Arizona Supreme Court Justices Bolick And King Rate High For Their Judicial Independence

by Daniel Stefanski | Sep 27, 2024 | News

By Daniel Stefanski |

Two of Arizona’s Supreme Court justices are facing a fight for their future tenure on the bench.

This November, Arizona voters will have the opportunity to retain two key votes on the state’s high court, Justices Clint Bolick and Kathryn King. Both justices have demonstrated a consistent standard for standing on the principle of the law, not politics, though their stances have often angered outside interests – including the groups now attempting to remove them from the court.

Bolick and King were appointed by former Arizona Governor Doug Ducey. Bolick received his appointment to the Arizona Supreme Court in 2016, while King obtained hers in 2021. Both justices served in the private sector as attorneys prior to making their journey to the state court.

According to the Arizona Commission on Judicial Performance Review (JPR), both Bolick and King received extremely high marks to meet the standards on the merits of their decisions. The Commission “exists to provide meaningful and accurate information to the public for its use in voting on the justices and judges appointed to the bench through merit selection.” In his average of all evaluation categories, Bolick acquired 97% or greater. King had 90% and over for her categories. The JPR is used for voter recommendations for each cycle’s judicial retention elections.

For most voters in Arizona, judicial retention contests are often met with more apathy than any other selection(s) on their ballots. In recent elections, however, outside groups have put more of a target on judges for increased voter scrutiny, leading to the addition of Bolick and King with this year’s ballot choices. This is Bolick’s second retention election and King’s first.

Earlier this year, Bolick and King drew the ire of progressive groups after their votes in a controversial abortion case. The group helping to lead the efforts to oust the two justices, Protect Abortion Rights Arizona, posted on its website, “Arizonans need a fair judiciary that will protect our rights. This year, Arizona voters will decide whether to vote out two of the Supreme Court justices who voted to uphold the total, 160-year old abortion ban.”

In an op-ed published in The Arizona Republic this past May, Bolick explained his vote on the abortion case. He wrote, “Serious commentators, liberal and conservative, who actually read the decision (which I encourage voters to do), agree it is solidly grounded in law. We had before us not a question of policy, or even of constitutionality, but simply whether the Legislature in 2022, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, restored an earlier abortion restriction. After careful analysis, we concluded it did.”

The high-profile justice continued: “I cannot count the number of cases in which I have voted against my policy preferences. One example is when Gov. Doug Ducey vetoed nearly two dozen conservative bills over a budget dispute with the Legislature. They were passed again, then challenged by the Arizona School Boards Association. We struck them all down because they were passed unconstitutionally as part of the budget rather than as standalone bills.”

The case that Bolick was referring to in his piece was Arizona School Boards Association v. Arizona. The plaintiffs had challenged four budget reconciliation bills – HB 2898, SB 1824, SB 1825, and SB 1819. The court unanimously decided that the bills were void in part because of they violated the title requirement, and that SB 1819 was entirely void because it violated the single subject rule. Justice Bolick factored into the decision of the court, yet King recused herself. According to the court, the Arizona constitution “requires that appropriations beyond the scope of the general appropriations bill ‘shall be made by separate bills, each embracing but one subject.’”

As the court wrote in its conclusion, “We respect the role of the legislature in the discharge of its constitutional duties, including in its budgetary processes, and we heed our constitution’s fundamental premise that the division of powers necessarily impels judicial restraint, particularly in the realm of lawmaking. But this Court’s constitutional duty to interpret and apply the constitution requires us to invalidate a law if it infringes the constitution. Thus, today we do not intrude upon the legislature’s unique constitutional authority; instead, we merely exercise our own such authority to interpret, apply, and enforce the Arizona Constitution’s command that the legislature’s acts comply with the title requirement and the single subject rule.”

Judicial Independence Defense PAC has taken the side of Bolick and King, working to convince enough voters to retain these two justices in the upcoming fall election. The group warns that these retentions have been grossly politicized, and that Arizonans will pay the price if Bolick and King are removed from the bench. The PAC states, “From the federal level on down, we’ve seen politics creep its way into the judicial branch. But our courts should be independent, and in Arizona they have been. According to published media reports, out-of-state liberal groups like the National Democratic Redistricting Committee and Planned Parenthood Votes have budgeted $5 million to take over Arizona’s Court and defeat Justices Clint Bolick and Kate King. If they succeed, liberal Governor Katie Hobbs will get to choose their replacements, giving liberals a majority on the Arizona Supreme Court for the first time.”

These cautionary words from the Judicial Independence PAC echoes what Bolick also penned in his aforementioned op-ed. Bolick said, “The groups opposing us need a serious civics lesson about the role of the courts. Nowhere in their materials will you read about the importance of an independent judiciary in protecting our free society. Instead, they think we should decide cases based on the ‘will of the people.’ How do we determine that? Commission a poll? Convene a focus group? Simply assume the Legislature always reflects the will of the people?”

Bolick answered his questions with a quote from the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, saying, “As Justice O’Connor put it following her retirement, ‘the judiciary should not respond to public opinion in its individual decisions,’ but instead should be ‘accountable to the public for its constitutional role of applying the law fairly and impartially.’ That is what the iconic image of the scales of justice is all about.”

Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.