Failed justice of the peace candidate who used N-word is running again

With less than a week before the 2020 election, Michael Irish’s texts came back to haunt him.

On Oct. 27 of that year, Phoenix New Times reported on the Republican justice of the peace candidate’s history of racist sentiments. NBA players protesting racial injustice were “idiot n—s,” he wrote to a friend in a Sept. 2 text message that was shared with New Times. The report also resurfaced several racist cartoons Irish authored while working for his college newspaper.

Within two days, many of Irish’s backers had abandoned him, including notable Republicans Stephen Richer, Jerry Sheridan and Phoenix City Councilmember Sal DiCiccio. Irish lost his race to Democrat Deborah Begay, the first Native American to become a justice of the peace in Maricopa County.

Four years later, Irish is back and again running to be justice of the peace in North Phoenix’s Moon Valley district. He ran unopposed in the primary but does not appear to be endorsed by anyone. In the general election, he will face Democrat Mireya Arroyo, who knocked off Begay in the primary.

Justice of the peace is an elected local position that manages small claims, evictions, traffic violations, DUI cases and other low-level misdemeanors. Maricopa County has 26 justice courts, each with a justice of the peace.

When reached by phone, Irish said he was “occupied” before hanging up. He did respond via email to questions from New Times, calling the 2020 story “defamatory.” He wrote, “It is wrong that an anonymous source can make such a claim, and the media can publish it without verification.”

Though Irish did not directly address his use of the N-word, and did not answer a question about whether he still uses it in private conversation, he said, “I want to make it clear that I am not, nor have I ever been, a racist.” Irish also said he’s “embarked on a journey of personal growth” since 2020 and is “committed to cementing my future here in Moon Valley, a community I deeply care about.”

On Irish’s campaign site, there is little evidence of the controversy that sank his last campaign. The website does not mention his racist comments, and while it does include photos of Irish with prominent local Republicans, it makes no mention of the fact that many of them pulled their endorsements of Irish four years ago.

The site even prominently features a selectively truncated portion of the same New Times piece that exposed him. His website’s endorsements page” — which includes no endorsements — features New Times’ logo and the quote, “Irish has also garnered an impressive array of endorsements from high-profile local Republicans.” The rest of the article, which Irish’s site did not quote, chronicled how several of those Republicans had pulled their support after learning of his racist remarks.

In his responses to New Times, Irish did not explain why he promoted a section of a “defamatory” article about him on his website.

A history of racism

Irish is a business and real estate attorney, and his history of racism has been well-documented since his last run for office. Dropping a racial slur in a text is just the tip of the iceberg.

As racial justice protests dominated the headlines in June 2020, the Arizona Mirror reported, Irish reached out to a college classmate via Instagram to state that “Blacks cause a lot of their own inherent problems and when shit hits the fan they want to blame slavery or others for those problems.” He also told his former classmate that it was “time to start putting these idiots in their place,” referring to Black Lives Matter protesters.

About two months later, he sent the N-word in a text to a former friend, leading to New Times’ report. In the same text thread that was shared with New Times, Irish said that “hockey is the only league that isn’t bitching, because they are all white and realize they make millions to play a game” and that he’d “lost interest in the NBA with their BLM BS.”

He also wrote, “Minorities want more because generations ago suffered so they need extra now.”

There’s evidence of Irish’s racism going back to 2004, when he was a student at the University of Arizona and a staff cartoonist at The Daily Wildcat, the school’s student-run newspaper. Irish penned several cartoons for the paper that were both odd and overtly racist. The cartoons also always featured penguins for some reason. “The penguins were this thing,” the paper’s former sports editor told New Times four years ago.

One of Irish’s cartoons featured a Mexican flag, a Tecate beer sign, a sign labeled “Mexico” and a penguin wearing a sombrero. “Even the desert looks dirtier...is that possible?” the penguin said. In another, a penguin asked, “Why is it that UA hires teachers who don’t speak English?” After a panel featuring a racist caricature of an Asian person, the penguin said, “I rest my case.”

After New Times’ report, Republicans were quick to distance themselves from Irish. On his Facebook page, DiCiccio denounced Irish and said, “There is simply no reason to use charged racist terminology. There is no place in our party for this kind of language. We can make our points without stooping to the level of those who judge people on the basis of skin color.”

Richer, who would go on to win his election for Maricopa County recorder, also yanked his endorsement.

“Obviously a major no-no,” Richer wrote on Twitter. “Disappointing. Sad. Inappropriate. Unequivocally inexcusable. Not good.”

Like nothing ever happened

Irish’s website attempts to give the appearance of Republican support without any actual evidence of it.

On his endorsements page, Irish said he eschewed endorsements this election because they “don’t mean much.” In an email to New Times, Irish said he removed his 2020 endorsements “to shield my campaign supporters from potential harassment” and as a “proactive step to protect those who support me.” This year, he said, he “decided not to seek any endorsements.”

However, Irish’s website includes a photo gallery of Irish with notable Arizona Republicans, including Sheridan and attorneys Dennis and Jack Wilenchik. All three rescinded endorsements of Irish in the aftermath of New Times’ reporting, according to the Arizona Republic. Wednesday, Irish claimed to New Times that “reports about Dennis and Jack Wilenchik’s ‘unendorsing’ me are false” and that “Dennis Wilenchik continues to support my campaign.”

Neither Sheridan nor Dennis Wilenchik immediately responded to a request for comment from New Times.

Short of the recommendations of others in his party, Irish pitches himself to voters as the best candidate due to his legal background. His platform is that he is the most qualified candidate because he has a law degree while Arroyo does not. Being a lawyer is not a requirement for the local community-oriented office.

“Would you go to a dentist’s office and let the receptionist work on your teeth?” Irish wrote on his website, employing an eclectic array of text formatting options. “The correct answer is NO...so why would anyone vote for a non-lawyer to be the judge of a court of law...it is simply bad politics.”

Irish’s website doesn’t elaborate on any policy positions, though it does state that his legal qualifications are “designed to instill confidence in my ability to serve as a fair and impartial judge.” His opponent, however, has made the state’s eviction crisis a central theme of her campaign.

Arroyo, who won 57.1% of the vote in her primary against Begay, wrote in a Republic candidate questionnaire about the lack of resources for people facing evictions.

“I want to ensure that those going through the eviction process are given the resources and tools they need to avoid ending up on the street, keeping our community safe for everyone,” Arroyo wrote. “As a single mom with two boys, I lost my job and faced the fear, embarrassment and confusion of not understanding why nothing was being done to help us. Thankfully, I managed to recover, but many others did not.”

The contest between the two will be decided Nov. 5. In the last general election, more than 45,000 votes were cast for the Moon Valley justice of the peace, while fewer than 11,000 were cast in the Republican and Democratic primaries combined.