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Tag: doug ducey

Attorney trying to block state funds for Prescott Rodeo derides house speaker

The attorney who is trying to block $15.3 million in state funds for the Prescott Rodeo is deriding House Speaker Ben Toma for his justification of why the spending is legal.

Nicholas Ansel said the position of the Legislature is that the appropriation is legal because, strictly speaking, the money was not given directly to Prescott Frontier Days but instead to state Treasurer Kimberly Yee. And she, in turn, was instructed to provide funding for the association that operates the rodeo.

Ansel told Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney, originally appointed by then-Governor Doug Ducey, that the explanation makes no sense.

Consider, he said, if state lawmakers decided to put a line in the budget giving $15.3 million to a specific McDonald’s restaurant in Phoenix. That, he said, would violate a constitutional provision that says that the general appropriations bill – the annual budget enactment – can only have funding for state agencies.

What Toma is proposing, Ansel said, is a workaround.

“According to the speaker, so long as the Legislature changed the appropriation to say ‘$15.3 million is appropriate to the treasurer to distribute to the McDonalds at Seventh Avenue and McDowell,’ then it magically become an appropriation ‘for’ the state treasurer,” he said.

“The court should reject this nonsensical position,” Ansel said. “Arizona law is clear: The Legislature cannot accomplish indirectly that which it could not accomplish directly.”

Ansel, who works for the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest, said even if that constitutional hurdle could be overcome, there’s another: the “gift clause” which bars lawmakers from giving money to private organizations without getting something in return.

The issue traces its roots to the budget adopted by lawmakers in 2023.

Flush with cash, legislative leaders gave each lawmaker a certain amount of cash – often between $20 million to $30 million – to allocate for projects.

Some of that $2 billion went to road improvements in their districts. Several pooled their cash for a one-time family tax rebate.

But there were other priorities, including $15.3 million for “a nonprofit volunteer organization that operates a rodeo at the Yavapai County fairgrounds.” But the understanding – not stated in the legislation – was the dollars were supposed to go to a $40.7 million master plan to renovate the rodeo grounds, which Prescott Frontier Days leases from the city.

Those dollars came from allocations given to state Reps. Quang Nguyen of Prescott Valley and Selina Bliss of Prescott.

That provoked a lawsuit filed in June 2023 by the Arizona Center for the Law in the Public Interest on behalf of Prescott residents Howard Mechanic and Ralph Hess, the latter a retired Yavapai County Superior Court judge. They charged it violates the Gift Clause because it “is not supported by any consideration, let alone a promise of significant direct benefits that serves a public purpose as required by … the Arizona Constitution.”

Ansel, however, said there’s a more immediate threshold issue: Was it even legal to put the spending into the budget in the first place.

Lawmakers apparently were aware of the issue: They worded the funding not to go directly to Prescott Frontier Days but instead to the treasurer who would give the money to that nonprofit that operates a rodeo. Ansel said the treasurer, having determined that Prescott Frontier Days was the only entity that would receive the funds, had planned to forward it the cash on July 1, 2023, the first date of the new fiscal year.

All that came to a halt when the lawsuit was filed nine days earlier.

Ansel told the judge that what Toma was saying was that this appropriation was no different than when lawmakers direct the treasurer to allocate funds for certain state agencies, something that is legal.

“According to the speaker, so long as the treasurer is tasked with paying out specific sums of money, the Legislature may include it in the general appropriations bill for any purpose whatsoever,” he wrote. “A billion dollars to the King of England? No problem, so long as the treasurer writes the check.”

Ansel does acknowledge the Legislature can appropriate money to non-governmental entities – as long as that is done in a bill separate from the general state budget to allow lawmakers to vote independently on the issue.

But he said even if lawmakers were to redo the allocation as separate legislation, that still wouldn’t make what is going on here legal. And that involves the Gift Clause of the Arizona Constitution which prohibits the use of public funds for private purposes unless the state gets “consideration,” meaning something in return.

