By Howard Fischer
Mail | X: @azcapmedia

PHOENIX — A conservative political activist has launched a campaign to convince voters not to oust Clint Bolick from the Arizona Supreme Court.

In a fundraising letter, Randy Kendrick, the wife of Arizona Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick, said “liberal groups” already have succeeded in clinching the posts of governor, secretary of state and attorney general for Democrats. She also pointed out Republicans hold the majority in the House and Senate by only one seat in each chamber.

“These same groups have now set their sights on the Arizona Supreme Court,” Kendrick wrote in the letter, first reported by the Arizona Capitol Times.

There is some basis for her concern.

Progress Arizona in April announced it was launching a campaign to deny both Bolick and fellow Justice Kathryn King — whose names are on the November ballot — new terms.

Separately, the National Democratic Redistricting Commission and Planned Parenthood Votes announced in May they intend to spend at least $5 million on supreme court races across the country, with a focus on six states, including Arizona. The reason, they said, is that those courts are crucial to determining whether abortion rights stay in place after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

Bolick and King, both appointed by Republican Doug Ducey when he was governor, provided two of the four votes on the court earlier this year that ruled an 1864 law outlawing abortion except to save the life of the mother trumped a 2022 law allowing the procedure until the 15th week.

State lawmakers have since voted to repeal the old law. And no changes on the court would overturn the decision.

But if the pair were turned out of office, that would give Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, an abortion rights advocate, a chance to replace them with her own choices.

The loss of those two, said Kendrick in her fundraising letter, is just part of the problem.

Justice Robert Brutinel, appointed by Republican Jan Brewer, is 66.
There is a mandatory retirement age of 70. And he may choose not to seek a new term when his current one is up at the end of 2026.

That, said Kendrick, would allow Hobbs to name yet a third justice to the seven-member panel.

Kendrick, a contributor to Republican and conservative causes, made it clear what she thought of the possibility of three new Hobbs-appointed justices in the face of three statewide elected Democrats and the chance the Republicans could lose control of the Legislature.

“If they were to also claim a majority on the Supreme Court, they would control every branch of government in Arizona for the first time,” she wrote. “It matters because the Arizona Supreme Court is our last line of defense against liberal government overreach.”

Kendrick is willing to put up her own money.

Campaign finance reports show she already has contributed $100,000 to the Judicial Independence Defense PAC out of the $140,000 it has reportedly raised so far.

To date there are no contributions or expenses reported by the Progress Arizona PAC.

That group is not just fighting to oust the two justices whose terms are up. Abigail Jackson, a spokeswoman for the organization, said it also is working to defeat Proposition 137.

Put on the ballot by Republicans, Prop. 137 would curtail the ability voters now have to unseat judges when their terms end.

Instead, only a judge who ran into problems, like a personal bankruptcy, a felony conviction or being found failing to meet standards by the Commission on Judicial Performance Review, would have to face voters. Others could remain on the bench until they reach mandatory retirement age.

And there’s something else.

Prop. 137 is crafted so it would be retroactive if approved. That would mean both Bolick and King would keep their jobs even if there was a separate vote to oust them.

Kendrick isn’t the only one raising money to influence what voters think about retaining judges. Arizonans for an Independent Judiciary has so far collected more than $47,000.

But attorney Tim Berg, who is chairing that effort, said it isn’t specifically designed to keep either Bolick or King on the bench. Instead, he said, its focus is to educate people about the process under which judges are selected and the retention system that gives voters a chance to keep or oust them.

More to the point, Berg said, the goal is to convince voters their choices should not be made based on whether they are happy with one or two decisions.

“We think judges ought to be retained not because of their politics but almost, in a sense, despite of it,” he said. The question is whether they are doing the job.

“And if they’re doing the job, then liberal, conservative, moderate, whatever else you can be, that shouldn’t make the difference because it shouldn’t make a difference in how they rule,” Berg said. More to the point, he said the question is whether there is a reasonable basis for a ruling, not whether someone agreed with a judge’s conclusion.

Jackson, however, said voters are entitled to have their say on judges, even if opposition is based on a single decision like the one on abortion.

“Voters across the board are angry about this ruling,” Jackson said in launching the effort. “If Arizona voters want to use the power that the constitution gives them to hold them accountable, and their main concern is this ruling, then I think voters are within their rights and power to do so.”

She also has denied that Progress Arizona is the one making the court

political.
Jackson pointed out there were just five justices on the Supreme Court until 2016. That is when Ducey convinced the Republican-controlled Legislature to expand the court to seven, a move that immediately gave him two appointments on top of the one he already had made.

That enabled Ducey to add Bolick, a registered Libertarian, and Republican John Lopez IV. It also means he has named five of the seven justices.

At least part of the reason there needs to be an outside-funded campaign — whether to retain Bolick and King on the Supreme Court or just to convince voters not to oust judges based on a controversial ruling — has to do with rules that govern the conduct of judges.

They prohibit sitting judges from soliciting funds to convince voters to keep them on the bench. Instead, only someone acting as a “surrogate” for them can raise money for a campaign.

There’s also the fact that those rules bar judges from speaking about or defending individual decisions. About the only option allowed is the ability to respond to “false, misleading or unfair allegations” made against them during the campaign.

Kenrick is no stranger to political giving. Since the 2022 election she has donated $110,000 to a political action committee run by the Free Enterprise Club, $96,000 to the Republican Party of Arizona, $37,500 to a PAC to elect Republican state senators and an identical amount for House GOP contenders.