GOP candidate's damning slip adds fuel to spiraling forced child marriage scandal
U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), who has long defended killing a bill that could have acted on forced child marriage in Colorado City in 2013, let it slip to reporters this week that he knew what was going on all along.
Biggs, the Republican nominee for Arizona governor, faced the questions Tuesday at the 2026 Gubernatorial Public Safety Policy Forum. The lawmaker has recently come under fire over claims that his opposition as then-state Senate leader effectively shut down legislation that would have helped the girls who were being abused.
Reporters pressed the candidate about the 2013 bill that would have stripped authority from the local police department, the Colorado City Marshal's Office, which was believed to have been protecting FLDS leaders and their practices.
"You didn't know what was going on?" a reporter asked.
"I was the Senate president. I knew what was going on," Biggs replied.
"I mean about the FLDS marrying off young girls who were underage," the reporter pressed.
"We heard — we've heard bits and pieces of it. It was also under investigation by the feds at the time," Biggs said.
Biggs offered a different explanation in a television interview last year, saying officials were still gathering information, the Washington Post reported.
"What I was concerned about is, did we have enough as a state to step in, as a state legislature?" he said at the time.
Then-Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne backed the 2013 measure, and it cleared the state House 52-7, according to the Post. The bill then died in the state Senate without ever reaching a vote, the Post reported.
A jury convicted sect leader Warren Jeffs in 2011 of sexually assaulting girls aged 12 and 15, both of whom he had forced into marriage, the Post reported.
The Justice Department sued the two towns the marshal's office served in 2012, alleging it acted as the sect's "enforcement arm," according to the Post.
"Women and children suffered three years longer than they should have because he protected the bad guys," said then-state Rep. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, an Arizona Republican who sponsored the bill.
Survivors and advocates raised the same questions at an Aug. 20 press conference, as reported by the Copper Courier.
Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs' campaign released a video about Colorado City the same day as the forum, according to a campaign statement.
"I would like Andy Biggs to explain why he chose to not support this bill and not protect women and children," Elisa Wall, who left the sect as a young woman, said in the video.
Drew Sexton, a Biggs campaign adviser, said the congressman opposed the "poorly-written legislation" because it was too broad and drew opposition from the Arizona Police Association, the Post reported.
"So we're ready to move on," Biggs told reporters, ending the exchange.