The Daily Agenda: The last step
Eliminating the one thing keeping abortion marginally legal in Arizona ... Vice President Lake has a nice ring to it ... And live long and prosper.
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich asked the courts yesterday to lift a ban on enforcing a pre-statehood anti-abortion law, an expected move that would allow the state to start prosecuting abortion providers.
While some states had clear trigger laws, Arizona’s situation has been muddy since the Dobbs decision last month. In a press release announcing his filing, Brnovich said he hoped the courts would “provide clarity and uniformity for our state.”
Before 1973, Arizona prosecutors enforced the territorial era ban on abortions, charging people who provided them with crimes. The Arizona Court of Appeals had upheld the law, despite legal challenges, until Roe v. Wade established a national right to an abortion, when a judge enjoined the law, rendering it essentially moot.
But Brnovich wants Arizona to return to a total ban on abortions, and his office indicated he’d file to get the injunction lifted. (For some other very old laws that are still in play aside from the abortion ban, check out this KJZZ interview with a state law librarian.)
In yesterday’s filing, Brnovich lays out why he believes the pre-statehood ban should become the enforced state law, despite comments from Gov. Doug Ducey that the more recent 15-week ban should take precedent. (As a sidenote, just so you understand how long ago this case was, six of the 10 doctors who were plaintiffs in the original lawsuit are now dead, Brnovich wrote.)
“The Arizona Legislature has never acquiesced in the conclusion that former § 13- 211 is unconstitutional,” the AG’s office wrote. “Rather, in anticipation that the U.S. Supreme Court could overrule Roe, the Legislature has repeatedly preserved Arizona’s statutory prohibition on performing abortions except to save the life of the mother.”
This case will be the critical one to watch, now that a judge recently blocked enforcement in a lawsuit against a “fetal personhood” law. And it comes after nearly all providers in Arizona stopped offering abortions because of legal concerns; Planned Parenthood said this week that they wouldn’t be resuming abortions after the personhood injunction.
If the injunction isn’t lifted, we don’t know what happens next. Most legal minds expect the courts to acquiesce to the U.S. Supreme Court’s guidance and allow states to set and enforce abortion laws.
Meanwhile, as the right to an abortion and its far-reaching implications (we hadn’t thought of the college athletics angle) nears its end in Arizona, Democrats are publicly tangling over Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona's endorsements.
Axios’ Jessica Boehm detailed how Planned Parenthood’s political arm won’t endorse candidates who accept donations from law enforcement because police will be the ones enforcing abortion bans. Some candidates told Boehm they found the rule counterproductive, but still supported abortion access. (Interestingly, in its extensive candidate survey Planned Parenthood puts heavy emphasis on issues other than abortion, from environmental justice to immigration.)
The infighting couldn’t come at a worse time. Abortion providers could face two to five years in prison very soon for doing a job that is legal today. People getting abortions won’t be charged with crimes, but they’re already traveling beyond the state to get care. The stakes could not be higher.
Help Daniella find her sister: 36-year-old Michelle “Elle” Rose Bernstein-Schultz, a mother of two and the sister of longtime Capitol lobbyist and consultant Daniella Smith, has been missing for two weeks after she disappeared from her home near 40th Street and Greenway Road without her phone, wallet or car, 12News reports. Smith said it seems the last time friends heard from Bernstein-Schultz was at 4:03 p.m. on Wednesday, June 29. Her family is urging anyone who saw or spoke to her since then to contact the Phoenix Police Department.
Doug vs. Donald, round 100: Continuing his streak of endorsing people who don’t believe the election was stolen, Gov. Doug Ducey yesterday announced he’s throwing his weight behind Beau Lane, an ad executive and self-funder who has so far mostly flown under the radar in the four-way GOP primary for secretary of state. Ducey took shots at the election deniers in the race and in his party who are already preparing to deny the GOP primary results if they lose, saying “it’s one of the most irresponsible things I can imagine.”
Governor Mark Finchem?: Former President Donald Trump didn’t say he wouldn't consider Kari Lake as his 2024 vice presidential running mate. In an interview where he heaped praise on Lake, Trump said it’s “it’s a little soon” to consider her as a running mate, assuming he runs, adding, “let her be governor first.”
Study a rent decrease: After lawmakers failed to pass meaningful reform to combat Arizona’s housing crisis this year, lawmakers created a study committee to develop recommendations for next year’s legislative session, Axios’ Jessica Boehm reports. The committee held its first meeting this week.
Bad ad meets bad lawsuit: Republican U.S. Rep. David Schweikert is facing a lawsuit over his homophobic ads declaring GOP primary opponent Elijah Norton “isn’t being straight with you,” a double entrende meant to say he’s lying, the Schweikert campaign says. 12News’ Brahm Resnik landed an interview with the other man depicted in the ads, Leslie Hammon, who is suing Schweikert alleging invasion of privacy, even though he isn’t named, his image was pixelated and the photo was taken at a public bar. It’s not Schweikert’s first lawsuit of the cycle or his first homophobic ad.
