Facts or Fudging? · Article 6
The Lie. He Named Two Colleagues. They Said It Never Happened.
His Own Text Proves He’d Already Made Up His Mind.
Rep. Quang Nguyen told a live podcast audience that Reps. Lisa Fink and Rachel Keshel had personally asked him to kill Senator Finchem’s family court reform bills. The Senator called them in real time, while on the show. The denial was immediate.
On the evening of March 30, 2026, Rep. Quang Nguyen called in unannounced to a live podcast hosted by Richard Luthmann and Michael Volpe while Arizona State Senator Mark Finchem was being interviewed. What followed was a remarkable series of claims — claims that fell apart in real time, on the air, within minutes.
Nguyen, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, had spent weeks under fire for blocking all thirteen of Senator Finchem’s family court reform bills — legislation crafted over more than forty hours of public hearings by parents, judges, lawyers, and advocates from across Yavapai County and the entire state of Arizona. Not one bill received a hearing. Not one received a vote. Not one received an explanation.
When pressed on the broadcast about why, Nguyen offered a specific and striking justification: his Republican colleagues had told him to kill the bills! Their names, he said, were Reps. Lisa Fink and Rachel Keshel — the very same representatives who had worked alongside Finchem on the reform package.
“Keshel and Fink actually came to me on the house floor to ask me not to hear Finchem’s bill… Keshel, Fink, Pena. All ask me not to hear Finchem’s bills.” — Rep. Quang Nguyen, Luthman/Volpe Podcast, March 30, 2026, ~13:48 · Verbatim transcript
Senator Finchem, who was still on the line, paused the interview immediately. He called Rep. Fink while Nguyen was still speaking with the hosts. She answered. Her response, as Finchem reported it on air, was direct: she had asked for amendments on a couple of bills, but she never told Nguyen to kill them.
Representative Rachel Keshel later answered Senator Finchem and reported to him that she “did not tell Quang to kill the bills.”
Finchem closed the broadcast by naming Fink and Keshel specifically as champions of the reform effort — people who “put their heart and soul into this work” and helped craft the very bills Nguyen claimed they had asked him to bury.
But the most damaging evidence was not verbal. It was a text message.
On March 18, 2026 — twelve days before the podcast, and one day before Nguyen’s since-deleted Facebook post calling the bills “stupid” — Nguyen sent a text message in a group chain. The message was five words: “All his bills are dead.”
The decision was not made because victim advocates called. It was not made because Fink or Keshel asked him. It was made, communicated privately, and then surrounded with retroactive justification after the public backlash began.
The Timeline That Tells the Story
March 18, 2026
Nguyen texts “All his bills are dead.” Decision communicated privately, before any public justification exists.
March 19, 2026
Nguyen posts on Facebook: “Yes, it is 100% correct that I blocked ‘Stupid Bills’. That is my job as the Chairman.” Post subsequently deleted after backlash.
March 23, 2026
Nguyen posts cover statement: “ALL House family court bills were heard in my committee.” Deliberately worded to exclude the Senate-originated reform package.
March 30, 2026
On the Luthman/Volpe podcast, Nguyen claims Fink and Keshel asked him to kill the bills. Sen. Finchem calls Fink immediately on air. She denies it. Nguyen also states on air: “It is my job to be the freaking Chairman to kill that bill.”
Source: Clean transcript, Luthman/Volpe/Finchem/Nguyen Podcast, March 30, 2026 · March 18 text screenshot preserved.
The question for LD1 voters is not whether Nguyen has the right to use his committee chairmanship as he sees fit. He does. The question is whether he is willing to be honest about why he does what he does — or whether he will name colleagues as cover for decisions he has already made.
Rep. Fink wanted amendments. She did not ask for a burial. Rep. Keshel helped write these bills. Thirteen of them. Over months of hearings. After forty hours of testimony from families who drove to Phoenix from Prescott, from Chino Valley, from Cottonwood, hoping that this time, someone in power would listen.
There is one more question worth asking about who actually benefited from killing these bills. Of the thirteen, only one touched domestic violence issues in any meaningful way. The other twelve addressed runaway attorney fees, court-appointed professionals with no accountability, temporary custody orders with no evidentiary standards, and a family court system that — in the words of Senator Finchem — had become “a business model.” The people who profit from that business model are lawyers and court-appointed “experts” whose income depends on the system staying exactly as broken as it is. They were the ones who lobbied against reform. They were the ones Nguyen listened to. Families deserve answers not just a slogan.
This pattern did not begin nor end with family court. In February 2026, Nguyen killed his own bipartisan bill — HB2861 — which would have allowed victims to request the destruction of firearms used to murder their family members. The bill had support from Republicans, Democrats, prosecutors, police groups, and gun-rights advocates. Days before its scheduled hearing, Nguyen replaced the entire bill with unrelated language on postnuptial agreements. Julie Erfle, the police officer’s widow who spent months working with Nguyen on the bill, said publicly: “What I heard is that he became nervous about a Primary.” Same chairman. Same silence. Same result.