Put another way, Ansel said lawmakers lack authority to just give away public dollars.

The state is fighting back with an argument that this isn’t an outright gift but simply authorization for Yee, as the treasurer, to award a grant that could have certain conditions.

That argument is flawed, Ansel said, because that’s not what is in the legislation which simply directed Yee to give the money out with no standards or policies. Nor does the measure delegate to Yee the power to enter into a contract where she would get to unilaterally decide what constitutes a public purpose.

What is going on, Ansel said, is an effort to argue that the ongoing fight to get the dollars to Prescott Frontier Days “with no strings attached” is something it is not – and never was.

“It was only after the Legislature was caught red-handed gifting away public monies – after this lawsuit was filed – that a team of attorneys concocted a plan to create a different deal and – without any legislative guidance or authorization – attach spending conditions and parameters to the rodeo appropriation before disbursing it,” he wrote. “But even well-meaning attorneys cannot retroactively authorize the treasure to do that.”

No date has been set for a hearing.

Fontes challenges Pinal County’s election violations in state Supreme Court

Secretary of State Adrian Fontes is asking the Arizona Supreme Court to force Pinal County to comply with state election laws – and do so this year.

In new filings, Fontes said that even Pinal County Superior Court Judge Delia Neal, appointed by then-Governor Doug Ducey, ruled that the county was acting illegally in not allowing residents to cast a ballot in any polling place where they show up and have their votes counted. That is a requirement of the Elections Procedures Manual which has the force of law.

But Neal, in a ruling earlier this month, agreed to allow the county to avoid that requirement this year based on its arguments that it was too close to the election to make such changes.

Fontes, however, said that argument doesn’t wash, pointing out the provision was adopted last December.

“The county knew about the requirement, and chose to ignore it,” Fontes told the justices through Assistant Attorney General Kara Karlson who is representing his office.

And what’s worse, he said, is that allowing Pinal County to avoid the law this year means that some of its voters will have their ballots ignored even as voters in similar situations in the state’s other 14 counties will have their votes counted.

“The county’s wrongful actions means that an Apache Junction voter who lives in Maricopa County can cast a ballot that will be counted, regardless of where it is cast, but the same voter who lives in the part of Apache Junction in Pinal County will not be provided with the correct ballot and will be entirely disenfranchised,” Fontes told the justices. “This court should not let the county create an equal protection violation by willfully ignoring the law.”

A quick ruling is anticipated given the election is now less than two weeks away.

At the center of the fight are 2023 changes to the Elections Procedures Manual. They require counties to provide voters who show up at the wrong precinct a chance to cast a ballot for the precinct for which they have been assigned. That means a ballot that has the issues for that specific precinct, like legislators, justices of the peace and school board members.

What makes this possible is technology and the requirement for counties to have an “accessible voting device” at all precincts.

These devices allow those with certain disabilities to cast their own ballots, with options including touch screen, large print and more. Then the device prints out a voted ballot which can then be tabulated.

Fontes points out that, by definition, every precinct has to have such a device which has at least the races for that precinct.

But he said those devices can be programmed with the choices from all precincts. Fontes said these out-of-precinct ballots then can be handled as “provisional ballots” – with people getting their votes counted once it is later verified they are in fact registered to vote in the county.

The problem, he told the high court, is that while Neal agreed what the county was doing was illegal, she refused to order the recorder and the supervisors to comply now.

“Simply put, the defendants have no discretion to ignore the requirements in the Elections Procedures Manual,” Fontes said. In fact, he said, the trial judge actually ruled that the defendants were aware of the requirements but “knowingly and voluntarily elected not to implement it.”

Where Neal went wrong, the secretary said, was not ordering immediate compliance.

The issue, Fontes said, is more than an academic question. He said the county has admitted that there will be some voters who arrive at the wrong voting location to cast their ballot on election day.

