Republican Supervisors Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd || Cochise County Photos
By Howard Fischer | Capitol Media Services
Update: Adds that Cochise County Supervisor Peggy Judd said she would have no response to the judge’s order.
A judge has ordered two Cochise County supervisors to pay more than $34,000 in legal fees in their losing bid to keep from certifying the results of the 2022 general election.
But whether Peggy Judd and Tom Crosby have to pay it out of their own pockets or can get county taxpayers to pick up the tab remains unclear.
In a new order, Pima County Superior Court Judge Casey McGinley said it was necessary for then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and the Arizona Alliance of Retired Americans to go to court to force the board to perform its duties after Judd and Crosby refused.
McGinley agreed and, in a Dec. 1 order, concluded the board had a “non-discretionary duty to canvass” the vote.” And, following that order, the board — or at least two of its members — showed up at a meeting to comply.
But that, the judge said in his new order, didn’t end the matter.
He cited a state law which requires courts to award fees and other expenses to anyone who successfully sues a public officer “to perform an act imposed by law as a duty to the officer,” a procedure known as seeking a writ of mandamus. And McGinley said that the Secretary of State’s Office and AARA, a local affiliate of an organization founded by the AFL-CIO made up of retired trade union members, were the successful parties.
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