Kari Lake falsely claims Ruben Gallego wants to defund the police

Less than two weeks before Election Day, Arizona U.S. Senate Republican nominee Kari Lake accused her Democratic opponent, Rep. Ruben Gallego, of failing to support police. 

Ruben Gallego wanted to defund the police. He actually co-sponsored legislation to defund the police," Lake said during her Oct. 23 press conference in Yuma, Arizona.

Lake made a similar claim the day before at a Peoria, Arizona, rally in support of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. 

"You (Gallego) have voted to defund the police," Lake said. 

Lake’s claim is incorrect. Gallego has supported bills funding law enforcement. A Gallego-backed measure that comes closest to infringing on police was a bill to restrict the transfer of military weapons to law enforcement, but it did not pull funding.  

Lake’s campaign pointed PolitiFact to a bill Gallego co-sponsored in 2019, the Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act. The bill, which did not advance, would have restricted the Defense Department from transferring surplus military-grade weapons — such as grenades, drones, vehicles and firearms — to police departments. The bill allowed exceptions for disaster relief, rescue missions and purposes "where life and public safety are at risk." 

Gallego’s bill aligned with critics who said that local police forces were being encouraged to become militarized, rather than developing relationships with the people they’re policing.

In 2015, President Barack Obama issued Executive Order 13688, which prohibited law enforcement agencies from acquiring certain weapons from the Pentagon. When Trump was elected, he rolled back the Obama-era restrictions. 

In June 2020, A Gallego also issued a news release announcing his support for restricting the Defense Logistics Agency’s 1033 program, which transfers certain excess military equipment to federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement. Participating agencies are subject to regulations.

"Local law enforcement officers shouldn't be confronting civilians with weapons designed for combat," Gallego said in the release. 

Gallego condemned Trump for easing prohibitions on the transfer of certain weapons, a measure that "allowed the problem of police acquisition of military surplus equipment and weaponry to fester."

Calls to "defund the police" have meant something else in politics in recent years. 

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When Gallego first backed his bill in 2019, "defunding the police" hadn’t emerged as a progressive rallying cry. The phrase came out of the 2020 murder of Black Minneapolis resident George Floyd by police, an event that drew intense news coverage nationally as a symbol of excessive force by law enforcement. 

As PolitiFact has reported, "defund" is also not a legal term and can mean anything from eliminating police departments to diverting money to social services. Police departments spend most of their budgets on salaries. 

Lake ignored several pieces of legislation Gallego has supported that would increase, rather than decrease, police funding.

In 2024, Gallego co-sponsored two police funding bills: the Filling Public Safety Vacancies Act and the Enhancing COPS Hiring Program Grants for Local Law Enforcement Act. If passed, the first bill would give more funding to hiring officers. The second would allow departments to use grant money from the Community Oriented Police Services program toward officer bonuses.  

He also voted for the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022, which provided $125 million to improve police-community relations. 

"Ruben does not support defunding the police — he firmly supports our police and has secured funding to hire more police officers, crack down on fentanyl trafficking at the border, and provide crime-stopping resources to state and local law enforcement," Gallego’s campaign told PolitiFact. 

Gallego also drew ire from some progressive groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union for criticizing the Justice Department’s investigation into the Phoenix Police Department. Federal investigators concluded that Phoenix police had "pattern or practice of conduct that deprives people of their rights under the Constitution and federal law," including use of excessive force and unlawful arrests.

Gallego sent a letter to the Justice Department claiming its investigation "misses the mark" and that the instances of misconduct identified were "an exceptionally small fraction of one percent of all service calls."

Lake said Gallego "wanted to defund the police. He actually co-sponsored legislation to defund the police."

Lake’s campaign said it was referring to Gallego’s co-sponsorship of the Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act. 

However, this legislation, which did not advance in the House, would not have pulled funding from police departments; instead, it would have restricted the transfer of certain military weapons to law enforcement from the DOJ. It predated the emergence of the slogan "defund the police" by about a year.

Gallego has voted for two bills that provided additional money for police.

We rate the claim False.