“In Pinal County – and only Pinal County – this discrete group of in-person voters who arrive at the incorrect voting location on election day will be disenfranchised even though the county has the ability to provide that voter the correct ballot style,” he said. “Voters should not suffer because the county refuses to do its duty.”

Fontes also sniffed at the arguments by the county that it just can’t be done.

“Public officials should not have to be compelled to follow the law,” he said.

“All people must follow the law, even if they disagree with it,” Fontes continued. “And government bodies are limited to the authority granted to them by the law.”

And what of the extra work?

“To the extend there is any burden on the county that is in excess of the regular burdens of administering an election, they are burdens that the county caused by refusing to comply with the Elections Procedures Manual, and is compounding by refusing to comply with the law despite the superior court finding that the county is an inexcusable violation of the law,” he said.

Anyway, Fontes said, what the law requires – and what he wants the Supreme Court to order to be done – will not require significantly more processing “as the county already trains provisional clerks, and stations a provisional clerk at each polling place.”

And there’s something else.

He said allowing Pinal County to refuse to tally the out-of-precinct votes of its residents means they will be treated different from every other voter in Arizona, violating the Arizona Constitution. Fontes said this unequal treatment actually could form the basis for litigation by those who have lost the election.

“No individual county should be allowed to undermine confidence in the entire election process because that county believes its method – which does not comply with the law – is nonetheless a better policy choice,” he said. “The county should not be permitted to ignore the requirement, disenfranchise an identifiable class of in-person election day voters, and sow further confusion about Arizona’s election system.”

Arizona voters to decide on new limits to Gov’s emergency powers

PHOENIX – Arizona voters will have the chance to decide whether to put even more curbs on the emergency powers of whoever is governor.

Proposition 135 would not restrict the ability of any governor to declare an emergency. But what it would do is spell out that any emergency powers she or he assumes would self-destruct in 30 days unless both the House and Senate give approval.

It also allows lawmakers, even before the 30 days, to vote to end the emergency. That is reinforced by a provision that requires the governor, if the Legislature is not in session, to call them in if there is a petition with the signatures of at least one-third of the members of each chamber.

And the failure of lawmakers to approve an extension means the emergency goes away. And the proposal would bar the governor from proclaiming a new state of emergency for the same conditions.

The powers that existing law gives the governor are quite extensive.

It allows the governor to suspend any laws about the conduct of state business and any rules or regulations.

More sweeping is the power to “commandeer and use any property … or personnel deemed necessary in carrying out the responsibilities vested in the office.” The only exceptions are for firearms and ammunition. And then there’s the power to suspend or revoke any license held by a business.

How extensive is that?

Arizonans got a taste during the emergency declared in 2020 by then-Gov. Doug Ducey during the COVID outbreak. It included some an actual stay-at-home order.

While that was allowed to expire, others continued for longer.

There was an order that had shut down bars, gyms, theaters, water parks and even floating down a river in inner tubs. Ducey also limited restaurants to 50% capacity for dine-in service.

The governor said all that was necessary due to a spike in COVID cases that stretched the resources of doctors and the availability of protective equipment.

He even halted all elective surgeries and activated the National Guard to restock grocery store shelves.

And while Ducey declined to mandate the use of face masks, he gave the authority to do that to city, town and county officials.

All that led to the first effort by lawmakers in late 2020 to rein in the governor. Led by then-Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, it would have allowed the Legislature to declare the emergency is over.

It got no traction.

A bill finally was enacted in 2022. Also crafted by Ugenti-Rita, it limits public health emergencies to just 30 days, allowing for up to three automatic extensions.

At 120 days the emergency self-destructs absent House and Senate approval. And those renewals are good for only 30 days.

Of note is that Ducey agreed to sign it under the condition that it would not take effect until 2023 – after he left office. That is the law that now governs the actions of Katie Hobbs.

Rep. Joseph Chaplik, however, doesn’t think that’s enough.

The problem, according to the Scottsdale Republican, is there are gaps.

