An attorney for the Friends of David Schweikert Committee filed a Motion to Disqualify Judicial Officer for Cause in the Maricopa County Superior Court.
The motion, submitted to Presiding Judge Joseph C. Welty, pertains to the case assigned to Judge John H. Hannah Jr. The case, Hammon v. Friends of David Schweikert, involves a defamation allegation during the 2022 Arizona primary campaign during Schweikert’s contentious battle with challenger Elijah Norton.
The defendants filing the motion – David and Joyce Schweikert, Friends of David Schweikert, and Americans for Accountability in Leadership – took this action “based on newly discovered information that indicates a political preference on the part of Judge Hannah that Defendant Congressman David Schweikert cease to be a member of Congress.”
Schweikert’s attorney, Tim LaSota, wrote in the motion that he “first received information about various political donations that Judge Hannah made that, based on their nature, require disqualification. Specifically, Judge Hannah contributed money in September of 2019 to Hiral Tipirneni, who was at that time running for the congressional seat held by David Schweikert. In addition, Judge Hannah has given money to an entity called Movement Voter PAC, most recently in September 2020. According to the left-wing site ‘Blue Tent,’ Movement Voter PAC is one of the premier groups to give money to if one wanted to ‘help Democrats Win in Arizona this Year,’ and specifically, ‘we recommend giving to the Movement Voter Project Arizona Fund.’ Judge Hannah also contributed $50.00 to a group called ‘One Nation United,’ dedicated to ridding Congress of Republicans, or at least diminishing their numbers such that the Democratic Party Controls Congress.”
The motion states that “Judge Hannah never disclosed his direct political opposition to Congressman Schweikert.” The filing argues, “To avoid appearances of impropriety, judges have obligations of disclosure and candor, including disclosing any reason why they might be perceived as biased on the case (or they actually are), and any sources of information outside the evidence that has been presented to them, as well as giving parties the opportunity to rebut such evidence. Canon 2.11 provides that ‘[a] judge shall disqualify himself or herself in any proceeding in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned, including but not limited to the following circumstances: [t]he judge has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party or a party’s lawyer…’” It goes on to make the case that “Judge Hannah has made no mention of these specific anti-Schweikert and general anti-Republican political activities during the course of this matter.” And the filing adds, “Judge Hannah’s undisclosed history of backing candidates and causes directly opposed to Congressman Schweikert merits disqualification.”
The Friends of David Schweikert Committee provided the following quote to AZ Free News on the revelations contained in the recently filed motion: “Like all Arizonans, we trust that all judges will take all appropriate steps to avoid bias and impropriety or the appearance of bias or impropriety. At the same time, we would hope that all members of the judiciary will ensure their political activities and donations do not undermine the public’s trust in our judicial system or bring it into disrepute.”
LaSota’s motion makes the point that “Judges will typically recuse at the slightest notion of improper conduct or actual bias, and at the minimum they will disclose issues of ethical conern. When judges fail to do so, they risk stepping outside their anticipated roles as neutral and respected decision-makers and into the role of a partial advocate, which imperils our entire system of justice.”
Former Arizona Legislator Vince Leach would be in agreement of that statement. He told AZ Free News that “After reading the Motion to Disqualify Judicial Officer for Cause, it is disappointing and disturbing that a judge hearing a case involving a United States Congressman would not have seen it proper to recuse himself from this case. Our court system is already looked upon as bifurcated at best, and this does not help that appearance. Arizonans expect fair and unbiased judges. Steps should be taken to make sure that all relevant ethics standards are applied to this judge as warranted through a thorough investigation.”
The motion states that “the Comment to (Ariz. R. Sup.Ct. 81) Canon 3 provides that ‘[a]n independent judiciary requires that judges decide cases according to the law and facts, without regard to whether particular laws or litigants are popular or unpopular with the public, the media…Confidence in the judiciary is eroded if judicial decision making is perceived to be subject to inappropriate outside influences.’ Judge Hannah hearing this case of action is precisely the type of situation that Canon 3, and the other legal authorities, warn of.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
The city of Phoenix plans to hike various water rates over the next two years by 25 percent minimum, and cut water allowances by up to 20 percent.
The city has proposed to increase its water rate by 26 percent and wastewater fees by 25 percent over the next two years — and likely more for commercial and industrial customers. They also proposed to cut water allowances by 20 percent in the warmer months of June through September (from nearly 7,500 gallons to just under 6,000 gallons) and just over 16 percent in the cooler months (from about 4,500 gallons to about 3,700 gallons).
