On March 5, 2026, Kate Brophy McGee, the Chair of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and a Republican former state senator, sent a mass email endorsing the full SRP incumbent slate. The email contains fabricated claims about candidates challenging that slate. We're going to go through it line by line.
"SRP is under attack."
SRP isn't under attack. SRP's customers are asking questions. The people running this system don't like that.
Candidates challenging incumbents in an election isn't an attack. It's how elections work. Framing accountability as aggression is what people do when they can't defend their record.
"There are candidates who think SRP should be run like the California utilities."
No candidate has ever said this. Not once. Not in any forum, questionnaire, interview, website, social media post, or door-to-door conversation.
This claim is fabricated. It was invented to scare you.
"These candidates are beholden to environmentalists who want to eliminate dams and shut off all power plants."
No candidate has proposed eliminating dams. No candidate has proposed shutting off power plants. These are made-up policy positions attributed to real, identifiable people by the Chair of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.
If you've seen anyone say otherwise, we'd like a source. There isn't one. Because it never happened.
"These California-style candidates have no experience governing a power company."
Nobody on the SRP Council "governs a power company." The Council sets bylaws and fills vacancies. That's what the position does.
More importantly: the incumbents do have experience. Here's what they did with it:
Voted YES on the 2025 rate increase - 3.5% for residential customers, only 1.5% for data centers. Same vote. The board approved it 10-5. Several who voted yes are endorsed by AZFRG. (Source: Phoenix New Times, March 9, 2026)
Generated a $56 million surplus from higher-than-projected revenue
Approved discount electricity rates for data centers while residential customers pay full price
Maintained a voting system where 98% of SRP customers never vote
Offered a temporary 3% rate cut for six months right before the April 7 election, expiring in October
That's $5.57/month before you vote. Then full price after.
Experience isn't a credential when the experienced people built the problem.
"SRP has won the JD Power award for Highest Customer Satisfaction 24 years in a row!"
Most SRP customers don't know they can vote, don't know there's an election, and have never seen an SRP ballot. It's easy to have high satisfaction scores when your customers have no information about what you're doing with their money.
The JD Power award measures satisfaction with bill payment and outage response. It does not measure whether customers know their rates subsidize data centers, whether they know a $219,000+ corporate PAC is picking their representatives, or whether they know one family used a trust to cast 217 votes and then sold the land for $246.8 million.
Kate Brophy McGee is the Chair of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. She is a third-generation Arizona ranching family member and a former Republican state senator (District 28, 2017-2021). The Sierra Club gave her a 0% rating during her time in the legislature.
She is using her political email infrastructure to endorse the full incumbent SRP slate. Her endorsement list includes:
| Candidate | Position | What you should know |
|---|---|---|
| Nick Vanderwey | District 6 Board | Transferred 240 acres into a trust, cast 217 acreage-weighted votes, transferred the land back, sold it to QTS/Blackstone for $246.8 million for a data center. Maricopa County Recorder deeds: 20230643382, 20240312109. Now running for the Board that regulates that data center. |
| Mike Vanderwey | District 6 Council | Nick's brother. Running for the Council seat that sets bylaws governing SRP elections, including the acreage-weighted voting system his family used to cast 217 votes. |
| Jack White | District 6 Council | Incumbent. |
| Mike Warren | District 6 Council | Incumbent. |
| Chris Dobson | SRP President | His family owns Dobson Family Farms. In September 2025, the Town of Florence introduced a plan to rezone 1,500 acres of Dobson family land for an industrial tech park. EdgeCore is proposing a 750-acre, 720-megawatt data center campus on that land. The project depends on SRP's Abel Substation. If elected president, Dobson votes on the infrastructure spending that makes his family's land deal work. |
| Barry Paceley | SRP VP | Paceley Constructors is an AZFRG donor. AZFRG is the $219,000+ PAC endorsing this slate. Paceley is both a PAC donor and a PAC-endorsed candidate for the office that oversees the utility his company could contract with. |
These are the candidates the Chair of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors is telling you to vote for while claiming challengers want to "eliminate dams and shut off all power plants."
Every candidate on her list has a financial connection to the system they'd oversee. We have none. Ask yourself which side has something to protect.
This email doesn't exist in isolation. It's part of a coordinated messaging operation:
These exact phrases appear in AZFRG materials, on the Elected Leadership for SRP website, in Turning Point Action voter outreach, and now in a mass email from a sitting county official.
The PAC's own donors are distancing themselves.
Google donated $25,000 to AZFRG, then demanded its money back and asked to be removed from all campaign materials. A company that runs a data center on SRP power looked at this PAC and walked away. (Source: Phoenix New Times, March 9, 2026.)
It's not just AZFRG's $219K.
Turning Point USA claims to have "injected millions of dollars of capital" into SRP elections. As a 501(c)(4), they operate with fewer disclosure requirements than the PAC. The coordinated messaging above isn't just a $219K operation - it's backed by millions in dark money with less accountability. (Source: Phoenix New Times, March 9, 2026.)
Now you have the receipts.
Step back from the individual names and look at the system.