It starts, he said, with the fact that the limits on powers in the existing law apply only to public health emergencies. Proposition 135 covers everything except a state of war or any emergency arising from a fire or flood.

Chaplik also said the limit of an emergency to just 30 days without legislative approval is more appropriate than the existing law that allows one to continue for up to 150 days.

Most significant potentially is the requirement for the governor to call lawmakers back as soon as a third of senators and representatives demand it. Now it takes two thirds, something difficult in a divided Legislature.

“Under Prop 135, the legislature could call a special session on Day One if a governor abuses their emergency power,” he told Capitol Media Services.

In fact, Chaplik noted, it would give lawmakers a range of options.

Yes, they could pull the plug entirely on the emergency. But what they also could do is set specific limits on the scope of the emergency.

That issue came up last time as lawmakers called for Ducey to cancel the COVID emergency. The governor refused, arguing that, if nothing else, that state of emergency was necessary to continue receiving federal COVID funds.

Under Proposition 135, Chaplik said, lawmakers could extend the emergency, but with guardrails, saying, for example, it is only for the purpose of accepting certain federal dollars, and only for the purpose of spending those dollars for specific reasons.

And there’s something else: Proposition 135 would amend the Arizona Constitution, something that could be altered only on a future public vote. The current restrictions are statutory and could be changed by a future Legislature, either with permission of the governor or, with a two-third vote, over his or her objections in an override.

“Prop 135 answers fundamental questions about function of government and separation of powers which belongs in the constitution, not in statute,” he said.

Not everyone is as enthusiastic about the proposal at Chaplik.

“Voting for this would add bureaucratic red tape and delay Arizona’s emergency response,” said Will Humble. The former state health director, now executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association, had a particular problem with that 30-day limit on emergencies.

“The purpose of any state emergency declaration is to allow state agencies to implement reasonable measures to help quickly respond to disasters,” he said. “When people and communities are in a state of emergency, the last thing they need to do is wait for the Legislature to come to a consensus.”

Pinny Sheoran, president of the League of Women Voters of Arizona, said provisions that allow lawmakers to “dilute the governor’s emergency powers … would undermine the governor’s ability to effectively manage ongoing crisis situations.”

But Scot Mussi, president of the Arizona Free Enterprise Club called Prop 135 “an appropriate balance” of the need for quick action and legislative oversight.

“This ensures an on-going emergency and the great power being put into the hands of one politician is affirmed by more than just that person,” he said. “If these powers are abused or the nature of the emergency changes, the Legislature may also limit or alter the powers being granted.”

Prosecutor challenges Mark Meadows’s bid to move Arizona’s fake elector case to federal court

PHOENIX (AP) — A prosecutor urged a judge on Thursday to reject former Donald Trump presidential chief of staff Mark Meadows’ bid to move his charges in Arizona’s fake elector case to federal court, saying his actions in trying to overturn the 2020 election results weren’t part of his job at the White House.

Meadows has asked a federal judge to move the case to U.S. District Court, arguing his actions were taken when he was a federal official working as Trump’s chief of staff and that he has immunity under the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says federal law trumps state law.

The former chief of staff, who faces charges in Arizona and Georgia in what state authorities alleged was an illegal scheme to overturn the 2020 election results in Trump’s favor, had unsuccessfully tried to move state charges to federal court last year in an election subversion case in Georgia.

Prosecutor Krista Wood said Meadows’ electioneering efforts weren’t part of his official duties at the White House. “He is not authorized to meddle in the state’s administration of elections,” Wood said.

The prosecutor pointed to messages received and sent by Meadows in the weeks after the 2020 election, including a text Meadows sent to then-Republican Gov. Doug Ducey two weeks after Election Day saying former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was trying to reach the governor to talk about the election results.

Meadows attorney George Terwilliger maintained his client’s messages and actions were part of his official duties and suggested important context about the messages was missing. “I don’t think the court can rely on those text messages,” Terwilliger said.

