KJZZ’s Friday NewsCap revisits some of the biggest stories of the week from Arizona and beyond.
To talk about a win and a loss for supporters of the abortion rights ballot measure, a deal between Gov. Katie Hobbs and state Senate Republicans and more, The Show sat down with Chuck Coughlin of HighGround and Democratic strategist Tony Cani.
Conversation highlights
MARK BRODIE: So Chuck, this week with the abortion rights initiative, as I mentioned, a win and a loss. They were certified as having enough signatures. However, the state Supreme Court overruled a lower court judge and said that the phrase “unborn human being” would be allowed to be in the publicity pamphlet that will be sent to all voters across the state.
So on balance: good week? Bad week? What do you think?
CHUCK COUGHLIN: It’s on the ballot. I mean, it’s a victory. We’re discussing the publicity pamphlet, which is mailed out by the Secretary of State to all the voters in Arizona. And you have arguments in there, and it is a good resource. But they’re objecting, to some phrases in there, which do exist in statute.
So it wasn’t an outrageous ruling by the court. It found a rational basis for maintaining (legislative) counsel’s description. But I can understand why. All in all, hey man, we’re all going to get to vote on it, which is the most important thing.
BRODIE: Tony, do you agree with that?
TONY CANI: I half agree with that. I mean, this is more signatures than have ever been submitted ever for this initiative. It has got broad support. But it’s very clear that when they wrote this description out of the Legislature, the reason they did it was to try and unfairly influence people. The first court said, “Hey, look, this is obviously a political term.” And then the Supreme Court — big surprise, if there’s any doubt about how politicized this court has been (former Gov. Doug) Ducey packed it — they decided that no, we should let this phrase be on the pamphlet.
I don’t think that it’s going to make a huge impact for voters. And I think part of it is because over the past couple of years, voters have seen that the people that argue against abortion rights, they’ve lost all credibility. They’ve lost so much credibility. All the things they said that will not happen if Roe went away have happened. Women’s lives have been in danger. People are talking about not allowing folks to go over state lines to get abortions. Like all of these things that they said that wouldn’t happen is happening.
And so when it comes down to it, that’s a tough position, a tough situation for the people that want this to fail are, that they’re in. Because I just think that voters want to preserve these rights. Take it out of the Legislature, put it in the Constitution.
BRODIE: Chuck, you said it’s on the ballot. And it is — for now. There is still a lawsuit from Arizona Right to Life that’s challenging having this on the ballot. Given what Tony said about the state Supreme Court — which is the same court that ruled that the 1864 abortion law should take effect — do you think there’s a chance the court could kick this off the ballot?
COUGHLIN: I don’t, I don’t. I don’t see a rational basis for them to get there. I have my own litigation in front of the Court right now on our Make Elections Fair initiative, which is also a ballot analysis case, and so we’ll find out. But I can’t see a rationale in which they would remove, as Tony just so eloquently said, hundreds of thousands of people who have signed petitions to express their desire to have a vote on this.
BRODIE: So Tony, speaking of ballot measures, the state Supreme Court this week also said that the border security measure referred by the state Legislature, by the legislative Republicans specifically, would be allowed to stay on the ballot. This was another single-subject rule challenge.
We've been talking about whether the abortion rights measure is sort of seen as a big driver for Democratic turnout. Maybe the border security measure is seen as a big turnout driver for Republican support. Given that — at least right now — they’re both going to be on the ballot, how do you see the turnout models based on both of those?
CANI: I think that the immigration one is probably more of a messaging opportunity for the Republicans than it is a turnout push. I think it’s obviously something that a lot of their voters are focused on. But when you look at the numbers, the types of voters that are animated the most by that initiative, a higher percentage of them are regular voters.
On the other hand, the types of voters who are motivated by the abortion initiative tend to be younger, tend to be women, tend to be voters that in the past have needed more of a reason to show up to the polls. And so I think that on balance, if you’re looking at the two, that the abortion initiative is probably going to drive turnout more.
But being such a huge battleground state in such an important (election) — every level of the election is being contested right now, from Legislature to presidential. I think turnout is going to be so high anyway that I don’t know how much of a difference it will make. But when you, as a Democrat — like, Biden won by 10,000 votes? I’ll take a little bit more.
