From an AZDem press release:
This morning, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors met to discuss their response to Attorney General Brnovich’s dangerous and transparent political gambit that threatens the public safety of Maricopa County. This is just the latest in a series of baldly political moves from Brnovich as he tries to win the favor of former President Trump.
As a reminder, Brnovich recently threatened to gut $676 million in state funding for Maricopa County unless they turn over their residents’ private information – including social security numbers – to the untrustworthy Cyber Ninjas for the “audit.”
As many have already noted, this is nothing but a transparent tactic by Brnovich to cave to political pressure from former President Trump and his primary opponents – because apparently, Brnovich cares more about his political ambitions than Maricopa residents whose public safety is in jeopardy because of his actions.
Here’s a breakdown of just how much Brnovich’s political ploy will cost Maricopa:
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Just over $98 million of the $164 million budget from the Maricopa Sheriffs Office.
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$63.9 million of the $107 million budget from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.
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$60 million of the $101 million from the Superior Court.
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Over $2 million for emergency management.
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$1.8 allotted funds for schools, which is over half of what the county has allocated.
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$10 million of the $17 million budget for public health, even as COVID remains a threat.
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And, ironically, $6.6 million from the $11 million allocated towards elections.
Ed.: It is utterly unacceptable that AG Brnovich would imperil the health and safety of Maricopa residents to please his master, Trump. He took an oath to the people of Arizona, and he’s betraying it in the hope of an endorsement of the LOSER of the 2020 Presidential election in Arizona. How seriously could he possibly take his oath were he elected to the U.S. Senate?
Send Brnovich a message that his betrayal of Arizona’s citizens has not passed unnoticed.
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“…believe that elected officials should only enforce laws that they agree with and should disregard others” Total nonsense and bad faith projection. Of course, unjust and injurious laws SHOULD be resisted and challenged in a self governing polity. If you think otherwise, you prove yourself an authoritarian, and not worthy of office in a democracy.
I note with interest your refusal to defend the policy at the heart of this abomination: the state government’s attempt to restrict local governments from mandating masking and vaccines to protect the public health of constituents. Nothing else about this matters AT ALL. You won’t defend that because you CAN’T. The policy is absurd and evil and Arizona voters disagree with the GOP about it by wide margins. You and your party are at this point merely keeping the epidemic going to create chaos and fear for political gain. You are ghouls.
You elide the fact, with your “officer of the court” schlock, that no court has issued a subpoena: a highly partisan State Senate has. This is a fishing expedition, not an inquiry of any alleged crime in which both parties are represented before a neutral arbiter protecting the parties’ rights. Your legal formalism about the “rule of law” simply hides a partisan agenda to manufacture propaganda supporting the Big Lie about the security of our elections.
So in your world subpoenas issued by Republican entities are the law of the land while those issued by Democratic entitles aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.
Dodge? Johnny, my friend (& I use that term loosely) you do nothing but dodge. And never with a scintilla of art.
Nice dodge and I do not condone anyone dodging legally issued subpoenas, so there goes your non-argument to my comment.
Johnny, where was your outrage when members of the Trump Administration routinely thumbed it’s collective nose at legally issued subpoenas from Congress? Oh wait, you’re a card carrying member of the Republican Party over the United States of America crowd.
I’m not sure what you’re talking about, Michael. The issue here involves the board of supervisors not responding to a legally issued subpoena and a 1487 complaint being made and processed relevant to that. That subpoena was over an election issue. Where exactly are they are suicidal health policies here?
But that question aside, are you as a lawyer condoning the intentional disregard of a subpoena? As an officer of the court should you be doing that?
Yeah, there is a good public safety reason for a speed limit, and good reasons for it to be consistently applied across the state. There is NO good reason for the state to impose conformity to literally suicidal health policies.
There’s a big difference between driving 10 miles an hour over the speed limit and disobeying a subpoena issued by a court. I thought that would be obvious to everyone, but apparently some Blog for Arizona commentors need clarification.
