Kwasman is one of four candidates eyeing a seat on the Scottsdale City Council in November. The July 30 primary election for the council yielded one sure winner in Jan Dubauskas, while two more seats are up for grabs in the general election between Kwasman and fellow candidates Maryann McAllen and incumbent councilmembers Tammy Caputi and Tom Durham.
Of those four, only Caputi received more primary votes than Kwasman, giving him the inside track to a city council seat.
A win for Kwasman would represent his first return to elected office since 2015, when his only term in the Arizona House expired. He considered a run for the Arizona Senate in 2020, but he dropped out of the race. Before that, he committed an on-camera gaffe that may have kneecapped his 2014 primary run to represent Congressional District 1 in the U.S. House.
That year, Kwasman was the subject of an infamous, embarrassing and frankly hilarious news report posted to YouTube by USA Today. In the report, Kwasman was making a speech near the small town of Oracle, just north of Tucson, decrying the busing of migrant children to a nearby shelter at state expense. When he heard such a bus was approaching, he cut the speech short to take a photo.
“Bus coming in. This is not compassion,” Kwasman later tweeted along with a picture of a school bus in the middle of the road. “This is the abrogation of the rule of law.” Speaking to reporter Brahm Resnik later that day, Kwasman said he “was able to actually see some of the children in the buses and the fear on their faces.”
When Resnik informed Kwasman that the bus was not filled with migrants but instead was transporting YMCA campers, Kwasman replied, “They were sad, too.”
Narrating the USA Today report, Resnik said Kwasman “did backflips” trying to take back what he’d said about the children on the bus.
“I apologize. I didn’t know. I was leaving when I saw them,” Kwasman told Resnik. “Those were not migrant children. That’s fine.”
The video made waves. It has been watched 42,000 times on YouTube. The Washington Post chimed in on “Adam Kwasman’s ‘sad’ effort to protect the border from ‘YMCA kids,’” and Kwasman even was lampooned on "The Colbert Report."
A month later, Kwasman finished third in the Republican primary to represent the district, which at the time covered Pinal County and Tucson’s north suburbs. Then-Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives Andy Tobin won the race but went on to lose the general election to Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick.
A lot has changed since then, Kwasman told Phoenix New Times in an interview. He left the race with a damaged reputation, prompting him to take his life and career in a different direction.
“I am a fundamentally different person than I was a decade ago,” Kwasman said.
Adam Kwasman, then a state representative and GOP candidate for the U.S. House, has a heated discussion with an anti-immigration activist during a 2014 protest in Oracle.
Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images
‘10 years out from a mistake’
After a decade away from politics, Kwasman now nears an improbable comeback.After his failed Congressional bid, Kwasman and his wife, Orit, moved to Scottsdale to start a family. They grew in their Jewish faith and began observing Orthodox Judaism, had four kids and involved themselves in their synagogue, Congregation Beth Tefillah. Kwasman said if he wins a council seat this year, he’d be the first Orthodox Jew ever elected to office in Arizona.
Kwasman also went to law school at Arizona State University and started a personal injury firm after graduating. When he decided to return to politics, Kwasman sold his stake in the firm to his partner, Joshua Wagner, and started his own practice — Kwasman Law — earlier this year.
“I am happy to be 10 years out from a mistake that I made and being able to show everybody what I’ve accomplished in the past decade,” Kwasman told New Times. “Raising a family, having children, starting businesses, hiring people and building in my community.”
Kwasman wants to distance himself from his failed congressional race in 2014 but notes that he’s enjoyed support from those he ran against. Tobin, who defeated Kwasman in that primary, endorsed him in the Scottsdale City Council race. Kwasman also said that Kirkpatrick wrote him a letter of recommendation for his law school application and that he and the former congresswoman regularly share updates about their families.
“It just shows that there are opponents in life and there are enemies,” Kwasman said, “and I think we need to live in a political world of competent and respectful opposition.”
Kwasman thinks Scottsdale “is far more aligned” with what he wants to accomplish than Tucson was. He said he decided to run for office because of his concerns about crime in North Scottsdale and homelessness. “Public safety is just something I value as a dad,” he said. “So I decided to throw my hat in the ring.” He also said he’s moderated his tone since his run for Congress, a newfound maturity he attributes to being a parent and owning a business.
“I used to be more of a firebrand,” Kwasman said. “I’m much more worried about making sure I make payroll for my employees and making sure my kids are OK and understanding that solutions are found incrementally rather than attempting to only accept 100% of a loaf.”
Former state Rep. Adam Kwasman in 2016, after his exit from politics.
Gage Skidmore/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0
Hardly moderate
Still, Kwasman’s stances are hardly moderate.Kwasman didn't follow when much of the Republican Party dipped into Donald Trump’s cult of personality. When former state Rep. Mark Finchem tweeted in support of Jan. 6 rioters, Kwasman called for Finchem's removal from office. Instead, Kwasman stayed right where the GOP left off at Tea Party conservatism.
His campaign website states he wants to make sure “single-family housing is at the forefront,” a strategy that would do little to help the Valley’s twin crises of affordable housing and homelessness but may play well with Scottsdale’s wealthy and right-leaning population.
And the firebrand spirit hasn’t fully left him. Though the race for Scottsdale City Council technically is nonpartisan, Kwasman told New Times he was the only Republican among the four candidates. He accused Durham of being a “radical left-wing Democrat” on Twitter because local Democrats wanted to campaign for Durham and Mayor David Ortega, who is registered as an Independent.
Neither Durham nor Ortega has ever run for office as a Democrat; Caputi is the only one in the city council race who has. Durham even seems to share similar concerns over housing developments — he told the Arizona Digital Free Press that the “most serious problem in Scottsdale is the plague of short-term rentals” — and wants to ensure the homeowner class is happy. That’s hardly a radical left-wing position.
But after the tide turned against him in 2014, Kwasman is trying to strike the right balance in this race. He still proudly identifies as conservative, but he seems to be more focused on how he says things and not just on what he’s saying. He’s hoping it will help him win over more Scottsdale voters.
“I think the tone has always got to be open-palmed and not close-fisted,” he said. “That wins in Arizona.”
