Arizona's Politics

Paul has been a journalist, an attorney or a combination of the two all of his adult life. Following several years as a reporter and news director at three radio stations in CA and Tucson, he became a Phoenix attorney active in party politics and the community. He still has a political law practice, but in 2010, he also returned to his journalistic roots and co-founded ArizonasPolitics.com as a straight-news source providing context and original reporting. In 2019, he began ArizonasLaw.org and its accompanying program on the non-profit Sun Sounds of Arizona (a reading service for those with disabilities making it difficult to read/hold printed material). He is happy to bring some of his articles to the award-winning Blog for Arizona. Reflecting his statewide interests, Paul grew up in Tucson. He and his wife, Marion, have two daughters who recently flew the nest for the cooler climes of Flagstaff.
Trump Disqualified (from CREW - CitizensForEthics.org)

Arizona, Trump and the 14th Am’s Disqualification Clause (NEWS ANALYSIS)

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A new election litigation frontier is a near certainty as a result of events over the weekend. Like last week’s Hints from the Courts news analysis, this article aims to alert readers to intriguing developments and analyze the Arizona angles.

Since the January 6 insurrection, there has been discussion of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, called the Disqualification Clause. On Saturday morning, The Atlantic released a bombshell article co-authored by retired Judge Michael Luttig and Professor Laurence Tribe, two of the most highly regarded constitutional scholars of our time. One is a conservative, the other a liberal. Citing an upcoming law review article (available in preprint) by two other constitutional scholars, William Baude and Michael Stokes, both members of the Federalist Society, the Luttig/Tribe article is entitled:

The Constitution Prohibits Trump From Ever Being President Again: The only question is whether American citizens today can uphold that commitment.

This article is not about the intricacies of their constitutional analysis. Rather, we address the practicality of the process of whether the former President might be kept off of – or, removed from – ballots in the elaborate process of working towards November 2024. We will focus on Arizona while noting that Arizona is only one of the 50 states that will be involved in this.

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The Arizona Litigation Landscape For the Abortion Rights Initiative

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Arizona Supreme Court Justices, 2023

At Arizona’s Law, I generally report on events that have happened or are about to happen. Several recent Arizona appellate opinions point to very interesting developments in the area of initiative and referendum law. Some intriguing statements recently may impact the sure-to-come litigation challenges to initiatives and referenda seeking to be on the 2024 ballot – such as the announced abortion rights initiative – not to mention the ongoing litigation trying to undo the 70%+ voter-approved (in 2022) dark money disclosure initiative.

As much as this is on the minds of the abortion rights initiative proponents, two of this week’s Opinions indicate it is also weighing on the Supreme Court Justices’ minds.

The Supreme Court decided Voice of Surprise v. Hall (below) on Monday. The case involved a filed referendum petition which omitted the legislative act being referred from the petition when it filed the application for the referendum number. However, the measure was attached to all signed petitions. The issue was whether the referendum petitions should be tossed out as a result of the error at the time of application.

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Lake Can’t Fit All Her (New) Complaints Into Her Election Contest Reply Brief

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Kari Lake’s attorneys have so much to say about the dismissal of her Election Contest, they are asking for an exception to the word count in their newly-filed Reply Brief. Surprisingly, they are also (just now) again asking the Arizona Supreme Court to grab the appeal from the intermediate level Court of Appeals.

Her raft of late night filings to both courts can be reviewed here.

Asking to file a longer Brief than permitted by court rules is not unusual for complex cases. Lake’s attorneys note that the Answering Briefs filed by the multiple defendants exceeded the 14,000 words each was permitted on their own, so Lake should be able to file 8,350 words – more than the 7,000 permitted in a Reply.

More surprisingly, Lake waited until last night to again ask the Arizona Supreme Court to consider her appeal(s) immediately. This is the 2nd time they have asked, and neither has been done as immediately as possible and warranted in a truly emergency election appeal. Without dissent, the Supreme Court rejected the previous effort, although part of that was because the Justices noted the two different appeals which the attorneys had filed.

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Maricopa County Attorney Demands All Cyber Ninjas’ Communications With Trump, Congress About Election “Audit”

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The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office demanded that Cyber Ninjas turn over all communications it had with former President Donald Trump and his team, Arizona (and, other) Congressmen and more.  The heretofore unannounced letter was attached to a new Special Action Petition filed with the Arizona Supreme Court by the Cyber Ninjas in their other public … Read more

Gosar Smokes Out U.S. House Plan To Start WWIII

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Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar was 1 of only 3 (Republicans) who realized the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a secret roadmap to get U.S. to go into Ukraine to confront nuclear power Russia. However, he couldn’t even get the bill number right, let alone his interpretation of the substance!

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 426-3 today to support the people of Ukraine. Arizona’s Paul Gosar (R-CD4) was one of those “nays”. His reasoning completely misreads the resolution.
Gosar was joined by fellow Republicans Kentucky’s Thomas Massie and Montana’s Matt Rosendale. They are obviously the only three who misread the plain language as a declaration of war.

Gosar issued his anti-war manifesto on Twitter tonight, claiming “There is language in HR 956 giving Ukraine defacto NATO status with reference  to Art. 5. Which is mandatory war authorization.”

This would come as major news to the rest of the House, President Joe Biden and the rest of the world.
(As a side note, Gosar has been in Congress for long enough that he should automatically type the correct bill or resolution number. “HR
956″ would be a bill to pass law. What he voted on today was “H.Res. 956”, which is a resolution. Searching for “HR 956” would bring you to the pending “National Aviation Heritage Area Reauthorization Act“.)

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