Attorney General Kris Mayes’ five new selections to the Arizona Civil Rights Advisory Board (ACRAB) are all progressive Democrats, challenging her characterization of the board as “politically balanced.”
These latest ACRAB additions are Heather Ross, Enrique Davis-Mazlum, Justin Weinstein-Tull, Holli Ploog, and Lydia Peirce Linsmeier.
Ross and Weinstein-Tull are Arizona State University professors. Ross specializes in health equity and policy, while Weinstein-Tull specializes in constitutional law, state and local courts and governments, and election law. However, both were highly supportive of centralized COVID-19 government responses and oversight.
As a special advisor to Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego from 2019 to 2022, Ross was principally behind the mask mandates and ordinances. Ross also advocated for an expansive COVID-19 contact tracing team to ensure quarantining. In a 2022 paper, Weinstein-Tull advocated for increasing the power of the federal government, citing the COVID-19 pandemic as justification.
Ross is also, notably, an elected precinct committee person and state party delegate for the Arizona Democratic Party, and was a Democratic congressional candidate in 2018.
During her 2018 run, Ross advocated for progressive policies such as stricter gun control, expanding Medicare and Medicaid, and expanding clean energy.
Ross also chairs both the Arizona Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Phoenix Women’s Commission.
Weinstein-Tull signed onto a letter opposing now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the highest court, along with 13 other ASU professors.
Weinstein-Tull formerly served as a DOJ Civil Rights Division trial attorney and clerked with Ninth Circuit Justice Sidney Thomas.
Davis-Mazlum holds a doctorate in Gender Equality in Politics, noted for his defense of secularism while promoting gender equality and human rights. Davis-Mazlum has led several prominent progressive organizations: he was Arizona State Director for UnidosUS and UnidosUS Action Fund, campaign director for LUCHA Blue Campaign, and organizer for Voter Choice Arizona.
Through these groups, Davis-Mazlum has advanced progressive agendas, such as legalizing illegal immigration and abortion, and backed Democratic candidates for office: President Joe Biden, along with congressional candidates Ruben Gallego, Raquel Teran, and Kirsten Engel.
Holli Ploog is the vice mayor of Sedona, endorsed by pro-abortion Democratic organization Arizona List. Ploog is on the Democrats of the Red Rocks Board of Directors, and a supporter of progressive policies to address climate change.
On her reelection website, Ploog is seen posing with Governor Katie Hobbs. Ploog also pledged her support for Senator Mark Kelly back in 2020 during his reelection bid.
Ploog was the sole dissenting vote on a council plan allowing the homeless with full-time jobs to sleep in their cars in a parking lot at Sedona Cultural Park. Ploog voted against the plan due to the uproar from constituents.
Peirce Linsmeier works as an attorney specializing in fair housing, and serves as a board member for Disability Rights Arizona. Concerning disabilities, Peirce Linsmeier recently defended President Joe Biden’s reelection bid: she compared 32nd president Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s physical disability (paralyzation from polio necessitating a wheelchair) to Biden’s apparent mental disability (a cognitive impairment resembling dementia).
“FDR used a wheelchair, and he did a pretty good job as president. Mobility aids have nothing to do with competence. #ableism,” wrote Peirce Linsmeier on LinkedIn.
In a press release, Mayes explained that these five additions provided much-needed expertise to ACRAB.
“Their contributions will be invaluable as we work together to advance justice for all Arizonans,” said Mayes.
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Attorney General Kris Mayes, a pro-choice Democrat, applauded the Supreme Court’s ruling on the controversial abortion drug, mifepristone.
Mayes issued a press release on Thursday in response to the Court’s ruling that the doctors and medical groups suing to roll back the FDA’s expansion of access to mifepristone had lack of standing, or the legal right to sue. The Supreme Court ruled that the doctors and medical groups couldn’t show that they would be harmed directly by the FDA’s mifepristone policies, specifically citing past rulings in which courts were determined to not be the forums for all “general complaints about the way in which government goes about its business.”
I applaud the unanimous decision by the US Supreme Court to uphold nationwide access to the drug Mifepristone. I will never stop fighting against any attempts to restrict the rights of Arizonans to make their own healthcare decisions without interference.
— AZ Attorney General Kris Mayes (@AZAGMayes) June 13, 2024
Although the High Court’s ruling hinged on the technicality of the plaintiffs’ identities, the attorney general depicted the ruling as supportive of mifepristone’s safety and efficacy.
