Jan Brewer: I am the law

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

What's past is prologue, especially in the realm of law where stare decisis and precedents determine legal outcomes.

Two legal matters on Monday properly need to be read together for clarity of understanding where the Arizona Supreme Court is inclined to go this week in regards to the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission.

On Monday, the Court released its opinion in the legal challenge filed by supporters of Russell Pearce to his recall election. Pearce supporters were represented by GOP lawyer Lisa Hauser. (She is also representing the Red Queen, Governor Jan Brewer, in the AIRC matter). In the trial court, Hauser argued two points to reject the Pearce recall. Judge rejects challenge to stop Pearce recall – Arizona Capitol Times:

Attorney Lisa Hauser, who represents the plaintiff, East Valley resident Franklin Ross, argued that the oath the petition circulators took did not contain the precise wording required by the Arizona Constitution.

She argued that the oath should have attested that the signatures were “genuine.”

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[Judge] Hegyi also sided with Citizens for a Better Arizona in dismissing Hauser’s other main point – that the petition was misleading and could have confused those who signed on to support the recall.

Hegyi said Hauser presented no evidence that voters have been, or would be, misled.

The Arizona Supreme Court opinion on Monday focused heavily on the "intent of the framers" of the Arizona Constitution. Arizona court won't raise bar on recall elections:

The Arizona Supreme Court said Monday that it wasn't about to second-guess the framers of the state Constitution, who risked statehood to guarantee a "robust recall system."

In a unanimous opinion, the high court explained its Sept.13 ruling allowing last Tuesday's recall election to go forward.

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[T]he Supreme Court rejected all the arguments in the lawsuit, filed by attorney Lisa Hauser on behalf of Franklin Bruce Ross, a voter in Pearce's west Mesa legislative district.

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Chief Justice Rebecca White Berch authored the opinion and made special note of the importance of recall to the state's founding fathers. President William Taft rejected Arizona's first bid for statehood because its Constitution allowed the recall of judges.

The framers removed that provision and achieved statehood. But less than a year later, voters amended the Constitution to make judges subject to recall along with all other public officials.

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"The delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1910 were willing to risk statehood over a robust recall system that subjected every official to removal," Berch wrote. "Adopting a standard that makes it more difficult for the public to remove its own officers would frustrate that historical intent."

On the very same day this opinion was released, GOP lawyer Lisa Hauser filed a reply brief in the AIRC matter asserting on behalf of Governor Brewer: Intent of redistricting initiative irrelevant:

Gov. Jan Brewer says the Arizona Supreme Court should ignore arguments by those who crafted the redistricting initiative that her actions in firing the chairwoman of that panel go beyond what they intended.

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Hauser said the comments by those involved in the 2000 initiative – people who at the time headed Arizona Common Cause, Valley Citizens League and the League of Women Voters – hold no legal water.

The trio acknowledged the measure does allow the governor to fire any member of the Independent Redistricting Commission for gross misconduct or substantial neglect of duty. But they said their intent was to limit removal to "serious offenses like bribery or extortion."

Hauser said that intent is legally irrelevant.

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"Information about what might have been in the minds of the drafters of a provision is not relevant to what was in the collective minds of the voters when they adopted it," she said.

Even non-lawyers understand that Hauser's argument is a legal absurdity. It flies in the face of long-established rules of statutory and constitutional interpretation. And the Court just expressly rejected Hauser's argument in the Russell Pearce recall appeal in which its opinion relied heavily on the "intent of the framers."

It is especially bewildering coming from a GOP attorney. It is Tea-Publicans, after all, who like to beat their chests and loudly proclaim that they are "constitutionalists" who look to the original intent of the framers of the Constitution, as the Arizona Supreme Court just did in its decision in the Russell Pearce recall election.

Lisa Hauser rejects this and echoes the Sun King, Louis XIV, who said “La Loi, c'est moi" – I am the Law. Her client the Red Queen is essentially arguing "the law is whatever I say it is." This is the very essence of tyranny.

So we have a Governor whose attorney is filing legal absurdities with the court, and the framers of Prop. 106 who have filed briefs explaining their original intent in creating the AIRC. I don't have to tell you how the court is going to weigh each of these arguments. The Court will follow long-established rules of statutory and constitutional interpretation and give great deference to the framers of Prop. 106.

The lawyers for the AIRC also filed their reply brief on Monday, rebuffing GOP lawyer Lisa Hauser's argument that the AIRC does not have any standing to sue in this matter. Redistricting panel's lawyers: Board can sue:

Last week, Brewer's attorneys said the commission has no right to sue, pointing to the terms of a citizen initiative 11 years ago that established the independent commission.

On Monday, commission attorneys called the arguments "irrelevant," saying that Mathis has been added to the case and clearly has been wronged. Besides, they said, the initiative gave instances when the commission can sue and be sued.

This is self-evident from the fact that GOP lawyer Lisa Hauser, who represented the AIRC over the past decade, litigated on behalf of the AIRC for more than seven years. Hauser is responsible for two Arizona Supreme Court decisions in which the Court recognized the AIRC as a quasi-legislative body that is entitled to legislative privilege in its decision making process. In other words, the Governor and the legislature cannot second-guess the decision making process of the AIRC.

Hauser has now switched sides and is litigating against her former client and arguing against the very AIRC legislative privilege that she helped to establish. She seeks to use the decision making process under Prop. 106 as a sword rather than the shield she helped to establish. This is why Lisa Hauser should have been disqualified from participating in this matter under the Rules of Professional Conduct. The very same reason that Tom "banned for life by the SEC" Horne was disqualifed from his case against the AIRC for an alleged violation of Arizona's Open Meeting law.