By Jeremy Duda | Arizona Mirror
Current and former statewide officials are weighing in on Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s request that the Arizona Supreme Court recognize the broad legal powers he claims. Which side they are coming down on has much less to with partisan affiliation than with which office they held.
Attorney General Mark Brnovich. /Photo by Gage Skidmore /Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0
All four of Brnovich’s fellow statewide elected officials are asking the justices to reject his request that they overturn a 60-year-old ruling that limits his ability to initiate lawsuits against other agencies. That list includes two of Brnovich’s fellow Republicans, Gov. Doug Ducey and Treasurer Kimberly Yee, and two Democrats, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and Superintendent of Public Instruction Kathy Hoffman.
Backing Brnovich’s opponents are two other former governors, Republican Fife Symington and Democrat Janet Napolitano – who served as Arizona’s attorney general before becoming governor – along with a plethora of business and other interest groups. Among them are staunch Ducey allies like the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Arizona Commerce Authority, a quasi-autonomous state agency over which the governor exercises a great deal of influence.
But Brnovich isn’t without allies, and that support, like the opposition, bridges the partisan divide. Four former Arizona attorneys general – Republicans Bob Corbin, Tom Horne and Jack La Sota, and Democrat Terry Goddard – are siding with him, as are a dozen attorneys general from other states and 50 former AGs from out of state.
