Arizona AG Kris Mayes won't participate in House probe of her office

PHOENIX — Attorney General Kris Mayes won’t be answering questions Wednesday from a special House panel formed to investigate her.

Not in person.

And not in writing.

Mayes press aide Richie Taylor said his boss saw no reason to respond to a three-page request that she explain to the committee why she was not defending a 2022 state law which prohibits transgender girls — those defined in the law as being borne male — from participating in female sports.

He told Capitol Media Services that Mayes already made it clear that she felt she couldn’t mount a defense on behalf of the state because she believes the law is unconstitutional.

But that is unlikely to satisfy Rep. Jacqueline Parker, the Mesa Republican appointed by Toma to head the new Committee on Executive Oversight.

In writing to Mayes last week, Parker acknowledged that state law does allow the attorney general to determine he or is is “disqualified from providing judicial or legal services on behalf of any state agency in relation to any matter.”

“However, we are trying to gain a better understanding of the necessity of this law and the circumstances under which it is ever appropriate for the Arizona attorney general to invoke disqualification of the entire office instead of adhering to the legal duty to defend state laws,” Parker wrote.

She wanted a written response from Mayes. And Parker said that, if the attorney general didn’t want to answer the letter “you are welcome to address these questions before the committee at our next hearing.”

That is Wednesday.

Taylor said there would be no letter. And no personal appearance by the Democrat AG to be grilled by committee members, all of whom are Republican, after the Democrats appointed to the panel refused to attend what House Minority Leader Oscar De Los Santos called a “a sham committee.’’

Mayes is correct in refusing to defend certain laws “because she believes they’re unconstitutional,” Taylor said.

He acknowledged that it is a court that actually gets the last word in determining what is and is not constitutional.

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“But the attorney general cannot defend laws that she believes are unconstitutional,’’ Taylor responded.

Anyway, he said, the law is being defended: Mayes gave permission for state schools chief Tom Horne, who supports the law about transgender girls and sports, to hire his own outside counsel.

The same is true, Taylor said, about Mayes’ decision not to defend a 2021 law that bars abortions sought by a woman solely because of fetal genetic defects. He pointed out that case is not going undefended, with House Speaker Ben Toma and Senate President Warren Petersen having hired their own counsel.

That case is still pending in federal court,

Anyway, Taylor said, Parker and her committee are making too much out of Mayes’ decision in those two cases.

“These are two instances in a year and a half when she hasn’t recused herself in other instances,’’ he said.

But Mayes also had the state switch sides in the debate over which abortion law takes precedence.

Mark Brnovich, her Republican predecessor, had taken the position that the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 that allowed Arizona to again start enforcing its 1864 statute — never repealed — which outlaws all abortions except to save the life of the mother. And Brnovich even got a trial judge to agree.

But when Mayes took office in January 2023, she instead sided with Planned Parenthood Arizona, which argued that a 2022 law allowing abortions until the 15th week of pregnancy superseded the earlier law.

As it turned out, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled last week that Mayes and Planned Parenthood were wrong.

That goes to another reason Taylor said his boss won’t be responding to or attending Wednesday’s hearing.

“The attorney general believes the only thing the Legislature should be focused on Wednesday is repealing the 1864 abortion ban,” he said, a reference to efforts by some lawmakers to rescind the law in the wake of last week’s state Supreme Court ruling, a move that would leave only the 15-week law.

Parker did not immediately respond to messages Monday about Mayes’ refusal and what her committee will discuss Wednesday.