KJZZ’s Friday NewsCap revisits some of the biggest stories of the week from Arizona and beyond.
To talk about state lawmakers taking another break in their session, the case of the so-called ‘fake electors’ heading back to a grand jury and more, The Show sat down with Marcus Dell’Artino of First Strategic and former state lawmaker Reginald Bolding.
Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: So let’s start with the so-called fake electors case. Attorney General Kris Mayes, Marcus, had brought this case against 11 people who signed as what they say “alternate slate of electors.” This is, of course, going back to the 2020 election, saying that Donald Trump actually won Arizona’s 11 electoral votes.
But it seems like, at least for now, the work that Mayes and her prosecutors have put in, they’ve got to go back to square one.
MARCUS DELL’ARTINO: Yeah. The judge said, “You didn’t include this document to the jurors, and that was important to the case, and so you’ve got to go back to step one.” And the timeline’s really tight. So this one has a long way to go, but we’re going to have some resolution in a relatively short amount of time. I think it was two weeks that they gave her.
BRODIE: Yeah. Reginald, obviously there are legal machinations that have to happen. With the stipulation that we in this room are not lawyers — practically speaking, is that the end of this case, do you think?
REGINALD BOLDING: I think the name of the game right now, for those who have been indicted, is how can you run out the clock up until the election? That’s the name of the game. Try to continue to prolong, prolong, prolong and hope that Attorney General Mayes isn’t reelected. So they could an attorney general that would be more favorable to them and essentially drop the case.
But the implications of what happens in this next ruling is going to be wide ranging. Not only what happens here in Arizona, but you had other cases in Georgia, Michigan. And what happens here will be used across, courtrooms throughout these United States.
BRODIE: Do you agree with that, Marcus? That what happens here could impact similar cases in other places?
DELL’ARTINO: I think it could. Although I’m not familiar enough at how these cases are being fleshed out in Michigan, in Georgia and other states. So it’s certainly going to make a headline, I can tell you that much. But I don’t think it will necessarily impact the legal process of those cases in those other states.
BRODIE: Reginald mentioned the election coming up. And, of course if Attorney General Kris Mayes is reelected, that maybe changes the calculus. But it seems like there is at least some amount of strategy here of hoping on the part of the folks who’ve been indicted, that Mayes is not the attorney general for much longer and that whoever comes in behind her — presumably a Republican — will say, “No thanks, we’re done.”
DELL’ARTINO: Yeah, I think that’s absolutely the most likely scenario. And I think Republicans sort of feel the wind at their sails, if you will, going into this election, into this midterm. And so it’s certainly a strategy that makes sense and they would use.
BRODIE: All right. Reginald, other legal maneuvering happening this week. A couple of, abortion rights groups have filed suit to ask a judge to do away with a number of abortion-related laws in Arizona. This includes a 24-hour waiting period, a ban on telehealth for abortion procedures. Also, there’s a law that says, abortions are not allowed if the main reason is because of a genetic difference.
This is something that abortion rights groups have been talking about doing for a while right, to in their mind, align all of the laws in the state with regard to abortion with the constitutional amendment that was approved in November.
BOLDING: Yeah. So right now, I think it’s important to know that you have a number of individuals throughout this state who decided to go to the ballot box and say, “What restrictions do we want and what restrictions don’t we want when it comes to abortion and abortion rights?”
When you talk about ultrasounds and telemedicine, these are things that, in order to have an abortion like these are not prerequisites that you need to go through. In many cases, these are things that are intended to make it much more difficult for individuals to go through and have abortions.
But I do think that it is going to be important to get it off the books, things that have not been in line with where voters are today. And it’s going to be important for us to make sure that the rights ultimately of women are going to be protected.
BRODIE: I want to ask you about, obviously, there is a human element to an abortion for the people who are involved. The women involved. But I’m wondering also about the political implications here. This is a political show, after all. Lawsuits tend to move sort of at their own speed. Is there a chance that this also brings abortion back as an issue in 2026?
BOLDING: I feel like the conversation around abortion has been one that’s happened over the last several cycles. You’re always going to talk about health care and women’s health. That’s going to be an issue, as it should be when you have things such as Medicaid and a whole number of issues related to health that are front and foremost.
But I ultimately think that for some folks, they’re going to want to make sure that at the end of the day, that women’s health care and abortion is is a topic.
BRODIE: Marcus, Democrats were really banking on abortion last year in the election. And with the exception of Prop 139. — which did pass and pass pretty handily — it didn’t really help Democrats otherwise.
DELL’ARTINO: No. I was going to say, if that is part of the strategy, it is a terrible strategy. It’s been proven. Look, this was a strategy that was implemented by the White House to go into these swing states and come up with these measures. And they thought it would help the president in down ticket. And it didn’t.
And the proof is in the pudding when you have a Republican Congress, Republican Senate, Republican president, the state Legislature numbers went up. So if that is your strategy, I would urge you to go back to the drawing board and start focusing on those primary issues where voters were, which was immigration and the economy.
