Reuters photo/Andrew Harnik/Pool
By Dillon Rosenblatt | Arizona Capitol Times
The next Maricopa County Attorney will come from a pool of eight applicants, all of whom say they will run in 2020 if appointed.
The deadline to apply for the appointment to replace the county’s former chief prosecutor, Bill Montgomery, who was appointed Sept. 4 to the Supreme Court, was Sept. 18 and the county website posted the eight candidates who applied.
Acting-County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, the sex crimes prosecutor who questioned Christine Blasey Ford during U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Senate confirmation hearing last year, Jon Eliason and Gina Godbehere are the only candidates who currently work in the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.
The remaining applicants are Allister Adel, the former-executive director of the Maricopa County Bar Association; Lacy Cooper, a U.S. Attorney; Chris DeRose, the former-appointed Maricopa County Clerk who lost in the 2018 Republican primary; Rodney Glassman, serial candidate who previously ran unsuccessfully for the Arizona Corporation Commission in 2018; and John Kaites, an attorney who ran for Arizona Attorney General in 1999, but lost in the primary to Tom McGovern.
All eight applicants vowed they would seek election in 2020 if appointed. Mitchell said in her application she would run even if not appointed, and DeRose filed to run with the County Recorder’s Office on September 10. Godbehere said she already has a campaign team assembled.
