KJZZ’s Friday NewsCap revisits some of the biggest stories of the week from Arizona and beyond.
Democratic attorney Tom Ryan and former state Republican lawmaker Regina Cobb joined The Show to discuss.
Conversation highlights
LAUREN GILGER: I want to start with an essay from Arizona Supreme Court Justice Clint Bolick that's been making some waves. It kind of went after what he sees as an assault on what's happening on judicial independence, right? Now Bolick is a conservative. He was appointed by [Gov.] Doug Ducey.
He's not who you might expect to see going after the Trump administration's approach to the courts, but he also did not name {President Donald] Trump in this essay, you know, he didn't say, you know, his specific concerns there. He said the courts are under attack from the left and the right's political agendas.
Tom, I want to start with you here and just you think he's trying to walk a line. Is that a line that's possible to walk right now?
TOM RYAN: Well, he's trying to walk the line, but the line is, is not that clear because what's happening is Trump is definitely making an assault upon not just the federal judiciary but the state judiciary as well. And it's not just his comments about the judiciary that are doing damage.
For example, there was a hearing yesterday in a federal court in Northern California where the Department of Justice attorney that's appointed under the Trump administration was filing sham affidavits. The, the court went through the roof and, and in fact, the court literally ruled from the bench, something judges rarely, rarely do and said, “you don't wait for a written order from me. This is my order now, everybody is getting rehired in the federal government.”
The judiciary is under assault, but it's mostly coming from Trump and Trump acolytes, and that's a very dangerous thing.
GILGER: Regina, he did outline some specific things that the Trump administration and his allies have done lately, like, you know, threatening to impeach judges, defying court orders, arguing the president's power is higher than the court's power, essentially, really kind of challenging the, the balance of power. Talk a little bit about your impressions here of, of what this looks like from the Republican perspective.
REGINA COBB: Well, I, I, I want to talk about how it is from my perspective, not just Republican perspective, I think that, I, I do like some of the things that Trump is putting in place. I mean, we've had a lot of waste, but the, but our forefathers put out a Constitution and, and designed it for the separation of powers, and I think that that's a good thing.
And Justice Bolick is, if you go back, he, he makes waves and he doesn't really care that he's making waves. He just does what he thinks is right. Justice Bolick, I respect him probably more than any justice that we've had, and so I feel like he needs to, he's trying to toe that line, but he, he came out with a good op ed. I thought it was great.
RYAN: There's a, there's a very powerful scene in the movie “Judgment at Nuremberg” between Burt Lancaster and Spencer Tracy. Tracy was the fictional prosecutor in that trial and Burt Lancaster was the chief justice of the German Supreme Court, and he wanted to talk to Spencer Tracy as basically playing Justice Jackson, and he told him, you have to understand we never saw this coming. We never, you know, this wasn't what we planned.
And Spencer Tracy's great walk away line in, in that was, you knew it was coming the first time you, you, you condemned an innocent man. So when we see our, our judiciary being under assault and the destruction of the balance of power going on, it's something that should frighten every American Republican or Democrat.
GILGER: Yeah, I mean, well, I've heard the phrase constitutional crisis come up over and over again in recent interviews in recent weeks, Regina, I want to ask you about that. Like, do you think that's where we're headed, this idea that the balance of power is severely threatened?
COBB: I don't. I think that you will see the balance of power happen. And that's why our forefathers designed it the way they designed it. You've seen things go the other direction also where our judicial system has actually legislated from the bench. So I think that there's got to be a balance. You're going to see the pendulum swing.
GILGER: Tom, what do you think about that because this is a critique I've heard also, that, that it's not like we haven't seen the judiciary kind of do the same thing.
RYAN: Oh, we, we've seen it on both sides. I agree with that. But there's a difference between being judicially active and then destroying the balance of power. Those are not the same concepts.
Yes, there, there was judicial activism under the Burger and Warren courts, but there's also been lots of judicial activism, Citizens United, Holder, Shelby versus Holder. I mean, there's a whole bunch of cases that were just made up out of whole cloth on both sides. That's not this issue.
The issue is, you don't get to tell me what to do. How are you going to enforce that, that ruling, judge? That's the kind of thing that's what we really should be talking about.
GILGER: All right, I want to move on to the state Capitol where state lawmakers are actually voting to get rid of their own legislative immunity, or some of them. This all started with a number of lawmakers invoking legislative immunity in order to get out of traffic tickets, like speeding tickets where they're really going pretty far over the limit.
One Republican representative, Quang Nguyen, wrote a bill getting rid of it, or at least when it comes to traffic tickets, getting rid of this immunity. Regina, you were a state lawmaker, you enjoyed this legislative immunity. Are you surprised that lawmakers voted to advance this proposal this week?
COBB: No, I'm not surprised at all. This is an archaic immunity that we've had in place for a long time. And it was put in place years ago to protect the legislators from not being able to vote, and I don't think we have that issue any longer. We're not having a police officer stopping somebody on the side of the road to keep them from doing a vote, so it really should be revoked.
I personally have had speeding tickets during my legislative session.
