State Senator Mark Finchem (R-Prescott) sponsored a bill this session, SB 1434, that would allow attorneys disciplined by the State Bar of Arizona (SBA) a jury trial instead of being tried by the disciplinary judge and panel, which usually consists of two well-connected insiders. He also sponsored a bill that would allow attorneys who are exonerated of disciplinary charges to file a lawsuit against the SBA for damage caused to their reputations, SB 1435. The SBA has come under fire in recent years for targeting conservative attorneys, especially election attorneys.
The Arizona Sun Times reached out to Finchem to ask him why he decided to propose the bills. “The Arizona bar has been overtaken by the radical left, individuals who believe they can persecute attorneys for doing their job, that’s representing the little guys like me,” he said. “Every single conservative attorney in the state of Arizona has been targeted by the likes of Project 65 for politically motivated persecution. Yet the corrupt like Attorney General Kris Mayes, who refused to acknowledge established jurisprudence and black letter law go unchallenged. Gould v. Mayes is an example. The law is very clear, supervisors may choose to use electronic tabulation. But Mayes decided to use color of authority to threaten supervisors with criminal charges. That is a violation of Sec. 1983 federal law. And then there’s the persecution of the alternative slate of electors, clearly allowed under federal law and the 1960 case jurisprudence between Robert Kennedy and Richard Nixon.”
He concluded, “So it is time to do away with a corrupt bar and force the court to do its job, that means no delegation of their duty to another organization.”
In Gould v. Mayes, Mohave County Supervisor Ron Gould sued Attorney General Kris Mayes for threatening to prosecute him over suggesting he might vote in favor of hand counting ballots. Mayes is currently prosecuting the alternate slate of electors for Trump in 2020 and their associates, with Donald Trump as unindicted co-conspirator No. 1. A Democrat-appointed judge just issued a ruling hinting that he will likely dismiss her prosecution.
Read the rest of the article at The Arizona Sun Times
Subscribe to email updates from the Arizona Sun Times