BRODIE: The margins matter, right?
CANI: Because these tiny margins do matter. Yeah.
BRODIE: Chuck, I want to ask you — because, we’ve seen a few of these single-subject rule challenges, including one on your Make Elections Fair. And the courts have basically ruled against those challenges in all cases. So what does that tell you about what initiative supporters can do or what the Legislature can do in terms of putting a bunch of things into an initiative or a law, maybe not having it run afoul of the single-subject rule?
COUGHLIN: As long as they’re interrelated, as long as they’re related to a single topic, that’s generally the rule. That’s the precedential nature of what the court looks at. And as long as you can tie it to one single purpose. In our Make elections fair case, it’s treating every voter the same. It’s treating every candidate the same, and it’s elections.
BRODIE: Right. They’re all candidate elections, the judge said.
COUGHLIN: It’s all related to the same topic. That follows the precedents that come before. I think people get confused about, “Oh, you can’t have multiple amendments to the Constitution.” If they’re related, you’re going to pass muster. And I suspect we will pass muster later this week. We’ve already wanted the trial court level with Make Elections Fair.
We had an amicus brief filed yesterday by former Gov. (Fife) Symington and former Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers in favor of Make Elections Fair on the same topic, mentioning their legislative histories, things that they have done that are very complicated. And the narrative there is we live in very modern times. There’s very complicated issues that are here. And as long as they’re interrelated and form a narrative of their own, you’ll pass the test.
BRODIE: So one other election thing I want to get to before the break, and Tony, I want to start with you. We saw in CD1, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee listed former state representative Amish Shah in their Red to Blue program, which basically suggests that this is a race in which the national Democrats will be spending money.
CD1 has been seen as a potential pickup opportunity for Democrats, going up against a longtime incumbent, David Schweikert. Does the move, like the formalization of him in this program, does that matter at all? Or is it just sort of saying out loud what a lot of people had already thought?
CANI: I think it matters because it shows that it’s a priority. And so it’s a signal to other donors, to other organizations, “Hey, this is a race that you should invest in. We’ve done the research. This is a place where you’re going to be able to pick up seats.” And so yeah, I do think it matters.
It’s going to be a tough race either way. I think that with the additional enthusiasm that Democrats have right now since (Vice President Kamala) Harris became the nominee, I think Schweikert in a tougher position than he was in a month ago. And so it’s going to be a really important race.
BRODIE: The sort of the conventional wisdom is having a primary can be sort of a good practice for going into the general election. This was a, I think, a six-way primary, with a lot of sort of well known candidates in it. Does that help Shah now going against a very, very tough campaigner and a good fundraiser in David Schweikert?
CANI: Yeah, I think it does. Just because he had only run at the legislative level before, he did very well. And now he came out ahead in that race. He's been talking to voters at the doors during the primaries. So he’s got a good sense of what voters care about. And then now his campaign team is going to have to do a much bigger sort of media based, more modern campaign in addition to his door knocking, in order to win. And I think he’s going to be positioned to do that, and also because he’s going to be raising a ton of money with the enthusiasm from him winning.
BRODIE: So Chuck, if you’re the Schweikert campaign, is Shah the candidate that you wanted to face? The candidate you didn’t want to face?
COUGHLIN: I think it’s better than facing a woman.
BRODIE: Marlene Galán-Woods?
COUGHLIN: Yeah. Marlene, they were more fearful of that in the cycle because it creates more contrast. Dr. Shah, as Tony just said, is known as a door knocker. He just got out of a very competitive race where he won, I think with less than 25% of the vote. So you have a potentially divided Democratic field. But it’s going to be difficult for Schweikert to penetrate that audience.
As Tony said, the district is going to evolve blue over the coming years. It’s moving in that direction like (former U.S. Rep. and current U.S. Sen. Kyrsten) Sinema’s old district did. And now Congressman (Greg) Stanton’s district, it’s part of that purple area that runs down the middle of the 101 and Maricopa County that is shifting. And they drew the lines farther into Phoenix. And so he’s picked up more Phoenix voters. And it’s more of a Maricopa County district now. And so it’s going to be harder and harder for (Schweikert) to compete in that district.