While not a fake elector in Arizona, prosecutors said Meadows worked with other Trump campaign members to submit names of fake electors from Arizona and other states to Congress in a bid to keep Trump in office despite his November 2020 defeat.

In 2020, President Joe Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes.

While Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes’ office had said Meadows missed the deadline for asking a court to move the charges to federal court, Meadows’ attorneys say another federal law allows for cases to be moved to federal court at a later time for good cause.

Terwilliger said he waited to try to move Meadows’ Arizona charges to federal court until after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a July ruling that gave former presidents broad immunity from prosecution. U.S. District Judge John Tuchi, who was nominated to the federal bench by then-President Barack Obama, didn’t say when he would issue his ruling on Meadows’ request.

Last year, Meadows tried to get his Georgia charges moved to federal court, but his request was rejected by a judge, whose ruling was later affirmed by an appeals court. The former chief of staff has since asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the ruling.

The Arizona indictment also says Meadows confided to a White House staff member in early November 2020 that Trump had lost the election. Prosecutors say Meadows also had arranged meetings and calls with state officials to discuss the fake elector conspiracy.

Meadows and other defendants are seeking a dismissal of the Arizona case.

Meadows’ attorneys said nothing their client is alleged to have done in Arizona was criminal. They said the indictment consists of allegations that he received messages from people trying to get ideas in front of Trump — or “seeking to inform Mr. Meadows about the strategy and status of various legal efforts by the president’s campaign.”

In all, 18 Republicans were charged in late April in Arizona’s fake electors case. The defendants include 11 Republicans who had submitted a document falsely claiming Trump had won Arizona, another Trump aide and five lawyers connected to the former president.

In early August, Trump’s campaign attorney Jenna Ellis, who worked closely with Giuliani, signed a cooperation agreement with prosecutors that led to the dismissal of her charges. Republican activist Loraine Pellegrino also became the first person to be convicted in the Arizona case when she pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge and was sentenced to probation.

Meadows and the other remaining defendants have pleaded not guilty to the forgery, fraud and conspiracy charges in Arizona.

Trump wasn’t charged in Arizona, but the indictment refers to him as an unindicted coconspirator.

Eleven people who had been nominated to be Arizona’s Republican electors had met in Phoenix on Dec. 14, 2020, to sign a certificate saying they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and claimed Trump had carried the state in the 2020 election.

A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted on social media by the Arizona Republican Party at the time. The document was later sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored.

Prosecutors in Michigan, Nevada, Georgia and Wisconsin have also filed criminal charges related to the fake electors scheme.

2 justices won’t rule in retention case

Two Supreme Court justices who would be most immediately affected by a proposed ballot measure will not participate in deciding its legal fate.

But the other justices who would be affected by the outcome of Proposition 137 – eventually – will not step away from the case.

A new scheduling order from the court shows that Justices Clint Bolick and Kathryn King have recused themselves from hearing a challenge by Progress Arizona to changes in the system proposed by Republican lawmakers by which sitting judges stand for reelection. Neither provided a reason.

But what is clear is that if the court allows Proposition 137 to be on the ballot and it passes, it would allow both to get new six-year terms – even if voters were to separately decide to remove them from the bench. And that gives them a more immediate stake in the case.

The other five justices also have a stake if they, too, want new terms when their current ones end in 2026 or 2028.

At this point, however, all will decide the case.

Chief Justice Ann Scott Timmer did not immediately respond to a request for an interview.

But Paul Bender, a professor at the Arizona State University College of Law, told Capitol Media Services it is a “serious question” of whether they also should recuse themselves given how it would affect their own future elections.

That, however, still leaves the question: If not the current Supreme Court justices, then who?

One option, said Bender who is a former dean at the college, could be retired justices who would have no stake in the case.

There actually are rules for that. In fact, Timmer tapped retired Justice John Pelander to sit in in an upcoming hearing on a dispute over the use of the wording “unborn human being” by lawmakers to describe Proposition 139 dealing with the right to abortion. That is because Bolick stepped away as his wife, Sen. Shawnna Bolick, sits on the legislative panel that approved the controversial wording and also is a defendant in that case.