SRP collects billions in revenue from ratepayers. The board and council decide how that money is spent: which infrastructure gets built, where substations go, what rates different customers pay, how water gets allocated. Those decisions determine which land becomes valuable, which construction companies get work, and which developers can build.
Now look at who's making those decisions and who benefits:
The Vanderweys hold council seats. Their family sold land for $246.8 million to a data center developer. That land is valuable because SRP infrastructure serves it.
The Dobson family owns 1,500 acres next to an SRP substation. That land is being rezoned for a 720-megawatt data center campus. Chris Dobson is running for SRP president. He would vote on the infrastructure spending that makes his family's land worth developing.
Paceley Constructors donates to the PAC that endorses Barry Paceley for SRP VP. Paceley would oversee the utility his company could contract with.
The construction and engineering firms that build SRP's data center infrastructure are the same firms funding the $219,000+ PAC that picks the candidates who approve that infrastructure.
The AZFRG chairperson, Jimmy Lindblom, is a VP at Willmeng Construction - the PAC's largest donor at $50,000+. The top donor's own employee runs the PAC.
Every infrastructure dollar SRP spends increases the value of somebody's land deal or fills somebody's contract pipeline. The ratepayers fund it. The insiders withdraw from it. It's a piggy bank with an election attached.
And now a sitting county official is sending mass emails telling you the people asking questions are the problem.
Here's what we've actually said, publicly, in writing, on the record.
But first, the contrast that matters: We have no financial interest in SRP decisions. None. No family land deals that depend on SRP infrastructure. No construction company bidding on SRP contracts. No property trust maneuvering for acreage-weighted votes. We don't own farmland. We're not bankers. We're not generational landowners. We're two working people with full-time jobs who will keep working full-time if elected. We have nothing to gain from this except more work. The people on the other side of this email cannot say the same.
Voting reform: Every person who pays an SRP bill should have an equal vote. Not just landowners. Not weighted by acreage. One customer, one vote.
Rate fairness: Data centers should not pay less per kWh than residential customers. If you benefit from SRP's infrastructure, you should pay your share.
Solar and storage: Solar and battery storage is cheaper than new fossil fuel generation and stabilizes the grid. Other utilities pay customers to install it. SRP punishes them with demand charges. That should change.
Transparency: SRP's infrastructure spending, rate decisions, and water allocations should be accessible and understandable to every customer. Not buried in board packets that 98% of people never see.
Accountability: If your family profits from a land deal that depends on SRP infrastructure, you should recuse yourself from votes on that infrastructure. That's not radical. That's basic governance. We don't have that problem. We have no financial conflicts to recuse ourselves from. We're customers. Period.
We've never said eliminate dams. We've never said shut off power plants. We've never said run SRP like California. Those claims are lies told to scare you out of asking questions.
We've published the full text of the March 5, 2026 email from Kate Brophy McGee. Nothing has been altered or omitted. Read it and decide whether the person who wrote it is telling you the truth or counting on you not checking.
Protect SRP's Reliability and Low Rates
Dear [redacted],
It is more important than ever that we have access to reliable, affordable power and water. Therefore, I am weighing in on the ongoing SRP elections with my comments. Because SRP elections are independent of State and County elections, you MUST request a ballot, EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT AN SRP CUSTOMER. Please read the following for my recommendations and order your SRP ballot today.
Today, SRP is under attack. There are candidates in SRP's upcoming election who think SRP should be run like the California utilities. The California utilities have the highest rates in the country, which are up to double that of SRP's. In California, "reliability" consists of managing rolling blackouts. SRP, on the other hand, has the highest reliability rating in the West and the third highest in the country. SRP is so well run, it has won the JD Power award for Highest Customer Satisfaction 24 years in a row!
The truth is, these California-style candidates have no experience governing a power company and are beholden to environmentalists who want to eliminate dams and shut off all power plants.
Now more than ever we need experienced leadership who understands how SRP works and how to keep SRP's power and water reliable, affordable, and sustainable for Arizona's future. Please join me in voting for:
Nick Vanderwey, District 6 Board
Jack White, District 6 Council
Mike Vanderwey, District 6 Council
Mike Warren, District 6 Council
Chris Dobson, SRP President
Barry Paceley, SRP Vice President
Rusty Kennedy, District 12 At Large
Kelly Cooper, District 14 At Large
SRP runs its own elections independently of the state and county, and you must register with SRP to receive a ballot. If you own a home south of the Arizona canal (the one near Northern Ave), even if you do not have SRP power or do not use SRP irrigation, please request a ballot online at Early voting ballot request form | SRP or simply call SRP at (602) 236-3048.
Please request a ballot right away. Ballots will be mailed out March 11 and must be received back at SRP by April 7. More information is available at srpnet.com/elections and at ElectedLeadershipForSRP.com.
Thank you for your consideration.
All my best,
Kate Brophy McGee
Chair, Maricopa County Board of Supervisors
Every claim on this page is sourced from public records, published news reports, government filings, and SRP's own website.
If anything on this page is inaccurate, contact us. We'll correct it publicly.