Arizona GOP legislative leader launches probe of Democratic attorney general

PHOENIX — Republican House Speaker Ben Toma has formed a special panel to look into the practices of state elected officials — starting with Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes.

Toma wants a committee of five Republicans and three Democrats to investigate allegations of abuse of power, dereliction of duty and malfeasance.

The panel is supposed to develop legislation “and other measures’’ to “promote the rule of law and deter partisan abuse and weaponization of the office of Arizona Attorney General or other state offices,” he announced Tuesday.

Toma said there was no one particular thing that led to his decision.

“She potentially crossed the line a few different times,’’ he told Capitol Media Services.

One, said Toma, was bringing felony charges against the two Republican supervisors in Cochise County accusing them of interfering with the 2022 election. The two, Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd, initially refused to complete the canvass after the vote as they questioned whether the tabulating machines were properly certified. Judd finally complied, but only after being ordered to do so by a judge who ruled state law is clear the supervisors were required to certify the vote. Trial for Crosby and Judd is set for later this year.

Toma also cited Mayes’ warnings she would prosecute Mohave County supervisors if they pursued their plan to scrap machine counting of ballots in favor of a hand count. The State Court of Appeals had upheld a judge’s decision in another county that county boards had no legal authority to require hand counts. The Mohave supervisors backed off, though one, Ron Gould, filed suit over what he called Mayes’ “threats and intimidation.’’

The House speaker also said there have been complaints Mayes threatened parents who use the program that provides universal vouchers of tax dollars to send their children to private or parochial schools.

Mayes issued a warning last year to parents that they may risk losing certain protections, guaranteed to parents of public school children under federal law, if they use vouchers to leave public schools. She said those include free and appropriate education for students with disabilities and access to a child’s educational records.

“That’s not her role,’’ Toma said. “That shouldn’t be her role.’’

The attorney general has been a critic of the voucher program, and she has brought charges against some individuals accused of voucher-related fraud.

Mayes, for her part, called Toma’s action an effort to boost his chances of winning what could be a close race to be the Republican nominee for the U.S. House seat being vacated by Debbie Lesko.

“Apparently, every legislator currently running for Congress can’t move fast enough to open a new inquiry into how I’ve done the job of attorney general,’’ Mayes said in a written statement.

“This is just another political stunt from a majority party that doesn’t seem to have solutions for many of the major issues facing our state,” she added.

House Minority Leader Lupe Contreras said he won’t appoint any Democrats to serve on the panel.

“Republican lawmakers should be focused on doing their jobs passing bills and making policy, not doing everybody else’s work,’’ Contreras said.

Toma said that’s up to Contreras and the Democratic caucus to decide. But he said it won’t sideline the investigation. He said there is an “inherent obligation’’ under the Arizona Constitution to conduct “appropriate oversight’’ of the executive branch.

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What is clear is that Mayes has incurred the wrath of many Republicans by refusing to defend certain state laws.

For example, Mark Brnovich, her predecessor, had taken the legal position that the 2022 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade allowed Arizona to again enforce its territorial-era law that outlaws abortion except to save the life of the mother. When Mayes took office in January 2023, she instead sided with Planned Parenthood Arizona and its argument that a more recent law allowing doctors to terminate pregnancies through 15 weeks took precedence.

A decision on that issue is pending before the Arizona Supreme Court.

Mayes also declined to defend a 2022 state law that forbids transgender girls from participating in girls’ sports. She disqualified herself, saying her views did not align with those of Republican state schools chief Tom Horne, who is the defendant in the case. Legislative leaders ended up hiring their own attorneys.

Mayes also is investigating whether any laws were broken by 11 Republicans who signed a statement falsely declaring after the 2020 election that Donald Trump had won Arizona and sent a notice to the National Archives that they were the official state electors when they were not.

Toma said his decision isn’t rash. “This has been in the works for awhile,’’ he said. “I didn’t want to rush it. I just felt that now is the time.’’

Mayes said she won’t be deterred by the probe.

“As I have done for the past year, I will continue to focus my time and the resources of my office on protecting Arizona consumers from fraud and corruption, prosecuting elder abuse cases, protecting the environment and our groundwater supply, and fighting the fentanyl crisis,’’ she said.

While the investigation is billed as seeking facts and proposing new laws, that leaves the possibility of a different legislative action: impeachment. It takes only a simple majority of the House to bring charges and force a trial in the Senate. And Republicans control 31 of the 60 seats.

“I suppose anything’s possible at this point,’’ Toma said, though he said that’s not what was behind his initial decision to launch the investigation.

“The job of the committee is to determine if laws were broken,’’ he said. “If laws were broken, we’ll have to decide what’s next.’’

This is the second legislative inquiry into Mayes.

In February, Sen. Anthony Kern, R-Glendale, who also is running for the congressional seat Lesko is leaving, got the Senate Judiciary Committee he chairs to launch its own probe.

Kern said at the time there had been “a flood of questionable activity’’ from Mayes’ office. He specifically mentioned the charges against the two Cochise County supervisors, calling that a “witch hunt’’ against local elected officials.

On Tuesday, Kern — himself one of the fake 2020 electors being investigated by Mayes — told Capitol Media Services the investigation is “ongoing, and data and information are being gathered.’’

“A full report will be forthcoming along with recommendations,’’ he said, saying he is looking at something within 60 to 90 days. “These things take time.”