Arizona's Governor Is Leading Republicans' Quiet, Radical Takeover of State Supreme Courts
He may now be angling to appoint Bill Montgomery, Maricopa County’s reactionary prosecutor.
By MARK JOSEPH STERN
Democratic presidential candidates are mostly tiptoeing around the idea of court-packing, toying with the idea of adding seats to the U.S. Supreme Court without committing to a real plan. But while 2020 hopefuls avoid endorsing such a scheme, Arizona Republicans have already enacted one: They not only packed their state Supreme Court but rigged the nomination process to ensure more favorable outcomes for the GOP. It’s just the latest example of Republicans capturing a state judiciary through the kind of brute-force politics that Democrats still shy away from.
These machinations, led by Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, may soon deliver a state Supreme Court seat to Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, a reactionary whose tenure has been plagued by scandal and lawsuits. Montgomery has fought against progressive reform at every turn. He is a fierce foe of LGBTQ equality as well as a staunch defender of the death penalty, the drug war, and mass incarceration. In 2015, he told a Vietnam War veteran that he was “an enemy” because he used marijuana, adding, “I have no respect for you.”
The prosecutor would seem to be a long shot for the position. Arizona’s Constitution, after all, has a built-in safeguard to prevent extremists like Montgomery from joining the bench. State Supreme Court justices are chosen by an appellate court commission whose members are selected by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate. The state constitution requires lawmakers to “endeavor to see that the commission reflects the diversity of Arizona’s population.” Pursuant to this command, the governor has long selected a mix of Democrats and Republicans for the commission, which puts forth a shortlist from which the governor must choose a justice.
Ducey, however, has taken steps to rig the judicial process in favor of ultraconservatives like Montgomery. First, the governor packed the court, adding two seats to swing it rightward. (Chief Justice Scott Bales declared at the time that the expansion was entirely unnecessary.) None of Ducey’s justifications for the court-packing plan have proved true: The court is now completing fewer cases, and while Ducey called for “more voices” on the bench, he has exclusively appointed men. The new “voices” come from male judges whose views align with Justice Clint Bolick, another Ducey appointee and an arch conservative who wants to demolish the New Deal.
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