“Millions of Americans have used Mifepristone safely and effectively for over two decades,” said Mayes. “By reversing the disastrous ruling by the Fifth Circuit, today’s decision will save lives and avoid widespread confusion among providers, distributors, pharmacies, and patients.”
Mayes also indicated that she would support those fights to expand abortion access. Arizona law currently restricts abortions to 15 weeks.
“I will never stop fighting against any attempts to restrict the rights of Arizonans to make their own healthcare decisions without interference from anti-abortion politicians and activists,” said Mayes.
The author of the Court’s opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, admitted that the doctors and medical groups turned away for lack of standing had “sincere legal, moral, ideological, and policy objections” to mifepristone.
The FDA approved mifepristone over 20 years ago during the Clinton administration through a controversial fast-tracked approval process. The FDA reclassified pregnancy as a “serious or life-threatening illness,” with mifepristone therefore validated as a “meaningful therapeutic benefit.”
The Governmental Accountability Office issued a 2008 report highlighting the criticization of the FDA’s reclassification.
“Critics have argued that unwanted pregnancy should not be considered a serious or life-threatening illness,” read the report.
The FDA restrictions such as a risk evaluation mitigation strategy have faced rollback considerations on mifepristone as well.
The lawsuit at the center of this most recent Supreme Court ruling was prompted by the FDA’s announcement in 2021 that it would no longer enforce an initial in-person visit for practitioners to prescribe mifepristone.
Past court rulings and research have indicated that there have been thousands of adverse event cases from mifepristone.
The attorney general has been a vocal and repeat proponent of mifepristone.
Mayes joined an amicus brief last May advocating for the federal approval of the abortion drug. Since taking office earlier last year, Mayes encouraged major pharmacy chains to continue to offer mifepristone regardless of the ongoing or potential legal challenges.
The attorney general also launched a Reproductive Rights Unit tasked with advancing pathways for abortion, such as taking on legal challenges against medical providers and offering guidance to women on hiding their data when seeking abortion.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
Days after Republican legislators warned of possible ethical repercussions over Democrat Attorney General Kris Mayes’ public statements against the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program, a private citizen filed a formal complaint against Arizona’s top prosecutor.
On May 31, according to a document received and reviewed by AZ Free News, Charlie Schinke of Chandler filed a charge against Attorney General Mayes with the State Bar of Arizona.
Schinke requests “that the Bar Counsel initiate an investigation to determine whether attorney (and Attorney General) Kristin K. Mayes has breached the foundational duties of loyalty and confidentiality she owes to her clients, in violation of Arizona Rules of Professional Conduct 1.6 and 1.7.” The Chandler resident writes, “In just the last month, Ms. Mayes appeared on television to threaten one of her clients with an investigation that could carry potential criminal dimensions, and publicly admonished another client in letters that she distributed in a press release.” He asserts that “the Attorney General serves state agencies as a counselor and confidante; she does not (and cannot) control, regulate or punish them.”
The two allegations that Schinke uses to base his complaint, are Mayes’ April 17 letter to Director Thomas Buschatzke of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, where she “launched into an extended critique of the agency’s studies of so-called active management areas and demanded that Director Buschatzke supply her with documentation evidencing the agency’s compliance with its responsibilities;” and her May 21 interview, in which Mayes “announced that her office ‘is going to be looking at fraud, waste and abuse in the universal school voucher program.’”
Schinke cites Arizona case law that reflects the lawful containment of the Attorney General’s duties, highlighting a portion of Brnovich v. Arizona Board of Regents, which says, “In Arizona, unlike some other states, the Attorney General has no inherent or common law authority… [T]he authority of the Attorney General must be found in statute.” He writes that “the legislature has designated the Attorney General the ‘chief legal officer of the state,’ and in that capacity she is ‘the legal advisor of the departments of this state and [must] render such legal services as the departments require.’”
The author of the complaint ends his letter to the State Bar with two charges, stating, “Attorney General Mayes’ public criticisms of, and threats to investigate her clients are inconsistent with her duties of confidentiality and loyalty.”
Schinke reminded the Bar about a previous case it considered. In that case, former Attorney General Mark Brnovich faced charges due to allegations that “his public criticisms of, and adverse legal actions against, the agency violated his ethical responsibilities.” Schinke ends his letter, pleading with the Bar to exercise the “same scrutiny” with Attorney General Mayes “that her predecessor received,” adding a line about the “Bar’s self-professed commitment to non-partisanship.”