GILGER: A kind admission. [LAUGHS]
COBB: I am and I'm gonna put it out, yes, but I paid them. I didn't, I didn't ask anybody to forgive him, and I paid them during session. So I feel like this is if, if I get pulled over for speeding, and that's what, you know, I'm, I'm a citizen just like everybody else.
GILGER: I mean, Tom, we, we heard some arguments being made from some lawmakers when this was debated this week saying that, you know, this, this prevents the governor from weaponizing law enforcement against legislators like, like Regina described there. Are there real reasons though you think that lawmakers might need to speed, might need to get to the Capitol really fast for a really important vote?
RYAN: Absolutely not. And Regina is correct. The purpose is to, the purpose of the immunity is to keep the governor or the executive branch from keeping somebody from voting. Most of the high profile things we've seen though on these are, for example, former Sen. Justine Wadsack down in Tucson. She was going home.
There was no need to speed, and her, her, her idea of why she had to speed, her electric car was running out of juice, well then you don't go faster, you go slower, and the same thing with Mark Finchem, you know, it wasn't part of his duties to speed. So no, they, they need to get rid of that. I, I, you know, I applaud … Nguyen for saying let's get rid of this. It should be got rid of.
GILGER: Yeah, I want to ask you the last question here, Regina, about sort of the, the, the taste this leaves in voters' mouths, right? Like what it does for the reputation of lawmakers when it seems like, you know, they think they are above the law?
COBB: I, I totally agree. I think that it does give a bad taste in their mouth and … Nguyen is a very common sense kind of guy, and if somebody was going to be, you know, traveling a lot, it's him. He, he comes from a, from a rural area and travels and knows this better than anybody else. It, I think that it just, you have to be on the same page as the citizens and this isn't, and this puts us one step above.
I would never even put a a license plate, you know, they have a license plate cover that says that you're a legislator, I'm a poor driver, so I, I would, I would say that I would probably, people would not like me even more if they saw that on my license plate. The most famous line is, do you know who you're pulling over?
GILGER: Another big story at the state Capitol this week, I wouldn't talk about it sort of around the future of abortion rights in our state. Like this seemed pretty clear last year when voters pretty overwhelmingly approved Prop. 139, enshrining abortion rights in the state Constitution, but there are still a whole host of laws that remain on the books in Arizona that restrict abortion, and we've seen a whole host of proposals to restrict it more this session at the state Legislature.
Regina, let me start with you here. We're expecting to see reproductive rights groups kind of challenge many of these restrictions that are already on the books in the courts. We saw a judge rule the existing law that restricts abortions to 15 weeks was struck down just last week. But, but is a showdown kind of set up, you think, in the state Legislature in terms of further restrictions moving forward?
COBB: I, I do think it's, it's never going to end. I think this is something that we're going to be continually seeing at the, at the state Capitol. It's going to be a showdown for many years to come. Because you have two very heartfelt groups and the pro-life and the and the pro-choice, and they're neither one of them is going to give up.
GILGER: Tom, what about the Democratic strategy here? Because we're seeing Democrats take a legislative approach to try to repeal some of the restrictions through the Legislature as opposed to through the courts. Could that be successful or the kind of banking 2026 here?
RYAN: I think they are, but I don't know that it'll be so successful. I think if abortion rights are to be enshrined and protected in the state of Arizona, it will be through the court system because laws can be passed and laws can be repealed and laws can be changed.
So I think what's going to happen is these, these cases will continue to bubble up and, and they will be compared to the what's been enshrined in the Constitution now by Prop. 139 because whatever's in the Constitution controls. And so the courts will be looking at legislation that's on the books now or legislation that gets passed and see whether or not it comports with the language of Prop. 139 or not. So I think that's going to be the tale of the tape.
I, I do see both parties are going to continue on with the, the fight over what is abortion rights or what is not abortion rights, because it, it plays to the base of both parties and it's a way of generating political capital, cash.
GILGER: Yeah, how much does it play to the base of the Republican Party anymore, Regina? Like, because I mean we've definitely seen the political tides turn on the issue of abortion and, and the, you know, where the majority of the country stands, even in red states we're seeing, you know, abortion rights protected.
COBB: I think it plays to the base on both sides. I think that, and I think that's why they keep using it. This is probably not going to be as effective, I think, in the future as it has been in this last election. , I, I perceive the public as saying it's done. Let's, let's move on and let's figure out something else, and I think that, but neither side is going to give up on this one.
RYAN: I think what's going to happen here eventually is that science and medicine will get to the point where they will be able to eliminate the need for most, you know, most abortions, there are abortions that have to happen because of a miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, things like that, those will still continue on, but, the, I think you'll see different types of contraceptive come in.
We see this all the time in medicine. We, you know, find a, a cardiothoracic surgeon anymore. You, it's hard to because we've moved to statins, we've moved to stents, we've done all these different things. You don't need to crack a chest and do, you know, coronary bypass. I think you're gonna see the same kind of development go on with the issue of reproductive care.
GILGER: And there is the, the, the restrictions after fetal liability that might be the new kind of battleground, it sounds like where, where the law is less clear based on 139, right?
COBB: Yep, yep, exactly.
RYAN: Agreed.
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