Replacing all the justices in this case, however, is not going to occur. Nor is there even a request they do so from Jim Barton who is representing challengers to Prop 137.

“We are not going to ask for a fresh panel of justices like was evidently done in the past when a matter related to their pensions was before them,” he said.

That refers to a case years ago involving legislative changes to the pension system for judges.

All but one of the justices on the high court were replaced, at least temporarily, by other lower-court judges who were not affected. Only Justice Bolick got to remain because he was not on the bench at the time the challenged pension changes were approved.

Hanging in the balance in this case are what Barton says are two significant changes in the judicial election process.

Strictly speaking, judges on the Supreme Court, Court of Appeals and superior courts in Pima, Pinal, Maricopa and Coconino counties are not elected. They are named by the governor who has to choose from nominees submitted by special screening committees.

Under the current system, however, superior court judges from the affected counties have to face voters every four years on a retain-or-reject system. Those who fail to get enough votes lose their jobs and the selection process begins again.

At the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, the terms are six years. But the process is the same.

Prop 137, if approved by voters, would change that to say that judges can remain on the bench as long as they want, at least until mandatory retirement at 70, if they don’t get into trouble. That is defined in the proposal as things like a felony conviction, personal bankruptcy or their performance on the bench being found lacking by the Judicial Performance Review Commission.

Only then would they have to face voters.

Barton said there’s no problem with that, at least from a legal perspective. He said it’s a policy question for voters whether they want to give up their right to vote on each judge and justice.

But he said Prop 137 also includes a provision which for the first time would let the majority party in the House and Senate to select members for the Judicial Performance Review Commission. And it would also allow any of the 90 legislators to force the commission to investigate any allegation of “a pattern of malfeasance in office.”

In his new pleadings, Barton told the justices that lawmakers are free to put a measure on the ballot asking voters to make that change. But what they can’t do, he said, is put it into a single take-it-or-leave-it ballot measure with the proposed changes in the retention system.

“A voter who wants greater judicial independence by creating a system wherein there are on for-cause retention elections cannot vote for this system without also accepting a new avenue for interference with the judiciary by the legislative branch,” he wrote.

“The court should not ignore the dilemma this creates for voters,” Barton said. “Altering the makeup of the JPRC is not related to holding judicial retention elections.”

Where King and Bolick specifically fit in has to do with something else the Republican-controlled Legislature added to Prop 137: a retroactivity clause.

The election will be on Nov. 5. But proponents crafted it in a way to say that if it is approved it applies retroactively, to Oct. 31.

And if that’s not clear, the measure spells out that the results of this year’s retention elections, the one including King and Bolick, would not be formally recognized if Prop 137 passes even if voters turn both out of office.

That, too, is part of the all-or-nothing package that the measure would present to voters.

While not part of the legal dispute before the Supreme Court, the whole issue has political implications.

If either justices is turned out of office, that would allow Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs to replace the pair who had been tapped for the court by her predecessor, Republican Doug Ducey. And that possibility already has resulted in conservative political activist Randy Kendrick, wife of Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick, to set up and fund a committee to try to convince voters to retain the two Ducey picks.

Effort underway to keep justice who is under fire for abortion ruling on Supreme Court

A conservative political activist has launched a campaign to convince voters not to oust Clint Bolick from the Arizona Supreme Court.

In a fundraising letter, Randy Kendrick, the wife of Arizona Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick, said “liberal groups” already have succeeded in clinching the posts of governor, secretary of state and attorney general for Democrats. She also pointed out that Republicans hold the majority in the House and Senate by only one seat in each chamber.

“These same groups have now set their sights on the Arizona Supreme Court,” Kendrick wrote in the letter, first reported by the Yellow Sheet Report, a sister publication of the Arizona Capitol Times.

There is some basis for her concern.

