The Outsiders Buying Tempe: How Coastal Billionaires and Hollywood PACs Installed Socialists on City Council
Arizonans deserve to know exactly who is trying to reshape our state, and the recent City Council runoff in Tempe is a textbook example of out-of-state dark money meddling at its worst.
Local progressive activists want you to believe that the election of Bobby Nichols—an avowed member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)—and his far-left running mate Brook St. George was an organic, homegrown victory for working-class Tempe. But if you pull back the curtain and follow the money trail, the truth comes out: their campaigns weren't built by your neighbors. They were supercharged by coastal elites and national climate PACs determined to use Tempe as a petri dish for their radical economic experiments.
The Hollywood Pipeline: Jane Fonda’s Climate PAC
When candidates start running on platforms of government-run grocery stores and extreme commercial property taxes, you have to ask where that radical inspiration—and funding—is coming from. Look no further than Malibu.
Both Nichols and Brook St. George secured the official backing and financial pipeline of the Jane Fonda Climate PAC (JanePAC). This is a prime example of a national, celebrity-driven astroturf machine. Hollywood elites, who don't have to live with the inflation or high utility bills their policies create, are funneling money into municipal races across Arizona to demand total compliance with their green agendas. For groups like JanePAC, local councils are just stepping stones to forcing radical climate mandates onto Arizona's grid.
The Shadow Planners: Lead Locally
But Hollywood isn’t acting alone. Another major driver behind this progressive dual-takeover is Lead Locally, a powerful out-of-state political action group that targets local government seats across the country.
Lead Locally operates by dropping national resources, specialized campaign infrastructure, and outside funding into low-turnout municipal races. They know exactly what they’re doing: by overwhelming a local city council election with national backing, they can bypass the average Arizona voter and install hard-left activists like Nichols and St. George, who are ultimately accountable to national directors, not Tempe residents.
The New York Blueprint for Arizona
If the extreme ideas pushed by this new progressive bloc sound familiar, it's because they are ripped directly from the playbook of the country’s most radical cities. Their combined platform echoes the policies championed by New York City’s socialist leader, Zohran Mamdani. Just like Mamdani pushed for government-run grocery stores, heavy taxes on commercial properties, and economically destructive rent control in New York, the Nichols-St. George coalition is attempting to bring that exact blueprint to the East Valley. The economic ruin hitting coastal metropolitan areas is being actively packaged and exported to the desert.
Defending Arizona’s Economic Freedom
When out-of-state special interests and Hollywood PACs dictate who sits on a local council, true representation is stolen from everyday residents. This isn’t a local movement; it’s an artificial astroturf invasion designed to implement policies that kill jobs, hike taxes, and stifle growth. Arizona's economic success is built on free enterprise, limited government, and keeping California-style mandates out of our communities. It is critical that we expose these national puppet-masters and push back against the radical organizations trying to buy our neighborhoods from the outside.