Arizona Rep. Paul Mosley accused of inappropriate comments involving women, religion

A freshman Republican legislator made inappropriate comments about marital status, working mothers and religion to several people at the state Capitol while they were working, lawmakers and lobbyists said.

Rep. Paul Mosley, R-Lake Havasu City — who recently has come under fire after reports of excessive speeding — has asked whether people are married, why they don't have children and why working mothers aren't, instead, home with their children.

The recollections of encounters with Mosley come as the statehouse continues to grapple with a culture that some have deemed sexist and demeaning toward women.

Mosley repeatedly asks probing questions about religion, pushing people into conversations about his Mormon faith, colleagues from both political parties said.

And some lawmakers have said they are uncomfortable with his aggressive manner in pushing for legislation, some of which could personally benefit him.

Mosley was criticized last week for claiming legislative immunity after he was pulled over for driving more than 40 mph over the speed limit. He told the deputy who pulled him over that he sometimes drives as fast as 140 mph. After the incident became public, Mosley said he was joking.

A fellow Republican House member filed an ethics complaint about the speeding incident. The House ethics committee will next decide how to proceed with the complaint.

The spotlight on Mosley spurred his colleagues, as well as lobbyists, to come forward with stories about other aspects of his behavior over the past two years.

Mosley has not responded to The Arizona Republic's repeated calls and emails seeking comment on the speeding incident and a response to the allegations of inappropriate remarks. 

Those allegations began last week with a public Facebook post by a prominent Republican lobbyist.  

Meghaen Dell'Artino, who owns the firm Public Policy Partners, wrote that Mosley made comments disparaging her status as a working mother.

Dell'Artino wrote about when she first lobbied Mosley after he was elected in 2016.

“He told me I shouldn’t be in his office because he was told I had 6 month twins at home and didn’t know how I was feeding them when at work,” Dell’Artino wrote.

Mosley then told Dell’Artino she must only be working because her husband didn’t make enough money, she wrote. (Her husband also works in Arizona politics.) Mosley also told her she must not be “pro-family” because she’s a working mother.

He later asked a male employee of Dell’Artino’s how he could work for a woman, Dell’Artino said.

“Honestly we talk about sexual harassment, but I’ve never felt more harassed or condemned by anyone in my life,” Dell’Artino wrote.  

She said she didn’t want to share the story publicly until now, but decided to come forward because she thinks Lake Havasu's voters should know. She grew up in Lake Havasu and still has family there, she wrote.

One female Republican lawmaker recalled Mosley repeatedly seeking her vote for a bill that may have financially benefited him.

She said he came back multiple times, even after she firmly told him she wouldn’t vote for a bill he sponsored to create a $250 income-tax credit for each child. Mosley has seven children. (The bill failed, both on an initial vote and on reconsideration.)

The lawmaker said she has seen Mosley repeatedly pushing for votes like this only with women. She said he kept saying she must not care about children or families if she was voting against the bill.

The lawmaker requested anonymity because she didn't want to affect their working relationship.

Behavior may violate harassment policy

The allegations of inappropriate behavior follow a tumultuous year of harassment inquiries at the Arizona House. Former Rep. Don Shooter, R-Yuma, was ousted from the chamber earlier this year after an investigation found several allegations of harassment from women at the Capitol were credible.

House Speaker J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler, said in a statement to The Republic last week he was made aware of the interaction between Mosley and Dell’Artino shortly after it happened.

Mesnard said he was “expressly asked not to formally pursue the matter” by Dell’Artino. But Mesnard said he told Mosley that the comments were “wrong and offensive.” The incident also served as part of the motivation behind an ethics training for lawmakers at the beginning of the year, Mesnard said.

Dell'Artino said Mesnard did everything she asked him to and was "supportive in every way."

A House harassment policy, instituted late last year as the #metoo movement started reaching state legislatures, defines discrimination as "unequal and unlawful treatment" of people on the basis of gender, race, religion, age and others.

Discrimination includes unwelcome written, physical or verbal conduct that "either degrades or shows hostility or aversion towards a person."

Asked whether the incident described by Dell'Artino violated the policy, House spokesman Matt Specht said an investigation would need to occur before determining whether the policy was violated. 

