John Kavanagh

On February 11, 2019, on religious grounds, John Kavanagh made belittling comments following a humanist invocation made by Rep. Athena Salman on the floor of the Arizona House of Representatives. Rep. Salman lodged a protest on the House floor the following day, citing the multiple House and federal rules Kavanagh had violated with his remarks.

Kavanagh was a Port Authority Police Officer for 20 years and retired as a detective sergeant. He served at Kennedy Airport, where he was also on the crash crew, the Port Authority Bus Terminal in the Times Square area of New York City and also taught in the police academy. Upon retiring from the Port Authority Police, Kavanagh moved to Fountain Hills, Arizona and taught as an adjunct and later full-time instructor at Arizona State University for several years and then was a professor of criminal justice and program director at Scottsdale Community for 15 years. He retired from SCC in 2017 but will still teach there as an adjunct.

In 2016, John Kavanagh passed a law mandating that doctors check the Controlled Substance Prescription Monitoring Program (CSPMP) database before prescribing a controlled substance to a patient, in response to doctor shopping by opioid abusers.

Kavanagh was the lead sponsor of a bill to remove eleven controversial phrases from Arizona's controversial 9/11 Memorial. As a retired Port Authority police officer, Kavanagh was upset by the controversial phrases because he personally knew many of the 37 Port Authority police officers who died at the World Trade Center on September 11. One of the phrases involved the name of Balbir Singh Sodhi, a victim of a racist retaliatory attack in Arizona after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Claiming that Sodhi, who was murdered four days after the attacks by a white supremacist seeking revenge for the 9/11 attacks, he said Sodhi was "not a victim of 9/11," Kavanagh further stated "It's part of a myth that, following 9/11, Americans went into a xenophobic rage against foreigners. That's not true. America's reaction towards foreigners was commendable." The bill passed, but was vetoed and did not take effect. Kavanagh did meet with Sodhi's family, recognized his error in proposing to remove Sodhi's name and had agreed to keep his name on the memorial.

John Kavanagh (born June 5, 1950) is an American politician and a Republican member of the Arizona House of Representatives representing District 23 since January 14, 2019. He previously served in the Arizona State Senate from 2015 to 2019. Previously Kavanagh served as a member of the Arizona House of Representatives representing District 23 from January 14, 2013 to January 12, 2015, and (due to redistricting) representing District 8 from January 8, 2007 until January 14, 2013. He was a police officer with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and retired as a detective sergeant, after 20 years of service. He is currently a professor of criminal justice at Scottsdale Community College (AZ), where he is Program Director of the Administration of Justice Studies and Forensic Science Programs. He is married to Linda with two children and one grandchild.