Progress Arizona in April announced it was launching a campaign to deny both Bolick and fellow Justice Kathryn King, whose names are on the November ballot, new terms.

Separately, the National Democratic Redistricting Commission and Planned Parenthood Votes announced in May they intend to spend at least $5 million on supreme court races across the country, with a focus on six states, including Arizona. The reason, they said, is that those courts are crucial to determining whether abortion rights stay in place after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

Bolick and King, both appointed by Republican Doug Ducey when he was governor, provided two of the four votes on the court earlier this year that ruled an 1864 law outlawing abortion except to save the life of the mother trumped a 2022 law allowing the procedure until the 15th week.

State lawmakers have since voted to repeal the old law. And no changes on the court would overturn the decision.

But if the pair were turned out of office, that would give Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, an abortion rights advocate, a chance to replace them with her own choices.

The loss of those two, said Kendrick in her fundraising letter, is just part of the problem.

Justice Robert Brutinel, appointed by Republican Jan Brewer, is 66.

There is a mandatory retirement age of 70. And he may choose not to seek a new term when his current one is up at the end of 2026.

That, said Kendrick, would allow Hobbs to name yet a third justice to the seven-member panel.

Kendrick, a contributor to Republican and conservative causes, made it clear what she thought of the possibility of three new Hobbs-appointed justices in the face of three statewide elected Democrats and the chance the Republicans could lose control of the Legislature.

“If they were to also claim a majority on the Supreme Court, they would control every branch of government in Arizona for the first time,” she wrote. “It matters because the Arizona Supreme Court is our last line of defense against liberal government overreach.”

Kendrick is willing to put up her own money.

Campaign finance reports show she already has contributed $100,000 to the Judicial Independence Defense PAC out of the $140,000 it has reportedly raised so far.

To date there are no contributions or expenses reported by the Progress Arizona PAC.

That group is not just fighting to oust the two justices whose terms are up.

Abigail Jackson, a spokeswoman for the organization, said it also is working to defeat Proposition 137.

Put on the ballot by Republicans, it would curtail the ability that voters now have to unseat judges when their terms end.

Instead, only a judge who ran into problems, like a personal bankruptcy, a felony conviction or being found failing to meet standards by the Commission on Judicial Performance Review, would have to face voters. Others could remain on the bench until they reach mandatory retirement age.

And there’s something else.

Prop 137 is crafted so it would be retroactive if approved. That would mean both Bolick and King would keep their jobs even if there was a separate vote to oust them.

Kendrick isn’t the only one raising money to influence what voters think about retaining judges. Arizonans for an Independent Judiciary has so far collected more than $47,000.

But attorney Tim Berg, who is chairing that effort, said it isn’t specifically designed to keep either Bolick or King on the bench. Instead, he said, its focus is to educate people about the process under which judges are selected and the retention system that gives voters a chance to keep or oust them.

More to the point, Berg said, the goal is to convince voters that their choices should not be made based on whether they are happy with one or two decisions.

“We think judges ought to be retained not because of their politics but almost, in a sense, despite of it,” he said. The question is whether they are doing the job.

“And if they’re doing the job, then liberal, conservative, moderate, whatever else you can be, that shouldn’t make the difference because it shouldn’t make a difference in how they rule,” Berg said. More to the point, he said the question is whether there is a reasonable basis for a ruling, not whether someone agreed with a judge’s conclusion.

Jackson, however, said voters are entitled to have their say on judges, even if opposition is based on a single decision like the one on abortion.

“Voters across the board are angry about this ruling,” Jackson said in launching the effort. “If Arizona voters want to use the power that the constitution gives them to hold them accountable, and their main concern is this ruling, then I think voters are within their rights and power to do so.”

She also has denied that Progress Arizona is the one making the court political.

Jackson pointed out that there were just five justices on the Supreme Court until 2016. That is when Ducey convinced the Republican-controlled Legislature to expand the court to seven, a move that immediately gave him two appointments on top of the one he already had made.