The Phoenix City Council will consider the proposed increases at some point this month, then take a final vote come June.
Have questions about the proposed rate increase for #PHXWater? We're here to help! Learn more tonight at 6:30 p.m. at the Desert View Village Planning Committee meeting.
The Phoenix Water Services Department stated that additional revenue was necessary to cover higher expenses, improvements on aging infrastructure, development of advanced water purification options, protection of the department’s bond rating, and meeting new stormwater permit requirements.
The department blamed rising costs and both current and anticipated inflationary pressures for the rate increases. Included within the proposed changes were allowances to encourage water conservation, which the department noted may result in an additional $4 charge to some customers come October. This includes an average 25-cent increase beginning in October within the Stormwater Excise Tax (about $3 a year), which pays for compliance with the Federal Clean Water Act.
#DYK#PHXWater uses January, February, and March City Services Bill to calculate your sewer charges for the year? Those 3 months are typically the lowest water use months of the year.
The rate increases will be divided out into three parts over the next two years. For the water usage fee, there would be a 6.5 percent increase (about $2) in October, another 6.5 percent increase in March 2024, and a 13 percent increase in March 2025. For the wastewater service, there would be a 6.5 percent increase ($1.60) in October, another 6.5 percent increase in March 2024, and a 7 percent increase in March 2025.
The department shared that cost increases through the 2023-24 fiscal year were as follows: raw water, 35 percent; water electricity, 12 percent; water chemicals, 136 percent; water personnel, 38 percent; wastewater electricity, 17 percent; wastewater chemicals, 51 percent; and wastewater personnel, 16 percent.
The city noted in its water allowance assessment that only 31 percent of all household bills on average have consumption levels within the existing allowance, first enacted in 1990. Yet, the city stated that the proposed cuts would better align with current average water usage; the city also stated that the cuts would reset the ratio between average water consumption and allowance levels to match those set in 1990, thereby better reflecting the city’s past successes in water conservation efforts.
The cuts would result in nine percent less households falling within the allowance, or 22 percent. The city expressed hopefulness in its report that these cuts would bring the city closer to water conservation goals.
“A larger portion of a customer’s water usage under the volumetric (actual use) rate and not the flat base charge (allowance) will generate a stronger water usage signal to our customers,” stated the city. “The expectation is that a better understanding of usage will encourage people to use less water, helping the City reach its conservation goals.”
As one of only two mayors in the U.S. delegation at the @UN Water Conference this week, I've been proud to share the innovative work we’ve been doing in Phoenix to conserve and secure our water supply. pic.twitter.com/EHiyZ3ZHXo
The city anticipated a $17 million increase in water revenue from the proposed rate increases.
The city began hosting village planning meetings in March and will continue doing so through May to gather public comments on the rate increases. Those interested in attending an upcoming meeting may find the schedule on the water services department’s page, or submit public comment online.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Arizona State University (ASU) and Northern Arizona University (NAU) announced Monday that they would begin banning TikTok from their campuses.
In statements to media outlets, the universities cited orders from the Biden administration regarding federal contractors as the rationale for walking back their usage of the platform.
Both ASU and NAU said they would begin deactivating their university-affiliated accounts beginning on Monday. One of ASU’s main accounts, @arizonastateuniversity, last posted in February. One of NAU’s main accounts, @nausocial, last posted a recruitment video to the platform on Monday.
Initial information provided by an ASU spokesperson relayed that ASU would block access to TikTok on its WiFi and university networks. However, in a revised statement, ASU noted that the ban would concern ASU-managed devices, not student devices accessing university networks.
“TikTok will no longer be allowed to be installed on ASU-managed devices as the university takes steps following President Biden’s recent order for federal contractors,” stated ASU.
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued the order in late February, giving federal agencies and contractors up to 30 days to comply. OMB Director Shalanda Young cited the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 as the basis for the guidance.
The act instructed the OMB, the administrator of General Services, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the director of National Intelligence, and the secretary of Defense to craft guidance removing TikTok from government devices.
According to the OMB guidance, federal agencies are currently in the second phase of this order: 90 days of ensuring compliance and ceasing contracts with the noncompliant. The third phase directs federal agencies to ensure compliance in future contracts and solicitations for 120 days.
The act made exceptions to the ban for law enforcement activities, national security interests and activities, and security research. However, each exercise of this exception must be given via approval and documentation from an agency head or their designee on an annual basis.
Then last month, a TikTok spokesperson claimed to multiple media outlets that the Biden administration demanded that its parent company, ByteDance, either sell TikTok or face a nationwide ban. The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee had voted earlier in the month to given Biden the power to ban the app.