House speaker spoke to Mosley about behavior

House Republican leaders did not answer The Republic's questions about specific allegations regarding Mosley’s behavior.

Mesnard, the chamber's top official, wrote in a statement that he could not discuss publicly concerns or complaints that were made in confidence. 

His statement makes clear he has received complaints about Mosley and has acted on them, although his specific responses to the complaints were not disclosed. 

Legislative leaders routinely hear “gripes about the work, actions, or attitudes of legislators from other lawmakers, lobbyists, staff, and the public,” Mesnard wrote in his statement Monday.

Much of the time, information is taken to House leaders in confidence, and people often ask leadership not to directly pursue the matter, Mesnard said. That limits leadership's ability to address it.

“While I’ve not received a formal complaint about Representative Mosley, I have spoken to him regarding complaints about comments he has made,” Mesnard said.

Mesnard pointed to the ethics complaint filed against Mosley for the speeding incident, and said he will await the ethics committee’s review.

“However, if there are any criticisms about how leadership has handled a particular matter, I hope those concerns will be brought to our attention,” Mesnard said.

Lobbyist: Mosley didn't dispute comments

In an interview with The Arizona Republic, Dell’Artino said she has mostly stayed away from Mosley for the past two years. Instead, she had a male lobbyist at her firm go to Mosley’s office when they needed to talk to him about legislation.

Dell’Artino, who has worked in Arizona politics for more than 15 years, said the incident with Mosley was the worst she had experienced at the statehouse. She said she found the conversation extremely offensive and that it was inappropriate for a lawmaker to discuss breastfeeding with her.

“It was not really workplace conversation in my mind, and it made me uncomfortable," she said. "I don’t know, I just never felt more judged or harassed for working, and (he was) frankly trying to make me feel guilty for leaving my kids at home."

Another female lobbyist from the firm was in the meeting, Dell'Artino said. Dell'Artino was vocal about the incident and told some lawmakers and other lobbyists, along with family and friends who live in Lake Havasu.

Mosley called Dell'Artino this year after a family friend of hers posted about the incident on Facebook. She said he apologized, to some degree, and didn’t dispute that he made the comments.

“Even in his apology to me, he just kept saying, you know, ‘I’m sorry you were offended, I just really care about family,’" Dell’Artino said. "And I said, even that statement, in and of itself, makes it seem like I don’t care about my family or my kids because I choose to work.”

Dell’Artino said she has no ulterior motives. She said she hasn’t worked on campaigns of Mosley’s opponents, and has given money only to Rep. Regina Cobb, a Republican lawmaker from the House district, not anyone else running for that office.

She said watching her mother battle cancer and wanting to improve the world her girls will grow up in spurred her to speak out publicly.

“Staying silent because I was worried about repercussion from Mosley seemed silly,” Dell’Artino said. "I care more about making Arizona better for my children than I do about anything else, and people deserve to know the true person they are electing."

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Religious comments in the workplace

Other lawmakers and lobbyists say Mosley frequently and adamantly discusses his religion at the Capitol, occasionally handing out copies of the Book of Mormon.

The comments have made others uncomfortable and, in at least one instance, troubled a lobbyist so deeply that the lobbyist gave up on lobbying Mosley altogether. 

Cobb, R-Kingman, who is Catholic, told The Arizona Republic she was uncomfortable with Mosley's injection of religion into their conversations.

She said she has a tense relationship with her seatmate, which is partly tied to his comments to her related to religion. She said he will try to "convert you (to Mormonism), have judgments on you based on your beliefs if he didn't feel it was part of what a religious person could be.

"Having a cocktail is something he totally disapproved of, and would tell you to your face." 

She declined to elaborate.

"It's just a wise move for me to ... stay clean from it," she said. 

Cobb supports another Republican running against Mosley in the primary election and has held campaign-style events and fundraisers with the other candidate, Leo Biasiucci.

One veteran lobbyist said he was so offended by Mosley's remarks in 2016 about religion, the lobbyist has avoided him ever since. Because the lobbying industry depends largely on maintaining good relationships with lawmakers, the lobbyist asked not to be named.

