Arizona Republican Party (AZGOP) Chair Gina Swoboda announced on Friday, the day before the party’s annual election, that she was disqualifying several state committee members who had been appointed to their positions to fill vacancies. This would prohibit them from running for AZGOP offices or voting in the election. Some of them are running for AZGOP chair or vice chair positions, including Sergio Arellano who is running for chair. Swoboda had originally said she was going to resign from chair at the meeting, in order to focus on her run for office in Arizona’s Congressional District (CD) 1, but has garnered support from numerous state committee members to remain as chair.
Swoboda sent a letter to AZGOP voting members stating that due to a letter from an attorney threatening litigation over the “fractional appointments,” she was canceling the appointments. She said, “While we believe the longstanding practice of fractional reserve appointments has a reasonable basis in the law, the language of the relevant statutes is ambiguous and indeterminate. Given this uncertainty, and the damage that litigation would inflict on party unity and the RPAZ’s finances, I have determined that it is in the best interests of the RPAZ as an organization to vacate the contested appointments.”
Attorney Tim La Sota, representing state committeeman Lawrence Hudson, said the appointments violated A.R.S. 16-825.01, which requires “advice and consent” by the county GOP chairs, and in larger counties, also the Legislative District chairs.
However, the courts have frequently declined to get involved adjudicating disputes within political parties. In 2021, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Kemp dismissed a lawsuit against the AZGOP challenging then-chair Kelli Ward’s alleged refusal to acknowledge that enough signatures were gathered to call a meeting of the state committee. Kemp said the issue was “a non-justiciable internal political dispute.” He said, “As a general rule, the judiciary ought not to interfere with the internal affairs of a political party.”
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