BRODIE: Taking the politics out of it for a minute, we’ll sort of go full circle here. For the groups that are advocating for this lawsuit, that are pushing this lawsuit, in their mind, the constitutional amendment makes it pretty clear that these other laws should no longer be on the books. Is that a debate, you think, that is worth having?
DELL’ARTINO: It’s certainly a debate to have. I don’t think it’s as simple as just saying, “Hey, the voters want abortion to happen and therefore every single abortion law that we’ve passed since the 1980s just needs to come off the books.”
This is a highly detailed process, where a judge is going to have to examine each specific state statute and how that conflicts with the voter-approved measure that the voters did. And I would just guess that there are a number of those — because we’ve been doing this for so long — there’s a number of those that are not in conflict with the measure, that may stick.
BRODIE: Do you anticipate — the question has been brought up, who’s going to defend these laws? Because generally that would be the attorney general. But she’s made it pretty clear she’s not going to do it. Does it seem like this is something the House speaker, Senate president maybe step up and do?
DELL’ARTINO: On first glance, that’s what I’m guessing is going to happen. And there’s certainly been many cases where they have done that. And so I will not be surprised. If not, it will be another organization.
BRODIE: Do you have a gut feeling as to, is this like a legislative kind of thing, maybe a private group that they would ask to do it?
BOLDING: I think that they will probably, you know, kick it to a private group. I mean, one of the things that while abortion, when you’re having the conversation around its implications of the election in 2024 or 2022, there’s no Republican lawmaker from the president on down and wants to stand up and say that they’re against women having the right to have an abortion.
So I don’t think that the Senate President or the speaker of the House, they’re going to want to put their political capital on a line trying out, trying to fight this.
BRODIE: Reginald, speaking of legislative leadership, the House speaker this week, they came back into session for a day, decided to take another couple of weeks off for their continued work on the budget, presumably some other stuff.
I’m curious what you make of the fact we’re, what, like five weeks away now from the end of the fiscal year? It seems as though budget meetings between the legislature and the governor’s office have not really happened. There have been some talks that the House and Senate aren’t necessarily on the same page with each other, just among Republican leadership.
Are we are we at the point yet where we should be concerned?
BOLDING: I would say that I could see this coming a mile away. When you have former lawmakers who were out of the Legislature — particularly Republican lawmakers, who now get their shot to come back in, they’ve gained sort of a new sense of wisdom in the way they want to legislate. So the idea that lawmakers in intracaucus and then also different caucuses aren’t on the same page, I think it makes sense.
While they eventually come up with something and have a conversation with the governor’s office? I think so. But I do think that it is challenging. And what I’m hearing from folks is that there are some deep divides within the Republican caucus on how to spend additional revenue.
BRODIE: I’m curious, having served in the Legislature for as long as you did, what do you make of the idea of taking a break, of not having all 90 lawmakers at the Capitol essentially, with not that much to do? Good idea? Not great idea?
BOLDING: Well, I’ll put my legislative leadership hat on for a second. The worst thing that you want is a group of lawmakers with nothing to do in the building. That’s not what you want. So if you’re the budget negotiation team or legislative leadership, you want to be able to actually control the environment that you’re in and be able to have those conversations.
But with all of the members, all of the caucus, there’s no way that they’re going to have control. So I think it’s a strategy that, you know, I understand it.
BRODIE: Marcus, you’re nodding your head as Reginald was saying you don’t want all 90 lawmakers sitting around with nothing to do.
DELL’ARTINO: Two hundred percent agree with him. Back in the good old days, when I was 25 years younger, 100 days was the mark you wanted to hit. And they were out at 100 days. And there wasn’t a whole lot of grasping at straws. There wasn’t huge fights. The money was the money, and what we could spend is what we could spend.
In today’s day and age, the only thing that helps during this process is a deadline. And the deadline for the state of Arizona is June 30. So as the pressure starts to build, the compromise starts to build. And I think that that will be the number one motivator to getting a budget done.
But I would point out that the other complicating factor in here is that revenue numbers have changed dramatically.
BRODIE: Yeah. And could change dramatically further.
DELL’ARTINO: Exactly. And so there’s sort of bumping up and down, and so getting a straight-line number — I would argue you really don’t know where you are until June, because those are based on the May numbers to see how much revenue you actually do have to spend.
And so in this particular case, I think it actually might help to go a little bit longer, so you have more certainty on what those revenue numbers are.
BRODIE: Briefly before we go to break, Marcus, it sounds like you’re not in sort of a concerned point right now. Like, you don’t think it’s a problem that we are where we are now.
DELL’ARTINO: No. Do I like it? No. As I’ve told many a member down there: Look, if you can help a brother out. I got kids that are out of school and you having to be down here all the time while my kids are out of school is not super helpful. But I knew it was coming in January, so it’s not like it’s a shock to the system.
