Three Arizona judges appointed by former Gov. Doug Ducey appear on track to lose their seats on the bench as unofficial election results are nearly complete.
Arizona Court of Appeals Judge Anni Hill Foster and Maricopa County Superior Court Judges Julie Mata and Michael Rassas were trailing in their retention elections by a small margin. The rest of the dozens of judges up for retention received voter approval, with a tiny percentage of votes remaining to be counted.
It’s relatively rare for a judge to lose a retention election, but Maricopa County voters in 2022 kicked three Superior Court judges off the bench — including two who were found to have met the performance standards.
Before 2022, only a handful of judges had been removed from office since Arizona’s merit selection system was adopted in 1974.
With every judge having met the performance standards before this year’s election, the reasons voters lost confidence in the judges facing removal may be less than clear.
But the numerous ballot guides published by partisan groups suggest that judges facing otherwise nonpartisan retention elections could be more vulnerable to political headwinds than in the past.
In Arizona, results are unofficial until every ballot is counted and the results are certified. It can take days or weeks to determine a winner in close races.
Anni Hill Foster
Foster was appointed to the Court of Appeals by Ducey in December 2022 during his final days in office before Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, was sworn in.
Foster had served as Ducey’s general counsel since 2017, where she handled civil cases, drafted legislation and negotiated a historic gaming compact with Native American tribes in Arizona for the governor.
Progressive groups have criticized her ties to conservative groups such as The Federalist Society and Republican National Lawyers Association.
The group Civic Engagement Beyond Voting, formed after the 2016 election and affiliated with the national progressive nonprofit Indivisible, recommended voting against her retention, citing her involvement in civil cases that challenged Roe v. Wade and the Biden administration’s handling of COVID-19 relief funds.
“Although this performance was as a partisan attorney rather than judge, the scope of her cases, in our opinion, covers so many objectionable perspectives that we feel her impartiality is compromised,” the report stated.
The Maricopa County Democratic Party also included Foster on its list of judges not to retain but didn’t explain why. It didn’t recommend any judges for retention.
Foster didn’t receive unanimous support from conservative groups, either.
The Freedom Club PAC, a mega PAC tied to the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, endorsed Foster, while the Maricopa County Republican Committee told voters to vote against her retention.
The county GOP committee didn’t provide a reason why Foster shouldn’t be retained, but the Republican Party of Legislative District 4 included a spreadsheet listing her rulings in election cases such as Hudson v. Heap, where cast-vote records didn’t fall under Arizona’s public records laws, as disqualifying issues.
The Arizona Judicial Performance Review rated her work highly.
Julie Mata
Mata, a former Superior Court Commissioner, served as a Juvenile Court judge beginning in 2020 and moved to Family Court in 2023 before moving to the Superior Court’s civil division in June.
While in Family Court, Mata oversaw the high-profile paternity lawsuit that Laura Owens filed against former “Bachelor” contestant and metro Phoenix resident Clayton Echard.
Mata found Owens had provided false testimony about her pregnancies in three cases, presented false claims and fabricated sonograms and ultrasounds.
Owens was later convicted in a criminal case after pleading guilty to four felony counts for lying about the pregnancy.
But Civic Engagement Beyond Voting took issue with decisions that Mata made as a Civil Court judge.
Those include allowing Proposition 142, which would have amended Arizona’s constitution to expand bans on affirmative action, on the ballot and ruling that Proposition 212, which would have added sweeping regulations to Arizona’s school voucher program, had to remove the word “voucher,” among other qualms.
Proposition 212 ultimately failed to qualify for the ballot after the Arizona Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s ruling that disqualified thousands of signatures.
Voters defeated Proposition 142 by a 3-2 margin.
The organization also cited Mata’s lower judicial performance review scores, with a 77% in integrity and 78% in temperament.
Both the Democratic Party and Republican Committee for Maricopa County recommended against retaining Mata, with neither elaborating why.
Michael Rassas
Of the three judges who were losing their retention elections, the opposition to Rassas appears to be the most obscure.
Rassas started as a Family Court judge in 2020 and moved to Juvenile Court in 2023.
Unlike Foster and Mata, Civic Engagement Beyond Voting didn’t oppose Rassas’ retention but instead had “reservations” about him because five out of 24 attorneys rated his temperament as “poor” or “very poor.”
Recommendations among political entities were similarly mixed. The Maricopa County Democratic Party didn’t list Rassas as a judge to vote against.
The Freedom Club PAC recommended Rassas be retained, while the Maricopa County Republican Committee opposed his retention.
The Republican Party of LD4 listed concerns with his rulings in a few cases related to family law and parental rights.
Reach the reporter Perry Vandell at perry.vandell@arizonarepublic.com or 480-341-9433.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 3 judges appointed by ex-Gov. Ducey could be booted from the bench. Why?
Reporting by Perry Vandell, Arizona Republic / Arizona Republic
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