Judge recuses himself from Arizona elections-related case

PHOENIX — A judge whose brother made comments about an Arizona elections-related case that wound up before him has agreed to step away following a motion to have him disqualified.

Judge Timothy Ryan made no comment about his decision Wednesday. The move means the lawsuit filed by Republican legislative leaders against Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes will be handled by another, yet-to-be-named judge.

“The process works,’’ said attorney Kory Langhofer who is representing Senate President Warren Petersen and House Speaker Ben Toma.

Attorney Tom Ryan, whose social media posts started the whole fuss, had no comment.

Senate Republicans, however, were not content to let the issue drop, issuing a statement calling Tom Ryan “a liberal attorney who plagues social media with his contempt for the Republican-controlled Arizona Legislature with an incessant number of juvenile posts.’’

“There is no way anyone who has witnessed the antics of Judge Ryan’s brother, which included case-specific criticisms and commentary, can credibly believe that Judge Ryan could give the Legislature a fair trial,’’ the GOP statement read.

Langhofer sought to remove Judge Ryan after his older brother, Tom, called the two GOP leaders “Yahoos,’’ described their lawsuit against Fontes as “cowpie’’ and predicted their case was so flawed it would be dismissed.

Tom Ryan said in an interview days before the recusal that the comments came before the case had been assigned to his younger brother. And he told Capitol Media Services then that he never spoke with his brother about the case, and that the judge doesn’t even have a social media account where he could have read his posts.

Langhofer, however, said that doesn’t matter, saying that, if nothing else, disqualification is necessary to avoid the public perception that the proceedings would not be carried out in a fair manner.

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In the underlying lawsuit, Petersen and Toma contend that Fontes included several illegal provisions in the newest version of the Elections Procedures manual he crafted. It serves as a guide for local officials on how to conduct voter registration and elections.

The GOP lawmakers took particular issue with Fontes saying that if counties don’t certify their election results on time, the state is allowed to go ahead with its own formal canvass without those numbers. They said that would allow Fontes to “disenfranchise the voters of an entire county.’’

They also complained about what Fontes wrote about when county election officials have to investigate reports that someone who is registered to vote is not a citizen.

All that led to the elder Ryan posting — before the case was assigned to his brother — that the lawsuit was “frivolous’’ and “performance litigation to destroy and undermine Arizona citizens’ confidence in Arizona elections.’’

“No matter how much whipped cream you put on a cowpie, it’s never going to be delectable,’’ he wrote. And he then asked where is the proof that the Senate and House “authorized these two Yahoos to sue on their behalf.’’

Despite Wednesday’s action on this case, Judge Ryan will continue to preside over a separate lawsuit filed by Petersen and Toma challenging Proposition 211. Attorney Brett Johnson, who represents the pair in that case, did not ask the judge to step aside.

That measure, adopted by voters in 2022 by a 3-1 margin, is designed to uncover “dark money’’ in political campaigns by requiring that the true sources be disclosed, not simply the name of the committee through which those dollars were run. Petersen and Toma said that measure, which empowers the Citizens Clean Elections Commission to enforce, illegally takes away the rights of the Legislature.

Ryan already has refused to immediately block implementation, ruling the Arizona Constitution gives voters the same powers as the Legislature to enact laws. But the challenge remains active.