“I find it puzzling that Blog for Arizona contributors believe that elected officials should only enforce laws that they agree with and should disregard others.”
Johnny Kavanagh knows that laws are selectively enforced all the time.
He makes statements like this all the time, knowing full well he’s making things up as he goes to suit his biases.
in the tradition of the actor from the reality TV game show who is married to the nude model, I give him the nickname “Phony John”.
Were this an intelligent blog, the author of this post and those commenting on my comment would address the issue that I raised because it is an important one. My point was that the attorney general had to enforce the 1487 complaint because the Maricopa County supervisors violated state law and state law states that their action, if not corrected, must result in the withholding of their state-shared revenue.
So those who criticize the attorney general should explain why they think it’s alright for the attorney general to break the law and not follow up on a 1487 complaint and why it is alright for the county supervisors to break the law without any penalty.
An intelligent discussion about this issue would also focus on when it is proper for government officials to ignore the law, who gets to make that decision And whether or not it applies in this case.
And by the way, a 1487 complaint is not triggered by what any individual legislator likes or dislikes. A 1487 complaint can only successfully proceed if the governing body has broken a law passed by the legislature and signed by the governor or a law or a constitutional provision passed by the voters.
Once again, you hide your foul intent behind legal formalism. The “law” that is alleged to have been broken is a ban on taking effective local measures to promote public health. It is an illogical and politically motivated attack on public health, not just any “law”. You don’t seem too keen to debate whether such a law should ever have been passed in the first place, or deserves any legitimacy in the midst of a public health emergency. People are dying unnecessarily because of this “law” solely to gin up the COVID deniers in the base of your party. You and your entire party are complicit in those deaths.
Will it ever again be possible in the State of Arizona for our elected representatives to re-shape their priorities where their overriding concern is for The People and NOT their own political ambitions?
The King of the Non-sequitur strikes again!! And Kavanagh voted for the law that bludgeons local governments for anything some legislator does like, (plastic bags!) regardless of where the local government is located. So no matter how insane the local preemption is, (that Kavanagh always seems to favor) the politically ambitious AG should beat up the local government. And every local government should just bow down to legislative one party autocrats.
Attorney General Brnovich is not spitting in anybody’s face. The attorney general is fulfilling the oath of office that he took to uphold Arizona state law. Arizona law states that if I legislator believes that a county or municipal governing body has broken the law, the legislator can file a 1487 complaint that requires the Attorney General to decide whether or not state law was broken and if the Attorney General decides that’ it was broken, to tell the governing body to rescind the illegal act or to forfeit state shared revenue. The Maricopa county supervisors were served with a subpoena that the court has upheld and that they have not complied with. The supervisors have broken the law.
Not complying with a subpoena is a violation of state law. Consequently, the attorney general made a straightforward legal decision and applied state law the way it is supposed to be applied. This blog may not like that state law and this blog might not like the fact that a legal subpoena was served on the county supervisors but the law is the law.
I find it puzzling that Blog for Arizona contributors believe that elected officials should only enforce laws that they agree with and should disregard others. Suppose this was a prosecutor who was pro-life and decided not to prosecute someone who bombed and abortion clinic. Would you be OK with that because. after all. you seem to believe that elected officials should do what they personally believe should be done or not done?
I would hate to live in a society that followed Blog for Arizona principles.
“Arizona law states…” Huh, what a crock of bull. You and your rotten caucus of insurrectionists and science deniers passed that law LAST session specifically to allow you cretins to legally tyrannize local jurisdictions for standing up for their constituents. You don’t get to simply claim the color of law for unwise and punitive laws that your caucus passed with a party-line vote.
If you would hate to live in a society that followed progressive principles, then you are welcome to get out of Arizona or any other swing state. We and the rational voters of America are coming for you and you fascist party. Your misrule is at an end, John. Slink off to Idaho, or whatever.