On that day, the lobbyist recalled going to Mosley's office. Mosley closed the door, sat beside the lobbyist and began quoting Scripture. 

"And then he starts talking about the afterlife, and all these different things," the lobbyist said. "He was in my space, trying to convince me that my upbringing was wrong."

The conversation lasted for 45 minutes — until the lobbyist could gracefully exit. 

A short time later, the lobbyist confided in a fellow veteran lobbyist about the encounter with Mosley.

"The issue that was most offensive ... is he was making me feel as though my cultural background was inferior," the lobbyist said. "The part that most upset me was the cheapening of my own background, my own culture, my own upbringing."

State Sen. Bob Worsley, R-Mesa, who also is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said he made it a policy personally to not mix religion with his work at the Capitol. 

“To try to use your influence as an elected official to try to get somebody to listen to you about your church I think is inappropriate,” Worsley said.

Worsley said Mosley handed out copies of the Book of Mormon at the Capitol — something Worsley participated in indirectly.

Mosley brought Worsley copies of the book to sign for people he was giving them to while Worsley was on the Senate floor, and Worsley obliged, he said.

In retrospect, Worsley said he felt bad about agreeing to do so.

“I think probably he was being overly aggressive handing them out,” Worsley said.

Questioning marital and familial status

Besides religion, Mosley asks probing questions about his colleagues' personal lives, including whether they're married, why they don't have kids and what their sexual orientation is, one Democratic lawmaker said.

People on the receiving end of the questions said they go beyond ordinary pleasantries exchanged among co-workers getting to know each other. 

State Sen. Sean Bowie, D-Phoenix, recalled an encounter with Mosley during the 2017 legislative session.

The two were to meet in Bowie's office to talk about pending legislation and the politics driving it.

But the men spent less than a minute talking about the bill before Mosley veered off-topic and asked questions about Bowie’s personal life.

Mosley asked why Bowie was childless and unmarried, Bowie said. 

Mosley also asked whether Bowie had a girlfriend. He then asked if Bowie was gay (he’s not).

Bowie said he found the interaction odd but didn’t think Mosley had a malicious intent.

Mosley seemed to be “oblivious to fact that it was inappropriate” to probe into personal details during a meeting about legislation, Bowie said.

“He generally just has a habit of being very inquisitive about people’s families,” Bowie said.

Cobb, Mosley's seatmate, said Mosley sought to use personal information against her earlier in their tenure.  

"When I first went into office with him, he took some very personal information that he got from my ex-husband and tried to slanderize me, pretty much," she said in an interview. 

The incident, combined with the religious conversations, has led to the tense relationship between the two lawmakers, Cobb said. 

She said their relationship improved after House Republican leaders stepped in "and told him he needed to back away, and he did."

House leadership did not answer questions about Cobb's allegations, including whether any action was taken after she spoke to leadership.

Since then, she said, she has kept her distance. The relationship has remained strained.

"Most of the time, I wouldn’t even say, 'Good morning,' to him," she said. 

Mosley is 'very unfiltered'

Mosley's colleagues make one thing clear: He says whatever is on his mind, and often doesn't seem to understand that his behavior may be seen as inappropriate or make others uncomfortable.

Todd Clodfelter, R-Tucson, described Mosley as "the kid brother that you love, but you want to slap the crap out of about every 20 minutes."

Clodfelter said Mosley's heart is in the right place, but he is "very unfiltered." His remarks in question, Clodfelter said, are driven largely by his faith. 

"He's done some other things that I don't want to elaborate on," he said. "They were not public — they were amongst colleagues."

After reading other Capitol players' stories of Mosley, Rep. T.J. Shope, a Coolidge Republican, decided to go public with his own experience.

When the two first met, Shope said Tuesday, Mosley had not yet been elected. 

"He mentioned the fact that I wasn't married and didn't have kids, and he talked about Mormonism," said Shope, a Catholic who grew up around people of both faiths.

"I had never had anyone explicitly push anything on me (religion-wise), but it happened another time. I even mentioned to him, 'Hey man, come on.' He never did it again, to his credit." 

When it came to Mosley's questioning of his marital status, Shope said, "It's a personal thing ... It didn't offend me, per se, but I can definitely see how it could offend others."

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