This Arizona Supreme Court ruling affects what kind of 2024 election cases courts will hear
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The Arizona Supreme Court last week reversed a lower court’s decision to impose sanctions against the state GOP, after the party filed a lawsuit challenging the 2020 presidential election.
The case itself alleged Maricopa County did not follow the rules when it conducted a hand count of some ballots after the election. A trial court judge threw the case out and awarded attorney fees to the Secretary of State’s Office.
A panel of the state Court of Appeals upheld that ruling and added more money in sanctions against the Republican Party. But, while the state Supreme Court did not rule on the merits of the lawsuit, it did disagree with the imposition of fines and fees.
Jen Fifield, a reporter for Votebeat, joined The Show to talk about it.
Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: How much money are we talking about here?
JEN FIFIELD: $75,000.
BRODIE: That's a pretty decent amount of money, especially when you talk about the Republican Party, which up in, at least up until recently has been concerned about its finances.
FIFIELD: Yeah, for that and for, you know, the county that had to pay it. So this is taxpayer money that is now being spent to defend these, this lawsuit.
BRODIE: So why were the, the fines and the, and the sanctions imposed in the first place?
FIFIELD: Well, the, the sanctions were imposed in the first place because they felt that the lawsuit was brought in bad faith. They said that, you know, you can't bring this challenge after the election when these are established procedures for how we do our audit. These are established by the Secretary of State, and they weren't even named in the lawsuit. So the county said you brought this to the wrong people at the wrong time and that's obvious evidence of a bad faith nature in the suit, which allows judges to issue these sanctions.
BRODIE: So I want to ask you about what the State Supreme Court said about that. And there's a quote here from one of the justices, John Lopez, who wrote the decision, which was, we should mention, unanimous. He writes, "even if done inadvertently and with the best of intentions, such sanctions present a real and present danger to the rule of law." It sounds like it wasn't so much that the justices thought that the fines and the sanctions weren't warranted, but that they actually were really problematic.
FIFIELD: Well, the Supreme Court said, look, they brought a fact, that was a true fact to the case. They didn't, you know, this was something that could be challenged, the procedure for how to do this audit, and that in itself shows that it wasn't brought in bad faith. It was a legitimate question about our election process, which I think distinguishes this and is important when you're looking at other potential sanctions to come, say on, like Kari Lake cases, where the judges are looking at the facts brought and saying these are actual lies and you, you brought these knowing that this was not true.
BRODIE: Well, that's an important point because there are a number of cases. I, I have frankly lost count of how many cases there are, where attorneys have been sanctioned or parties have been sanctioned because of, you know, bringing the lawsuit in bad faith, according to judges. What, what kind of impact, what kind of precedent maybe does this ruling have for those cases?
FIFIELD: Well, moving forward to 2024, it shows people that they can bring questions to the court, that's an important quote in here. You can raise questions to the court about elections. That is disputed. That that is something that a lot of election law attorneys say you need to have convincing evidence that you're bringing it to the court. You can't just be bringing questions and you can't just be bringing them for political reasons either. The court disagreed with that.
BRODIE: Right. Well, I mean, I guess that's kind of a fundamental question, right? Like if you, people bring lawsuits thinking that they are right. But, you know, you never really know right until the judge says you're right.
FIFIELD: Right. But there is established facts. Right. You are, you are going into a court case as an attorney knowing what your facts are, and everyone is in agreeance of those facts. So, you know, the, the thing that gets you in trouble is when you bring things that, you know, are not true or, you know, is not the right procedure to bring to the court. And so that's, it's, it's kind of complicated, but it is going to make a difference moving forward into 2024 for what kind of lawsuits we're seeing after the election when the results come out?
BRODIE: Is it possible that this ruling could impact any of the cases in which sanctions have already been imposed? Like could any of those be ripe for maybe having those reversed?
FIFIELD: Well, I think that anyone can file an appeal to the Supreme Court, right? Anyone can challenge their results of their sanctions, but really it would take another ruling to decide that to reverse those sanctions. It's not like you can just say, hey, look, you know, there's this ruling now, so give me my money.
BRODIE: Right. The, the justices also seemed mindful of sort of the political environment that we're currently in when when, when they wrote this opinion, is that a fair assessment?
FIFIELD: Yes, definitely, you know, they, they took note that the county said that this was brought for political reasons and that they were quote long shot cases, which they recognized that as these challenges are becoming more frequent, we might see this again, and the court this time said, That's OK.
BRODIE: So you kind of alluded to this. But I want to ask you more specifically, I'm wondering what folks in the legal community are saying about how they're going to look at this ruling and, you know, maybe apply it to what they might be doing after the 2024 election, if you know, if they feel some kind of challenge needs to be filed.
FIFIELD: Well, I think there's two different reactions. One is the, the people thanking the Arizona Supreme Court for upholding what they think is a danger to, to our right to bring lawsuits. That's one side. The other side is saying, unfortunately, they don't agree with the court. They think that this is ridiculous and this is the type of people that think that these are lawsuits that are wasting our time, that are without merit and that are frivolous as well.
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