Santa Cruz County Judge Thomas Fink denied a request from Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes to temporarily block the Cochise County Supervisors from delegating election responsibilities to Cochise County Recorder David Stevens. Mayes filed a lawsuit against the supervisors on March 7, alleging the group had no authority to make the agreement earlier this year. However, the Maricopa County Supervisors delegated those responsibilities to the Maricopa County Recorder for years until recently, and Yuma County still does.
In turning down Mayes’ request for an injunction, Fink said the state had not met its burden of showing there was an “unqualified transfer of statutory power.” He said the agreement had provisions to serve as “safeguards that are, in the court’s opinion, sufficient to ensure the board meets authority over the conduct of elections in Cochise County.”
He summarized, “The Board does have the power to delegate at least some election duties to the recorder that are not otherwise specifically authorized by law.”
Timothy La Sota, the supervisors’ outside attorney, told the judge during the hour-long hearing on Tuesday, “If you look at the state’s critique of the agreement, it looks more like what a lawyer would put together for a client when they’re just kind of looking for things to pick out about something they don’t like. ‘I don’t like how this is written,’ ‘I don’t like how that’s written.’”
Read the rest of the article at The Arizona Sun Times