Schinke’s letter comes just six days after a bicameral group of Republican lawmakers, led by Senate President Warren Petersen and House Speaker Ben Toma, transmitted a letter to Mayes, demanding that she “publicly retract (her) patently false statements attacking ESAs and impugning the motives of thousands of parents that use ESAs to provide the best education for their children.” In their letter, the legislators write: “Of course, Arizona’s Ethical Rules do not tolerate the initiation of criminal proceedings absent probable cause to believe that any parent has committed a crime. See Arizona Ethical Rule 3.8 (listing the special ethical responsibilities of a prosecutor). Further, it would raise ethical questions if a government attorney were to publicly insinuate that a current client is engaging in misconduct with no factual basis. See, e.g., Arizona Ethical Rule 1.7 (imposing a duty of loyalty to a current client).”
🚨BREAKING🚨 Legislative Leaders Demand AG Mayes Retract False Statements Regarding ESAs & to Use State Resources to Serve Interests of Arizonans, Not Politics!
“Parents have spoken and the Legislature has enacted ESAs into law. Your job, as an executive branch official, is to… pic.twitter.com/QgLvDcvsGY
— Arizona House Republicans (@AZHouseGOP) May 25, 2023
Mayes does not appear to have publicly commented on the complaint.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
Arizona Republican legislators have finally had enough of Democrat Attorney General Kris Mayes’ continuing assault on the state’s historic Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA) program.
On Thursday, a bicameral group of Republican lawmakers, led by Senate President Warren Petersen and House Speaker Ben Toma, transmitted a letter to Mayes, demanding that she “publicly retract (her) patently false statements attacking ESAs and impugning the motives of thousands of parents that use ESAs to provide the best education for their children.”
🚨BREAKING🚨 Legislative Leaders Demand AG Mayes Retract False Statements Regarding ESAs & to Use State Resources to Serve Interests of Arizonans, Not Politics!
“Parents have spoken and the Legislature has enacted ESAs into law. Your job, as an executive branch official, is to… pic.twitter.com/QgLvDcvsGY
— Arizona House Republicans (@AZHouseGOP) May 25, 2023
The accusations and demands in the letter stem from a recent television interview Mayes gave where she “claimed that ‘there are no controls’ on the ESA program, ‘no accountability,’ that ‘they’ (presumably parents) are ‘spending hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money,’ that this ‘needs to be looked at,’ and that it’s (her) ‘responsibility to do that’ as Arizona’s ‘top law enforcement officer.’”
The coalition of eight legislators (Senators T.J. Shope, Sonny Borrelli, and Sine Kerr, and Representatives Travis Grantham, Leo Biasiucci, and Teresa Martinez – along with Petersen and Toma) share their alarm “that the state’s chief legal officer would make such outlandish claims that are refuted by Arizona law.” They write that “Numerous statutory provisions in the ESA laws expressly require accountability, oversight, and investigations when appropriate. See, e.g., A.R.S. § 15-2403 (requiring, among other things, the Arizona Department of Education to conduct or contract for ‘random, quarterly and annual audits’ of ESAs ‘as needed to ensure compliance’, authorizing the Department to remove parents or qualified students if they fail to comply with the contract or applicable laws, rules or orders, and enabling the State Board of Education to refer cases ‘of substantial misuse of monies’ and suspected cases of fraud to the Attorney General).”
Republican Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne’s administration has been amenable to referring such cases of fraud or misuse of monies to the Attorney General as directed under law. In a tweet on March 1, the Arizona Department of Education responded to an account alleging misuse and / or fraud of ESA funds (in a post that has since been deleted), saying, “Please provide your relatives name, and we would like to refer her to Attorney General Kris Mayes. ESA dollars should only be spent on education.”
Please provide your relatives name, and we would like to refer her to Attorney General @KrisMayes. ESA dollars should only be spent on education. https://t.co/K88q32oTqN
— Arizona Department of Education (@azedschools) March 2, 2023
The Republicans warn Mayes that her rhetoric and threats are way beyond the statutory scope of her office, writing, “You have not cited a shred of evidence to suggest that either the Arizona Department of Education or the State Board of Education—both of whom you represent—have failed to comply with their statutory obligations, and there is no basis to believe that these agencies will disregard or refuse to follow the law in the future. And while you have a statutory responsibility to investigate matters that are referred to you, the Legislature did not authorize and does not condone the selective targeting or roving investigations of ESA parents.”
