An ethics finding without a remedy is an advisory opinion about the past. That is the correct way to read the file on Oscar De Los Santos, now the House Democratic leader, and it is a criticism of the Arizona House at least as much as it is a criticism of him.

The facts were never seriously in dispute. On April 9, 2024, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that an 1864 near-total abortion ban was again enforceable. The following day, House Democrats pushed for a vote to repeal it. Republicans had the votes to pass a repeal and evidently knew it, so the majority leader made a substitute motion to recess the chamber for a week rather than allow the question to be called. De Los Santos, then the No. 2 Democrat in the chamber, and Rep. Analise Ortiz of Phoenix led chants of Shame, Hold the vote, Save women’s lives, and Blood on your hands, pointing and gesturing at Republicans across the aisle. The two then approached Rep. Matt Gress of Phoenix while he was speaking with reporters on the floor and called him a liar. The Center Square recorded that exchange.

The repeal itself succeeded two weeks later, on April 24. The same day, three Republicans who had voted against the repeal, Reps. Jacqueline Parker, Barbara Parker, and David Marshall, filed ethics complaints accusing the two Democrats of insurrectionist behavior and disorderly conduct.

The insurrection framing was indefensible and the Democrats’ attorney, Jim Barton, dismantled it in writing. An insurrection involves violence and seeks to undermine official action. Neither member threatened anyone, and the object of their anger was that official action had been delayed rather than taken. Barton conceded the protest was loud and that it probably made people in the room feel uncomfortable, which was candid, and he was right that comparing a floor chant to January 6 was an attempt to borrow gravity the facts did not supply.

Where the defense stopped working was on the narrower question the committee actually had jurisdiction over: whether House rules were broken. In mid-May, both members declined to attend their own hearing. The rules permitted that, and they sent Barton to speak for them. Committee chairman Rep. Joseph Chaplik of Scottsdale called the absence completely disrespectful, and Republicans on the five-member panel responded by voting to add a mandatory attendance requirement going forward. A member who skips the proceeding and then argues the proceeding was illegitimate has weakened his own objection.

On June 4, 2024, the committee, three Republicans and two Democrats, ruled unanimously. Ortiz was found to have violated Rule 1, which concerns the institutional integrity of the chamber. De Los Santos was found to have violated Rule 1 as well as Rule 18, on decorum and debate, and Rule 19, on impermissible debate. The additional findings against him rested on specifics: he began shouting before the House had recessed and without being recognized by the chair, and he used language personally offensive to members.

The report’s description of his conduct is worth quoting because it is the record, not a characterization by an opponent. He left his assigned desk on the Floor, walking up and down the Floor aisle while pointing his finger toward the members and continuing to shout loudly. The committee added that it did not lightly issue the report, but that the findings were necessary to protect the integrity of the House, the House Rules, and the legislative process. It also warned that treating the conduct as anything other than disorderly would render the rules meaningless.

Neither member disputed the underlying facts. In their written responses both conceded that their actions were loud and formally out of order. Their public statement took a different line, calling the process nothing more than another Republican attempt to suppress speech that they disagree with and accusing the majority of abusing power to silence dissent.

Then came the part that actually decided the matter. The committee referred both reports to the full House without recommending a penalty, leaving the decision to Speaker Ben Toma. Censure required a simple majority. Expulsion required two-thirds, which was arithmetically out of reach with a one-vote Republican majority. The Legislature was heading toward adjournment with members meeting sporadically during budget negotiations, and observers at the time noted that Toma could simply let the matter expire.

That is what happened. The Arizona Capitol Times reported in September 2025 that the House took no further action on the complaint after the Ethics Committee published its report. No censure vote, no floor debate, no formal resolution of a unanimous bipartisan finding that three rules had been broken.

The comparison that clarifies the whole episode is Rep. Leezah Sun, a Phoenix Democrat who resigned earlier in 2024 after the same committee found she had engaged in disorderly behavior, with the House on the verge of voting to expel her. The chamber demonstrably can act on an ethics finding when it wants to. In one case it did. In the other it filed the paperwork and moved on.

The practical consequence is that the House now has a written, unanimous, bipartisan determination that its rules of decorum were broken by a member who has since been elected leader of his caucus, alongside a demonstrated institutional unwillingness to attach anything to that determination. Both facts are on the record. The second one is the more corrosive of the two, and it belongs to the majority that chose it.

Sources Cited

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