They went home empty-handed, and many in tears. Now their chairman is attributing his decision to kill the bills to Reps. Keshel and Fink, the very people who fought hardest to help the families who were harmed by our broken court system.
Senator Finchem put it simply on that broadcast: “He has something to explain.”
He still does.
VERDICT
FUDGING
Rep. Nguyen’s claim that Reps. Fink and Keshel asked him to kill Senator Finchem’s family court bills is contradicted by Rep. Fink’s own denial, inconsistent with Rep. Keshel’s documented role as a reform champion, and rendered irrelevant by Nguyen’s own text message from March 18 — twelve days before the podcast — in which he had already declared the bills dead.
Where the facts end: Nguyen did appear on the Luthman/Volpe podcast on March 30, 2026. He did make statements about why he killed the bills. Senator Finchem was on the call. A text message from twelve days earlier does exist. Those are facts. Where the fudging climbs to 95%: Nguyen named two specific Republican colleagues — Reps. Lisa Fink and Rachel Keshel — and claimed they had personally asked him to kill the bills. Rep. Fink denied it on-air within minutes, in a live phone call placed by Senator Finchem while Nguyen was still speaking. A text message from Nguyen dated twelve days before the podcast proved the decision had already been made before any colleague allegedly asked anything. The entire explanation — the one he offered publicly for why he denied families their hearings — appears to be a fabrication, constructed in real time on a live broadcast, and contradicted immediately by the documented record.
Sources & Documentation
- Luthman/Volpe/Finchem/Nguyen Podcast, March 30, 2026 — full clean transcript on file with the Wildman campaign.
- Sen. Mark Finchem official statement, markfinchem.com, March 19, 2026: “Families Deserve Answers After Family Court Reform Bills Blocked.”
- Nguyen Facebook post (March 19, 2026, 5:30 PM) — deleted by Nguyen after backlash · screenshot preserved by campaign.
- March 18, 2026 text message screenshot — “All his bills are dead.” — preserved by campaign.
- Arizona Legislature bill tracking, Senate Bills SB1139, SB1147, SB1328–SB1330, SB1644, SB1653, SB1656–SB1658: apps.azleg.gov
Defend Life. Defend Freedom. Yavapai County First.
Paid for by Wildman for State House District 1 Committee. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee other than Wildman for State House District 1.
Facts or Fudging? · Article 6
The Lie. He Named Two Colleagues. They Said It Never Happened.
His Own Text Proves He’d Already Made Up His Mind.
Rep. Quang Nguyen told a live podcast audience that Reps. Lisa Fink and Rachel Keshel had personally asked him to kill Senator Finchem’s family court reform bills. The Senator called them in real time, while on the show. The denial was immediate.
On the evening of March 30, 2026, Rep. Quang Nguyen called in unannounced to a live podcast hosted by Richard Luthmann and Michael Volpe while Arizona State Senator Mark Finchem was being interviewed. What followed was a remarkable series of claims — claims that fell apart in real time, on the air, within minutes.
Nguyen, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, had spent weeks under fire for blocking all thirteen of Senator Finchem’s family court reform bills — legislation crafted over more than forty hours of public hearings by parents, judges, lawyers, and advocates from across Yavapai County and the entire state of Arizona. Not one bill received a hearing. Not one received a vote. Not one received an explanation.
When pressed on the broadcast about why, Nguyen offered a specific and striking justification: his Republican colleagues had told him to kill the bills! Their names, he said, were Reps. Lisa Fink and Rachel Keshel — the very same representatives who had worked alongside Finchem on the reform package.
“Keshel and Fink actually came to me on the house floor to ask me not to hear Finchem’s bill… Keshel, Fink, Pena. All ask me not to hear Finchem’s bills.” — Rep. Quang Nguyen, Luthman/Volpe Podcast, March 30, 2026, ~13:48 · Verbatim transcript
Senator Finchem, who was still on the line, paused the interview immediately. He called Rep. Fink while Nguyen was still speaking with the hosts. She answered. Her response, as Finchem reported it on air, was direct: she had asked for amendments on a couple of bills, but she never told Nguyen to kill them.
Representative Rachel Keshel later answered Senator Finchem and reported to him that she “did not tell Quang to kill the bills.”
Finchem closed the broadcast by naming Fink and Keshel specifically as champions of the reform effort — people who “put their heart and soul into this work” and helped craft the very bills Nguyen claimed they had asked him to bury.
But the most damaging evidence was not verbal. It was a text message.
On March 18, 2026 — twelve days before the podcast, and one day before Nguyen’s since-deleted Facebook post calling the bills “stupid” — Nguyen sent a text message in a group chain. The message was five words: “All his bills are dead.”
The decision was not made because victim advocates called. It was not made because Fink or Keshel asked him. It was made, communicated privately, and then surrounded with retroactive justification after the public backlash began.
