No party tells us
how to vote.

Dear Arizona,

We are Independents. We are Independents because we don’t believe either party is right and chose to make up our own mind when we vote. That means we scrutinize the records of each candidate — regardless of party — before we cast our ballots. After reviewing the record of Nick Mansour, we cannot support Nick Mansour for State Treasurer.

Mansour has built his campaign on his record as a businessman. So we read it. He served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Arizona College of Nursing — a for-profit college whose growth was underwritten in substantial part by federal student aid, while the students it enrolled took on debt. In May 2022, during his leadership, the Arizona State Board of Nursing placed the approval of the college’s Tempe BSN program on probation for a minimum of 36 months. The Board’s findings describe leadership decisions that stripped out clinical faculty and repeated course changes made without adequate notice to the students and instructors affected. Bottom line: he put profits over people and his own pocketbook.

Under his leadership, the college was also sued multiple times — including a 2022 class action lawsuit that alleges fraud and misappropriating over $2 million in COVID relief funds meant for students. It was clear that Mansour cared more about making as much money as possible — at the cost of his students — who oftentimes went thousands of dollars into debt for a degree they couldn’t use — including one student who went thousands into debt for a degree, only to find out she had a felony and therefore wasn’t eligible to get a license.

Earlier in his career, Mansour spent roughly two years as an executive of Pacific Pulmonary Services. His company paid $11.4 million to settle federal False Claims Act allegations that it billed Medicare for home oxygen equipment without the physician authorization the program required, and that it took part in an illegal kickback scheme. This is the résumé he is asking us to promote, and every line of it deserves the same scrutiny we would apply to a Republican.

The Treasurer manages tens of billions of dollars in public and trust funds, including the endowment that funds Arizona’s schools. It is a stewardship job. It should go to someone whose record shows they protected the people who depended on them — not someone with a record of running predatory for-profit colleges and running a business that defrauded Medicare, and therefore, taxpayers.

For that reason, we are supporting Elijah Norton for State Treasurer, and we urge all voters — regardless of party — to soundly reject Nick Mansour for State Treasurer.

— Independents Against Nick