.

Last year, Wadsack maintained that she was renting a room in a house near South Houghton and East Valencia roads. Her voter registration there made her eligible to run in LD 17.

Now, Wadsack lists herself as living in an apartment near Dove Mountain, on the other side of that district.

Both locations are miles away from the Midtown property, which is about 10 blocks away from the site at which she was pulled over in March.

The East Side room is about 17 miles away from that corner, while the Dove Mountain apartment is about 19 miles.

‘Racing home’

When she was pulled over, Wadsack told the officer she was “racing to get home because I have four miles left on my charger.”

That reasoning doesn’t hold up, an expert in electric-vehicle engineering told the Sentinel.

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

“The faster you go, the more wind resistance becomes a factor – the square of the velocity of the wind,” said Ahern, a University of Arizona engineering graduate who worked for the EV company in California, the Netherlands and Tucson.

“70 mph is definitely in the realm where wind resistance is going up,” he said, noting that the longest range from a Tesla’s battery can be had at speeds around 40 mph. “Going faster isn’t more efficient.”

“Unless maybe you’re trying to climb a hill with the last bit of battery life, so you can coast down the other side, speeding isn’t going to work,” he said.

The Model S owner’s manual advises that “elevated driving speed” can affect the car’s energy consumption.

A 2015 Model S 85 can accelerate to 60 mph in about 5.9 seconds. The dual-motor Model S 85D can do so in just 3.2 seconds.

‘Political persecution’

On June 27, an officer with TPD’s Specialized Response Division called Wadsack’s office to try to arrange a time for her to sign a criminal speeding citation for the March incident.

That division’s “chain-of-command was aware of this traffic stop and subsequent pending criminal citation for Sen. Wadsack after the legislative session adjourned,” Lt. Lauren Pettey wrote.

Wadsack returned the call about 10 minutes later, Pettey wrote, but the lieutenant had left her body camera in her vehicle so their exchange was not recorded.

Wadsack “immediately became defensive and argued that she was in fact not speeding. I explained that there was probable cause to issue her a citation for criminal speeding and that she could present her arguments to the judge; however, she refused to meet to sign the citation and said she would not accept it,” the TPD officer wrote.

The GOP lawmaker was “also was upset that she was being cited several months after the fact and I explained that was due to the legislative session was ongoing at the time of the traffic stop (thus legislative immunity to be issued a ticket on March 15th) however it did not prevent her from receiving a ticket once the legislative session adjourned,” the report said.

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

Mike Rankin , the Tucson city attorney, told the Sentinel that “‘persecution’ and ‘prosecution’ are very different things. ‘Persecution’ refers to the act of punishing or hurting someone based on their beliefs. ‘Prosecution’ refers to the act of bringing a legal action to hold someone accountable for their violation of law.”

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

A TPD spokesman told the Sentinel that “the claim of political persecution stemming from this traffic stop undermines the dangerous driving behavior that Officer Schrage witnessed that night.”

“Traffic safety has been a longstanding priority for Chief Kasmar and the Tucson Police Department. With an increase in traffic fatalities, officers are expected to address dangerous driving behavior regardless of who is behind the wheel,” said Officer Francisco Magos.

“A core component of TPD is to treat all community members fairly and impartially, in alignment with the principles of constitutional policing, regardless of their status,” he said.

Legislative immunity

Arizona’s constitutional grant of legislative immunity is similar to the one extended to members of Congress in the U.S. Constitution, which has roots in English law from the 1700s. It is intended to bar authorities from interfering with a lawmaker’s ability to participate in debates and voting on laws during a session of the Legislature.

“At the time of the traffic stop for her violations, Ms. Wadsack immediately identified herself as a state senator, and thereby raised the issue of ‘legislative immunity,'” Rankin said.

“While I do not believe that the constitutional provision in question actually has the effect of giving legislators a ‘get out of jail free’ card while the Legislature is in session, it is entirely clear that it does not apply while the Legislature is out of session. Given this, it made sense to delay the filing of charges until such time that the claim of ‘legislative immunity’ would be a non-issue,” he said.

Rankin said he could only recall one other instance of the city prosecuting a state lawmaker. Rep. Daniel Patterson was charged over domestic violence allegations in 2012, but was acquitted. His attempt to claim legislative immunity failed in court. Patterson, a Tucson Democrat, later resigned his seat when members of his party called for him to leave office after an ethics investigation recommended that he be expelled.

Those findings claimed Patterson verbally abused his staff and colleagues, threatened physical assault, likely tampered with a witness, and sought to trade sexual favors for votes. He attempted to sue Pima County and the city of Tucson over his arrest, but that case was dismissed by a judge.

In 2018, a La Paz County lawmaker, state Rep. Paul Mosley, was pulled over going 97 mph in a 55 mph zone. The Republican claimed legislative immunity, and bragged about his speeding to the officer who pulled him over, saying he sometimes drives “130, 140, 120… if there’s no traffic.”

At the time, Republican leaders in the Legislature said they didn’t think legislative immunity should apply to such situations.

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

In 1988, Jan Brewer – a state senator who would go on to become Arizona’s governor – was not charged after she rear-ended a vehicle on Interstate 17, failing field sobriety tests. She told officers that she had two Scotches before driving. Brewer later said she didn’t claim legislative privilege herself. Officers at the scene said she was protected from arrest because of immunity.

City moves ahead with criminal citation

On Wednesday, Officer Schrage, who made the March traffic stop, “swore in the summons” for the citation in Tucson City Court,” and “she should be served within a week,” the TPD spokesman said.

In addition to the criminal speeding charge under ARS 28-701.02, she faces a civil traffic violation for not providing proof of insurance under ARS 28-4135, Magos said.

Wadsack was involved in at least one other recent local traffic incident in the past year, he said. Neither she nor the other driver were cited in a non-injury collision.

Former Sen. Vince Leach, who was unseated in the 2022 Republican primary by Wadsack, is seeking to return to the Legislature. He said he’s continuing to campaign hard “knocking on doors in this heat” right through the July 30 LD 17 primary.

“The law’s the law,” he told the Sentinel. “There’s reasons we have speed limits.”

Leach pointed out the risks of speeding through the University of Arizona area, “with students crossing at all angles.”

Leach did acknowledge using once his status as a legislator to avoid a ticket while he was in office, for slow-rolling a stop sign “way out in the country, in the middle of nowhere with nobody around.”

Legislative immunity “was not put in there to protect people from their willful actions,” he said. “As much as we talk about ‘no one is above the law,’ well, you can take it from there…”

So far this year, 51 people have been killed in traffic incidents on Tucson streets. By this time last year, there had been 43 roadway deaths.

This year’s fatal tally includes 18 pedestrians, 6 bicyclists, 11 motorcycle riders and 16 people in other vehicles.

Last year, a total of 94 people were killed on Tucson streets. In 2022, 99 people died on city roadways.

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