As tensions between the Biden administration and TikTok mounted, the White House faced scrutiny for posting a video reportedly created using another app owned by ByteDance: CapCut.
Biden has also faced criticisms for his use of TikTok influencers for the past two years to attract younger voters, inviting controversial figures like transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney and LGBTQ entertainer Benito Skinner (Benny Drama) to the White House.
The Biden administration also authorized thousands in cash payments to create an “influencer army” using TikTok stars. One of them, Ellie Zeiler, was asked to push Biden administration messaging on the Ukraine war, rising gas prices, and historic inflation rates onto her 10 million followers.
NEW: I’ve obtained the *Confidential* White House PR email sent to TikTok influencers begging them to “do an intimate” zoom call with Dr. Fauci.
The Goldwater Institute announced on Tuesday that they submitted a supportive brief in a lawsuit accusing Washington Elementary School District (WESD) of discriminating against Christians.
WESD decided to end its contract with Arizona Christian University (ACU) earlier this year over the school’s religious beliefs. The lawsuit was filed initially by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) on behalf of ACU early last month.
WESD is the largest elementary school district in the state, and had partnered with ACU for 11 years without issue, according to court documents.
In their press release, the Goldwater Institute claimed that WESD violated the constitutional rights of free speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of association for both ACU and its students to free speech. The Goldwater Institute further claimed that WESD’s actions ran afoul of the Arizona Constitution’s “religious test” clauses, which prohibit the government from discriminating based on religion when making hiring decisions.
The organization also pointed out that WESD committed the alleged discrimination despite grappling with an ongoing, historic teacher shortage like other districts.
In the Goldwater Institute’s amicus, or “friend-of-the-court,” brief, the organization said that WESD had unconstitutionally conditioned employment based on ACU’s faith.
“Defendants’ hostility toward Christians is apparently so intense that they cut off a long-standing teacher training program during an historic nationwide teacher shortage, simply because the teachers attended Arizona Christian University (ACU)—a school that espouses traditional Christian beliefs on its website,” said the organization.
ACU believes in Biblical teachings on marriage and sexuality, including that “God created man and woman in His image and likeness, that God wonderfully and immutably creates each person as male or female, and that God intends sexual intimacy to occur only between a man and woman who are married to each other,” per court filings.
AZ Free News first broke the story about WESD’s alleged discrimination. The ultimate decision to cut ties with ACU traces back to public comments from WESD Governing Board Member Tamillia Valenzuela.
Valenzuela — a self-described neurodivergent, queer furry — declared during a board meeting that ACU’s mission of prioritizing Jesus Christ’s teachings didn’t align with WESD priorities. In previous board meetings, Valenzuela has decried any Christian presence at WESD. In contemplating whether to continue the district’s contract with Grand Canyon University (GCU), Valenzuela insisted that WESD should cut ties there as well due to the university being a private Christian institution.
“I am wondering if there’s other options available, one so we are not actively engaging with an institution that’s causing harm and also so we can have options that are not based on a certain faith,” said Valenzuela.
ADF has asked for a preliminary injunction in the case. Their filing outlined various grievances against WESD in regard to their opposition against ACU for its religious beliefs. This included WESD governing board member remarks accusing ACU student teachers of being “openly bigoted,” causing LGBTQ+ people to feel “unsafe.”
“The School District’s policy therefore is loud and clear: Christians with disfavored beliefs are neither welcome nor allowed to serve in the District,” stated ADF.
There will be oral arguments in the case, Arizona Christian University v. Washington Elementary School District, next Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. at the Sandra Day O’Connor courthouse.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Another legislative attempt to give Arizona law enforcement more space to do its job is meeting resistance from Democrats.
SB 1047, sponsored by Senator John Kavanagh, “expands the criminal classifications of third degree criminal trespass and refusing to aid a peace officer,” according to the purpose provided by the State Senate. The bill “classifies as third degree criminal trespass, knowingly entering or remaining at the site of a natural disaster, a traffic accident or another type of accident, a civil disturbance or an active law enforcement investigation, if there is active law enforcement intervention into criminal activity at the site and law enforcement communicates that public access is restricted.”
The bill also “classifies, as refusing to aid a peace officer, refusing to remain at a reasonable distance, as determined by the peace officer, from the location where the peace officer is actively intervening in a dangerous or potentially violent criminal occurrence with another person who is threatening or agitated or who appears to be emotionally unstable.”
