Governor Ducey appeals ruling against his illegal Prop. 123

Back in October, a Federal Judge ruled Prop. 123 illegal, again.

“The ruling has no immediate effect on school funding. It allows the state to continue to draw more than $200 million a year out of the trust to fund education through 2025.”

Lawless Republicans never take “No” for an answer. They just keep working the refs through forum shopping to find a favorable conservative activist judge or appellate judges with which they have been packing the courts. How Trump is filling the liberal 9th Circuit with conservatives.

Governor Doug Ducey is now asking the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals court to overturn the ruling that could affect his ability and that of future governors to illegally tap a special education trust account to funnel more money into schools, rather than raise taxes. Ducey seeks to overturn ruling that blocked education trust funding changes:

The new filings with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals contain none of the vitriol the governor unleashed last year at the trial judge who ruled against him:

The ruling drew derision from gubernatorial press aide Patrick Ptak who called it “incoherent,” “poorly reasoned” and “an example of massive judicial overreach and activism.”

“Rarely before have we seen such a blatant disregard of facts, precedent and common sense to push forward an agenda of one biased, activist judge,” he wrote, vowing an appeal.

In new filings, attorney Theodore Olson contends that U.S. District Judge Neil Wake was incorrect in deciding that changes to the formula of how much can be withdrawn from the fund cannot occur without congressional approval. Olson argued to the federal appellate judges that not the way the federal law reads.

And if that argument doesn’t work, Olson has some alternate legal theories.

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In his new filings, Olson told the appellate judges there’s a simple way to make Wake’s decision go away: conclude that Pierce never should have been allowed in court in the first place [i.e., standing].

He said the only people who can claim they were damaged are the beneficiaries of the trust, including schools.

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In this case, Olson said Pierce has acknowledged that he has no possible eventual interest in the trust fund — other than being a citizen of Arizona who has a property interest in the trust and a concern that the money will not be there for future children.

The 62-page appeal had a far different tone than the personal attacks that Ducey launched last year in the wake of the ruling.

“Judge Wake puts on a robe in the morning and thinks he’s God,” the governor said at the time.

“But he’s not.”

And it got even more personal.

“I want to tell you what everyone down at the courthouse needs to know,” Ducey said.

“It’s time for Judge Wake to retire,” the governor continued.

“He’s an embarrassment to the legal community.”

That’s the governor’s best Donald Trump unhinged “stable genius” impression.

As I said before, “Our lawless Republican legislature and governor believe that they can do whatever they want, and fabricate any justification for it, because with one party rule and control of the Arizona courts, they can simply get away with it. There is no checks and balances, or any accountability to the citizens of Arizona. “We decide, and you will obey!” it is arrogance in the extreme.”

Arizonans must stop electing lawless Republicans who disregard the mandates of the Arizona Constitution and willfully violate lawful court orders, and steal money from the educational needs of our children, all in lickspittle service to their wealthy benefactors’ tax avoidance.