That enabled Ducey to add Bolick, a registered Libertarian, and Republican John Lopez IV. It also means he has named five of the seven justices.

At least part of the reason there needs to be an outside-funded campaign – whether to retain Bolick and King on the Supreme Court or just to convince voters not to oust judges based on a controversial ruling –  has to do with rules that govern the conduct of judges.

They prohibit sitting judges from soliciting funds to convince voters to keep them on the bench. Instead, only someone acting as a “surrogate” for them can raise money for a campaign.

There’s also the fact that those rules bar judges from speaking about or defending individual decisions. The only option allowed is the ability to respond to “false, misleading or unfair allegations” made against them during the campaign.

Kenrick is no stranger to political giving.

Since the 2022 election she has donated $110,000 to a political action committee run by the Free Enterprise Club, $96,000 to the Republican Party of Arizona, $37,500 to a PAC to elect Republican state senators and an identical amount for House GOP contenders.

 

 

Court keeps names of low-level election workers secret

Members of the public aren’t entitled to know the names of election workers who review the signatures on ballot envelopes, a judge ruled Thursday.

We The People, an organization that has aligned itself with Kari Lake, had sought the information from Maricopa County since January 2020. The group said it wanted to conduct further investigations given how quickly it said some signatures were verified.

In a five-page ruling, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney, an appointee of former Gov. Doug Ducey, said that such information is generally considered a public record. But he said that presumption can be overridden if there is a legitimate public interest.

And in this case, he said, there was credible evidence of threats or harassment of workers. And that, said Blaney, trumps the public’s right to know.

Much of what is behind the request goes back to efforts by Lake to overturn her 2022 election loss in the governor’s race to Katie Hobbs.

One of her witnesses she called said about 274,000 signatures on early ballots were compared to samples in less than three seconds, with about 70,000 in two seconds or less. So far, though, courts have thrown out all of Lake’s challenges, even ruling the evidence of the time taken to be legally irrelevant.

Blaney said We The People, in its own action filed in April 2023, submitted evidence that some signature verifiers worked remotely from their homes during recent elections. And the group argued that the rapid pace, coupled with some confirming 100% of their signatures were valid, was highly improbable.

What getting their names would do, the group argued, would allow the workers to be interviewed about their training and procedures.

Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer agreed to provide the names of managers and those higher in the organization. But he refused to identify the lower-level employees, saying it could expose employees to harassment and threats.

“The public has a right to inspect public records,” Blaney wrote. He said anyone rejecting such a request has to demonstrate specifically how production would “violate rights of privacy or confidentiality or be detrimental to the bests interests of the state.”

That, said Blaney, is the case here, saying there was “credible, uncontested, sworn testimony” from two defense witnesses – Richer and Kristi Passarelli, former assistant director in the office – of “alarming threats that they personally received arising from their positions and activities in the Recorder’s Office.” And the judge noted that at the time of the hearing the U.S. Department of Justice had already charged three individuals for their threats to Richer and one had pleaded guilty.

Blaney said there was other evidence of security concerns, including a new black fence outside the facility, the addition of drones for surveillance, snipers on the roof, more security guards and the installation of bullet-proof glass.

“It is not reasonable to assume that the Recorder’s Office would take such extreme measures if the threats had not been as frequent, intense, and alarming as the defense alleged,” the judge wrote.

Then there was the concern that threats would have a chilling effect on Richer’s ability to recruit and retain employees.

“The Recorder’s Office could not accomplish its critical mission without sufficient temporary workers,” Blaney wrote. “These concerns outweigh the public’s right to know the identities of these lower level, non-managerial employees.”

He noted that Richer had offered to provide unique identification numbers for each of the workers. While that would not open them up to the interviews that We The People wanted, it would allow their data to be tracked.

A message to We The People was not immediately returned.

Richer lost his bid for reelection in the Republican primary to Rep. Justin Heap who now will face off in November against Democrat Tim Stringham.

 

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