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Arizona voters keep retainer but refuse to remove judges

Online Niel November 21, 2024

Arizona voters chose to keep their judicial restraint system but declined to use it to remove any judge in this year’s election, just two years after three judges were unseated at the ballot box in Maricopa County.

Proposal 137 was sent to the vote by the Legislature. If it had passed, the judges could have been kicked off the bench just by the means existing removal and recall procedures set forth in the Arizona constitution or if they did anything to trigger the retention election.

Maricopa, Pima, Pinal, and Coconino County Circuit Court Judges, Court of Appeals Judges, and Supreme Court Judges are appointed by the Governor. All appointed judges are up for retention election after two years on the bench. After that, Court of Appeals judges, including Supreme Court justices, face a retention election every six years, and trial court judges face a retention vote every four years.

Proposition 137 would have been retroactive and would have invalidated any results of judicial retention votes in this election. It also would have allowed each chamber of the Legislature to place a member on the Judicial Performance Review Commission, which evaluates whether judges are meeting standards, and would have given lawmakers the power to ask a judge to be investigated.

There were 69 judges and justices eligible for retention this year, including two state Supreme Court justices, and voters decided to keep them all.

Two years ago, Maricopa County voters kicked three judges off the bench, including two who had passed muster on the Judicial Performance Review Commission. Before 2022, only a handful of judges had been removed from office since Arizona’s merit selection system was adopted in 1974. In 1978, two judges were removed; one was removed in 2014.

Supreme Court justices survive impeachment campaigns

This year, Supreme Court Justices Clint Bolick and Kathryn H. King were targeted for removal by campaigners for voting to maintain Arizona’s abortion ban prior to statehood.

The political nonprofit Progress Arizona launched a campaign against the detention of Bolick and King, but the large number of measures on the ballot caused the group to change its strategy, spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said.

Progress Arizona partnered with Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona to create a political group called Protect Abortion Rights, No Retention Bolick and King PAC. Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona did not respond to a request for an interview.

“It came down to a matter of resources,” Jackson said. “We’ve come to make the strategic decision, based on the polls and the amount of resources we have, to prioritize defeating these referrals from the Legislature and protecting our access to direct democracy.”

She said her group still considers the defeat of Proposition 137 a victory, so Arizona voters continue to have the ability to remove judges.

“We felt that protecting our ability to hold judges and judges accountable for the long term was certainly more important than removing these two judges who, if that referral had passed, would not have mattered if the voters of Arizona had voted “not”. to their preservation,” she said.

A bipartisan group of lawyers in the Phoenix area formed a political action committee called Arizonans for an Independent Judiciary to counter the attacks against Bolick and King. Tim Berg, the group’s president, said he believed the election result was the right one.

“We haven’t taken a position on Prop 137, although our position all along has been that the restraint system works pretty well,” he said.

Berg said his group’s goal was to convince voters not to overreact when voting for justices.

“You shouldn’t look at a decision that the judge made that you agree with or disagree with,” he said. “You should not look at the identity or the party of the governor who appointed the judge. What you should be looking at is the overall performance of the judge, and the best indicator of that is the judicial performance review.”

Berg said judicial restraint has long been a part of Arizona’s history.

“It’s pretty clear that people wanted to keep that say over the judges,” he said. “At the same time, they did not exercise it in an aggressive, irresponsible or haphazard manner. They voted to keep the right and then moved on to approve everything.”

Berg said he believes the election result is an indicator that voters want to maintain an independent judiciary.

“If voters look at the question, ‘Should voters have more say in keeping judges, or should the Legislature have more say in keeping judges?'” I think the clear message from voters is that they wanted to keep that voice he said. “They don’t want to delegate it to the Legislature.”

Another group, the Judicial Independence Defense PAC, also formed to advocate for Bolick and King. The group’s treasurer did not respond to The Republic’s requests for an interview.

Judicial maintenance elections by the numbers

The Protect Abortion Rights, No Retention Bolick and King PAC has raised $17,477.56 and spent $5,492.79 as of October 19, 2024.

Arizonans for an Independent Judiciary reported spending nearly $46,000.

Judicial Independence Defense PAC has raised $530,000 and spent $333,000 as of October 19, 2024. Randy Kendrick, a conservative political activist and donor — and the wife of billionaire Arizona Diamondbacks owner Kendrick — has donated $100,000 to that group. Jeff Yass, an early investor in the startup that created and runs TikTok, donated $200,000. Yass is a Pennsylvania-based billionaire and Republican megadonor, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Robson Walton, son of the Walmart founder, donated $25,000.

Election results show that not all Arizonans who voted made their way down the ballot to the retention election.

According to Arizona Secretary of State figures as of Nov. 20, 3,353,102 Arizonans voted for a candidate for president, while 2,637,058 voted to retain Bolick and 2,630,562 voted to retain King.

Stacey Barchenger contributed reporting.

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