Not very Christian of him: Christian Lamar, a far-right candidate for the Arizona House in north central Phoenix’s Legislative District 2, was convicted of domestic assault against his ex-fiance in 2015, the Republic’s Ananya Tiwari reports. Despite multiple courts upholding the conviction, he still maintains his innocence. LD2 is a competitive district, and Lamar is one of three Republicans running for the nomination to the district’s two seats.
“Though Lamar maintains his innocence, he also told The Arizona Republic that he does not have complete recollection of what occurred that night, and said that he was carrying a frying pan around the apartment complex for ‘self-defense,’” Tiwari writes.
Write once, edit twice: The Department of Public Safety didn’t find much when officers investigated the racist and threatening texts that congressional contender and Republican Rep. Walt Blackman received earlier this year that caused a lot of accusations and finger-pointing among Republicans. But as Wayne Schutsky writes in the Arizona Capitol Times, that’s probably because they subpoenaed the wrong phone number due to a typo.
“Our detectives are looking into it. Thank you,” DPS spokesman Bart Graves told Schutsky after he brought the typo to their attention.
New law just dropped: In Rachel’s latest for Votebeat, she details a newly signed law, similar to one vetoed by Ducey earlier in the session, that voting advocacy groups predict will result in eligible voters getting erroneously removed from the voter rolls. The law will most affect naturalized citizens who may not appear in a database the law requires recorders to use to verify citizenship, though the database is intended to be used for public benefits eligibility, not voter registration. The bill, HB 2243, is considered one of the two most consequential election laws signed this session.
Yep, we’re both still freelancing to pay the bills. Just pay to subscribe already. You’re obviously reading it.
Slow the spread: Arizona now has seen five cases of monkeypox, and health officials are using the limited supply of vaccine to inoculate people who may have been exposed, but they don’t have enough to vaccinate everyone at high risk of contracting the virus, the Republic’s Stephanie Innes reports.
Maybe he was cooler back then: Tanya Wheeless, who’s among national Republicans’ top picks to take on Democratic U.S. Rep. Greg Stanton in November, contributed a couple hundred bucks to two of Stanton’s mayoral campaigns, the Republic’s Tara Kavaler writes. She also contributed money to several other Democrats, including far-left Democratic U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva,
Paging Staci Burk: If you’ve never gone down an internet rabbithole about Ray Epps — the Arizona man who was at the Jan. 6 riot then was accused of being an FBI agent by his fellow MAGAs as they pushed the conspiracy that the FBI was responsible for the attack on the Capitol — this piece offers the whole wild tale in one click. He’s in hiding now, but he spoke to the New York Times’ Alan Feuer from an undisclosed location in the Rocky Mountains.
Write a submission, don’t hack the system: The Arizona Department of Transportation is holding another contest to write those witty words on freeway signs, 12News reports. The dozen finalists include phrases like “Got a tab?; call a cab” and “Use your vision; avoid a collision,” unlike the recent instances of hackers hijacking the signs to write vulgar messages like this and this and this.
Welcome to the Capitol: The Phoenix New Times reported that it obtained “previously unreleased” audio of lawyers for the state Senate Rules Committee explaining that House Bill 2319, which bars people from filming within eight feet of police and which Ducey signed into law, is likely unconstitutional. (The committee is open to the public but isn’t recorded, though the House lawyers said the same thing and that’s on tape, too.) As we’ve previously reported, lawmakers routinely blow off the advice of their lawyers, on that bill and oh so many others.
Legislative District 10 is a heavily Republican district based in east. There is no incumbent senator, but two prominent legislators — one current, one former — are running against each other from different factions of the GOP. The winner of this primary will represent the district in the Senate next term; no Democrat is running.
House Speaker Rusty Bowers, who held his ground when Donald Trump asked him to overturn Arizona’s electors, chose to run rather than retire after reaching term limits in the House after protesters showed up at his house disputing the 2020 election results. He’s facing former Sen. David Farnsworth, who has Trump’s backing. Both men are also members of the LDS faith, which frequently plays a role in how they view politics.
An artist/sculptor by trade, Bowers has been at the Capitol on and off for decades. He is known for his measured approach and elegant, at times meandering, storytelling. Since the 2020 election, he’s gained a national profile, appearing recently before the congressional Jan. 6 committee.
Farnsworth also has legislative experience, serving in the Senate from 2013 through 2021, as well as one stint in the ‘90s. He jumped into the election-denying universe, earning support from Bowers’ fiercest critics, like Trump and AZGOP Chair Kelli Ward.
We got a kick out of Phoenix Magazine’s annual Best of the Valley issue this week, despite getting snubbed in the nonexistent “best newsletter” category.
Check out these two winners: U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, for “best ears reminiscent of Mister Spock,” and Phoenix City Council hopeful Sam Stone, for “best political underdog,” who the magazine said “looks like he should be teaching economics at some Midwestern university.”
I like this sentence. "Legislative District 10 is a heavily Republican district based in east. " I am going to pretend it is east Oklahoma you are referring to. Then, I will not have to deal with any of them...LOL