The Timeline That Tells the Story
March 18, 2026
Nguyen texts “All his bills are dead.” Decision communicated privately, before any public justification exists.
March 19, 2026
Nguyen posts on Facebook: “Yes, it is 100% correct that I blocked ‘Stupid Bills’. That is my job as the Chairman.” Post subsequently deleted after backlash.
March 23, 2026
Nguyen posts cover statement: “ALL House family court bills were heard in my committee.” Deliberately worded to exclude the Senate-originated reform package.
March 30, 2026
On the Luthman/Volpe podcast, Nguyen claims Fink and Keshel asked him to kill the bills. Sen. Finchem calls Fink immediately on air. She denies it. Nguyen also states on air: “It is my job to be the freaking Chairman to kill that bill.”
Source: Clean transcript, Luthman/Volpe/Finchem/Nguyen Podcast, March 30, 2026 · March 18 text screenshot preserved.
The question for LD1 voters is not whether Nguyen has the right to use his committee chairmanship as he sees fit. He does. The question is whether he is willing to be honest about why he does what he does — or whether he will name colleagues as cover for decisions he has already made.
Rep. Fink wanted amendments. She did not ask for a burial. Rep. Keshel helped write these bills. Thirteen of them. Over months of hearings. After forty hours of testimony from families who drove to Phoenix from Prescott, from Chino Valley, from Cottonwood, hoping that this time, someone in power would listen.
There is one more question worth asking about who actually benefited from killing these bills. Of the thirteen, only one touched domestic violence issues in any meaningful way. The other twelve addressed runaway attorney fees, court-appointed professionals with no accountability, temporary custody orders with no evidentiary standards, and a family court system that — in the words of Senator Finchem — had become “a business model.” The people who profit from that business model are lawyers and court-appointed “experts” whose income depends on the system staying exactly as broken as it is. They were the ones who lobbied against reform. They were the ones Nguyen listened to. Families deserve answers not just a slogan.
This pattern did not begin nor end with family court. In February 2026, Nguyen killed his own bipartisan bill — HB2861 — which would have allowed victims to request the destruction of firearms used to murder their family members. The bill had support from Republicans, Democrats, prosecutors, police groups, and gun-rights advocates. Days before its scheduled hearing, Nguyen replaced the entire bill with unrelated language on postnuptial agreements. Julie Erfle, the police officer’s widow who spent months working with Nguyen on the bill, said publicly: “What I heard is that he became nervous about a Primary.” Same chairman. Same silence. Same result.
They went home empty-handed, and many in tears. Now their chairman is attributing his decision to kill the bills to Reps. Keshel and Fink, the very people who fought hardest to help the families who were harmed by our broken court system.
Senator Finchem put it simply on that broadcast: “He has something to explain.”
He still does.
VERDICT
FUDGING
Rep. Nguyen’s claim that Reps. Fink and Keshel asked him to kill Senator Finchem’s family court bills is contradicted by Rep. Fink’s own denial, inconsistent with Rep. Keshel’s documented role as a reform champion, and rendered irrelevant by Nguyen’s own text message from March 18 — twelve days before the podcast — in which he had already declared the bills dead.
Where the facts end: Nguyen did appear on the Luthman/Volpe podcast on March 30, 2026. He did make statements about why he killed the bills. Senator Finchem was on the call. A text message from twelve days earlier does exist. Those are facts. Where the fudging climbs to 95%: Nguyen named two specific Republican colleagues — Reps. Lisa Fink and Rachel Keshel — and claimed they had personally asked him to kill the bills. Rep. Fink denied it on-air within minutes, in a live phone call placed by Senator Finchem while Nguyen was still speaking. A text message from Nguyen dated twelve days before the podcast proved the decision had already been made before any colleague allegedly asked anything. The entire explanation — the one he offered publicly for why he denied families their hearings — appears to be a fabrication, constructed in real time on a live broadcast, and contradicted immediately by the documented record.
Sources & Documentation
- Luthman/Volpe/Finchem/Nguyen Podcast, March 30, 2026 — full clean transcript on file with the Wildman campaign.
- Sen. Mark Finchem official statement, markfinchem.com, March 19, 2026: “Families Deserve Answers After Family Court Reform Bills Blocked.”
- Nguyen Facebook post (March 19, 2026, 5:30 PM) — deleted by Nguyen after backlash · screenshot preserved by campaign.
- March 18, 2026 text message screenshot — “All his bills are dead.” — preserved by campaign.
- Arizona Legislature bill tracking, Senate Bills SB1139, SB1147, SB1328–SB1330, SB1644, SB1653, SB1656–SB1658: apps.azleg.gov
Defend Life. Defend Freedom. Yavapai County First.
Paid for by Wildman for State House District 1 Committee. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee other than Wildman for State House District 1.
Defend Life. Defend Freedom. Yavapai County First.