In March, SB 1047 passed the Senate with a party-line 16-12 vote – with two members not voting (Gonzales and Diaz). It had previously cleared the Senate Committee on Military Affairs, Public Safety, and Border Security with a 4-3 vote, and the Rules Committee with a 4-3 tally.
After the Senate voted to approved SB 1047, the House wasted no time to start its consideration of this legislation. The House Committee on Military Affairs & Public Safety passed the bill – also along party lines – with an 8-7 vote.
Legislative Democrats have strongly opposed this bill throughout the session. The Arizona Senate Democrats Caucus tweeted, “Did you know? SB 1047 would reduce police accountability.”
— Arizona Senate Democrats (@AZSenateDems) March 1, 2023
The Arizona House Democrats also shared similar concerns with the bill this week, writing, “Sen. John Kavanagh’s unconstitutional attempt last year to prevent filming police activity never went into effect because no attorneys would defend it. So now he’s back in House Public Safety Committee with SB 1047 which would prevent observing police activity.”
Representatives from the Arizona Association of Counties and the Arizona Police Association supported SB 1047, while representatives from the State Conference NAACP, Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona opposed its passage.
The bill now awaits its fate in the Arizona House of Representatives.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
The question before the appellate court is whether Arizona’s 15 counties are restricted to performing a hand count audit of only a very small percent of machine tabulated ballots, or if a county’s Board of Supervisors (BOS) have authority to demand a higher audit percent—even 100 percent—of those ballots to check the accuracy of the electronic tabulation.
The issue dates back to October 2022 when the Cochise County BOS approved a Resolution to have County Recorder David Stevens conduct a hand count audit of all ballots cast in-person on election day at the county’s 17 voting centers. The Resolution was challenged in court by the Arizona Alliance of Retired Americans (AARA).
Cochise County came out on the losing end of the case, which cost taxpayers nearly $90,000 in attorney’s fees to AARA. Now, the matter is in front of the Court of Appeals, with the county seeking to be vindicated for its hand count audit plan.
AARA filed its answering brief to the appeal last week. It asks for the county’s appeal to be dismissed as moot.
“Not only is the 2022 election over, but the mandatory audits prescribed by law have been conducted, and the election results were canvassed and certified,” AARA’s brief argues.
But if the Court of Appeals decides to weigh in on the question of whether Cochise County had authority to order a full hand count audit – of the early ballots, election day ballots, or both – then AARA argues the answer is no.
“Appellants are only legally authorized to conduct hand count audits in accordance with these statutorily prescribed procedures and cannot require a hand count audit of all ballots,” the brief argues. “Hand count audits must start with small, random samples for a limited number of races, and expand only on an individual race basis and only if hand counts repeatedly differ from electronic tabulations by more than a designated margin for error.”
AARA’s brief ignores the policy issue of whether an expanded hand count audit process would be better than the current law it claims is controlling.
Cochise County has until April 17 to file a reply brief with the Court of Appeals. There is no deadline for when a ruling must be issued.
The supervisors in favor of the expanded audit were Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd, who took the position that “many voters” lacked confidence in the voting system. A 100 percent audit of in-person election day ballots was justified, they argued, to “enhance voter confidence.”
The Resolution passed on a 2 to 1 vote on Oct. 24, 2022. AARA and one of its local members sued the county the next week, seeking a court order enjoining, or barring, anyone from complying with the Resolution.
Judge Casey McGinley was brought in from Pima County Superior Court by Cochise County’s presiding judge to hear the case. McGinley ruled one day before Election Day that the county and Stevens could not engage in the expanded hand count audit.
McGinley went one step further, ruling that there could also be no full audit of early ballots.
According to McGinley, ARS 16-602(B) requires the audit of ballots casts at voting centers on election day to be “randomly selected.” Selecting 100 percent of those ballots from the start would render the statutory language and the mechanism for a limited expansion of the hand count audit superfluous, he noted.
McGinley further ruled that ARS 16-602(F) establishes 5,000 as the maximum number of early ballots which may be initially part of a hand count audit, despite contradictory language included in the EPM which states counties “may elect to audit a higher number of ballots at their discretion.”
In its appeal, the Cochise County defendants contend hand count audits based on a random sampling of ballots was intended to prevent election officials from auditing races for improper purposes. There would be no concern with how certain races were selected if 100 percent were audited, they contend.
If the Cochise County BOS loses on appeal, attorneys for AARA have asked for a new order requiring the county to pay the group’s court costs and attorney’s fees in connection with the appeal.
Cochise County taxpayers are also on the hook for the fees paid to the attorney for the supervisors and Stevens, including during the appeal.
Terri Jo Neff is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or send her news tips here.