They also raise the issue of “ethics” that will be sure to catch the attention of the intended audience at Central Avenue and just north of McDowell. Over the past few years, then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs weaponized the Arizona State Bar and ethics rules against then-Attorney General Mark Brnovich, her political rival at the time, giving a very low standard of precedent for a reprisal against the state’s newest prosecutor. Hobbs didn’t just file bar complaints against Brnovich; she leveled the charges at several attorneys in his office over political disagreements between the two. In their letter to Mayes, the legislators write: “Of course, Arizona’s Ethical Rules do not tolerate the initiation of criminal proceedings absent probable cause to believe that any parent has committed a crime. See Arizona Ethical Rule 3.8 (listing the special ethical responsibilities of a prosecutor). Further, it would raise ethical questions if a government attorney were to publicly insinuate that a current client is engaging in misconduct with no factual basis. See, e.g., Arizona Ethical Rule 1.7 (imposing a duty of loyalty to a current client).”
The lawmakers end their letter with an appeal for Mayes to conform with the expectations and values of their shared constituents across the state, stating, “Arizonans expect the state’s chief legal officer to refrain from engaging in politically-motivated pursuits, threats, or lawsuits, and to make public statements that align with Arizona law and the duties of your office.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
Attorney General Kris Mayes has issued another challenge to keep accessibility of the controversial abortion drug mifepristone.
In a press release issued Tuesday, Mayes announced that she’d joined an amicus brief against the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruling blocking the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of mifepristone. Mayes accused Texas federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of being an “extremist” opposing medical consensus.
“We cannot allow anti-abortion activists and an extremist judge to undo over two decades of medical consensus. Mifepristone is safe and effective and has been used by millions of Americans over the past two decades,” said Mayes.
The efficacy and safety of mifepristone remains dubious. In the ruling challenged by Mayes, Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA, Kacsmaryk noted the hundreds of known cases of infections and deaths arising from the drug’s usage. Kacsmaryk cited a 2006 hearing and report by the U.S. House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources, which noted at least 8 women’s deaths, 9 life-threatening illnesses, 232 hospitalizations, 116 blood transfusions, and 88 cases of infection; overall, over 950 adverse event cases from the drug out of 575,000 prescriptions.
Kacsmaryk also noted that the FDA took nearly 14 years to reject a petition from multiple medical professional coalitions challenging their approval of the drug. The judge further noted that, on the same day of their rejection of the petition, the FDA expanded allowed usage for the abortion drug, changed the dosage, reduced the number of required in-person office visits, allowed non-doctors to prescribe and administer the drug, and eliminated the requirement for prescribers to report non-fatal adverse events from the drug.
In the ruling, Kacsmaryk shared that there are likely far more than the known 4,200 adverse events from chemical abortion drugs due to the FDA’s rule change eliminating non-fatal adverse reporting requirements and emergency rooms miscoding over 60 percent of women’s emergency room visits for adverse abortion drug reactions as miscarriages.
What’s more, Kacsmaryk rejected the main justification for the FDA’s approval of the abortion drug: reclassifying pregnancy as a “serious or life-threatening illness” and therefore justifying mifepristone as a “meaningful therapeutic benefit.”
“Pregnancy is a normal physiological state most women experience one or more times during their childbearing years — a natural process essential to perpetuating life,” stated Kacsmaryk. “Nothing in the [FDA] Final Rule supports the interpretation that pregnancy is a serious or life-threatening illness.”
Kacsmaryk also pointed out that the FDA had neglected to apply its logic to expedited treatments for other, less politicized ailments.
“[C]ategorizing complications or negative psychological experiences arising from pregnancy as ‘illnesses’ is materially different than classifying pregnancy itself as a serious or life-threatening illness,” stated Kascmaryk. “Tellingly, [the] FDA never explains how or why a ‘condition’ would not qualify as a ‘serious or life-threatening illness.’ Suppose that a woman experiences depression because of lower back pain that inhibits her mobility. Under FDA’s reading, a new drug used to treat lower back pain — which can cause depression, just like unplanned pregnancy — could obtain accelerated approval [per the FDA’s rationale].”
The FDA approval took place during the Clinton administration. Similar to Kacsmaryk, the Governmental Accountability Office (GAO) noted in 2008 that medical professionals critical of the abortion drug’s approval questioned the reclassification of the abortion drug as warranted.
“Critics have argued that unwanted pregnancy should not be considered a serious or life-threatening illness.”
The Texas federal court ruling doesn’t impact Arizona at present; it may later on, based on pending future rulings in higher courts.
SCOTUS agreed to an application for a stay by the FDA of the Texas district court ruling, filed early last month. SCOTUS issued the stay late last month, allowing mifepristone to be made widely available while the appeals process plays out in the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Joining Mayes in the amicus brief are the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawai’i, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
