My best wild assed guess is he and a lot of people in the legislature are butt hurt about Trump and McCain. He was a scoundrel but he was Arizona's scoundrel.
McCain was and still remains Arizona's golden boy even though he didn't do much for the country during his long tenure. He was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Abscam affair and he was a war hawk of the first order. He was Mr. Establishment all the way. Rush called his bill on election funding " the incumbent protection act". He voted so much with the democrats that the media called him "The Maverick". To this day many people in government are offended by Trump's treatment of McCain.
Arizona is no stranger to election stealing. That's how Semina got seated. Ask Kelly Ward. Could Ducey have benefitted from election theft? It's a pretty good bet Brian Kemp did. It's not so odd that everywhere you have Dominion voting machines elections get stolen and you can bet nobody with the authority to do anything about it will even whimper. That says a lot.
I have lived in Arizona for 20 years now and have many Republican friends and family here and have not ever heard one positive thing about McCain...I'm not sure he is the Golden Boy that everyone thinks, we just never had other options. They never primaried him with anyone decent. I think McCain is more hated out here than Joe Manchin could ever be hated by DEMs, maybe not in corrupt political circles, but definitely by the voters. I mean, I think most Republicans out here see him for the piece of crap he was, and I dang sure don't think it would make any Republicans vote for Katie Hobbs or sit it out just because Lake said something derogatory about McCain.
