GOP lawmaker touts economic record while his own wages are being garnished

Filed 1h ago · Via Arizona Mirror · The Buffoon Desk

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The Entertainer

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Xnatedawgx · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Arizona state Rep. Justin Wilmeth, a three-time ASU graduate who chairs the House Commerce Committee and the new AI and Innovation Committee, is campaigning on his record of boosting the state economy.

Court records show a company that bought his defaulted $18,700 student loan sued him in 2024; Wilmeth never responded or showed up, so a default judgment pushed the total past $22,000, and in 2025 a court ordered his $24,000 legislative salary garnished.

Wilmeth told the Arizona Mirror that rent and groceries come first on that salary and that how he manages his own paycheck is a different question from how he votes on the state budget. He also took 16 trips paid for by others last year and earned nearly $12,000 consulting for the state GOP, on top of running his own consulting firm.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A man can fall behind on a loan and still be a decent sort. But when the paperwork shows up and you don't answer it, that's not bad luck, that's a choice, and it's the same choice he'd never let a state agency get away with. Sixteen trips somebody else paid for suggests the calendar was open, at least.

Source: Read the original at Arizona Mirror → Scored: The Entertainer · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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