State Senator Mark Finchem (R-Prescott) sponsored a bill this session, SB 1434, that would allow attorneys disciplined by the State Bar of Arizona (SBA) a jury trial instead of being tried by the disciplinary judge and panel, which usually consists of two well-connected insiders. He also sponsored a bill that would allow attorneys who are exonerated of disciplinary charges to file a lawsuit against the SBA for damage caused to their reputations, SB 1435. The SBA has come under fire in recent years for targeting conservative attorneys, especially election attorneys.
The Arizona Sun Times reached out to Finchem to ask him why he decided to propose the bills. “The Arizona bar has been overtaken by the radical left, individuals who believe they can persecute attorneys for doing their job, that’s representing the little guys like me,” he said. “Every single conservative attorney in the state of Arizona has been targeted by the likes of Project 65 for politically motivated persecution. Yet the corrupt like Attorney General Kris Mayes, who refused to acknowledge established jurisprudence and black letter law go unchallenged. Gould v. Mayes is an example. The law is very clear, supervisors may choose to use electronic tabulation. But Mayes decided to use color of authority to threaten supervisors with criminal charges. That is a violation of Sec. 1983 federal law. And then there’s the persecution of the alternative slate of electors, clearly allowed under federal law and the 1960 case jurisprudence between Robert Kennedy and Richard Nixon.”
He concluded, “So it is time to do away with a corrupt bar and force the court to do its job, that means no delegation of their duty to another organization.”
In Gould v. Mayes, Mohave County Supervisor Ron Gould sued Attorney General Kris Mayes for threatening to prosecute him over suggesting he might vote in favor of hand counting ballots. Mayes is currently prosecuting the alternate slate of electors for Trump in 2020 and their associates, with Donald Trump as unindicted co-conspirator No. 1. A Democrat-appointed judge just issued a ruling hinting that he will likely dismiss her prosecution.
Although the SBA has done nothing about Mayes’ lawfare against conservatives, despite bar complaints that have been filed against her, founder Mike Davis of the Article III Project, which defends constitutionalist judges and the rule of law, posted on X recently that she could go to prison due to obstructing Trump. In December 2023, the Maricopa County Republican Committee passed a unanimous resolution calling to impeach Mayes due to her lawfare and hostility to election integrity. In June 2024, a House committee looked at impeaching her.
Andrew Thomas, former Maricopa County Attorney and owner of Summerbrook Studios, who was disbarred in 2012 for trying to stop corruption within the Maricopa County Supervisors along with former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, told The Sun Times he fully supports the bills. “A former U.S. Attorney compared the State Bar’s tactics against me to those of the Mafia,” he said. “Emboldened by my disbarment, Arizona’s left-wing State Bar has terrorized conservative and pro-Trump attorneys ever since. Senator Finchem is to be commended for trying to end this madness.” The Arizona Supreme Court live streamed the disciplinary proceedings against him and his two deputies for over two months, and the disbarment became known nationally as one of the first major instances in the country of state bars targeting conservative attorneys.
Lisa Aubuchon, a former Maricopa County prosecutor and Division Chief at the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, who was targeted along with Thomas by the SBA, told The Sun Times, “Justice would be better served by allowing an impartial jury to determine the facts instead of a judge who is allowed to hand select who will assist in determining the future of people who often have a stellar history as attorneys and spent their lives in public service.”
State bars around the country have come under attack for using vague, broad ethics rules to target conservative attorneys. The most well-known disbarment trial is that of Donald Trump’s former attorney and constitutional legal scholar John Eastman, who assisted Trump with legal issues surrounding the election wrongdoing in 2020. Almost all of the counts the California Bar’s disciplinary judge found him guilty of were for “moral turpitude,” a vague phrase which varies in meaning from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The Sun Times was the only media in the country to thoroughly cover the entire trial.
Kari Lake’s attorney Bryan Blehm was suspended for 60 days last year for his election lawsuits due to stating in a pleading that 35,563 ballots were inserted into the 2022 election. The ballots in question lacked a chain of custody, which is a class 2 misdemeanor. He was not provided with a full hearing. State Representative Alex Kolodin (R-Scottsdale) was sentenced to 18 months probation for filing election lawsuits over the 2020 election. The SBA suspended the law license of longtime Maricopa County prosecutor April Sponsel for filing charges against Antifa.
At the same time, the SBA gives preferential treatment to non-conservative attorneys like Mayes. Cochise County Attorney Brian McIntyre, an election fraud denier who blew a .21 BAC level due to driving drunk, a Super Extreme DUI, was allowed to enter into a private diversion agreement with the SBA, continue practicing law, and keep his position. After the Cochise County Supervisors voted not to certify the 2022 election, citing the irregularities that occurred, McIntyre threatened to prosecute them.
The Arizona Supreme Court, which oversees the SBA, has done little to reform the SBA. However, the court issued an opinion last year stating that attorneys should not be disciplined for bringing election lawsuits, which has worked to curtail some of the abuses. The SBA’s disciplinary judge dismissed charges against two attorneys who represented Lake and Mark Finchem in a lawsuit to stop the use of voting machine tabulators, citing that decision as the reason. Judges have not sanctioned attorneys in similar cases.
David Mast, the president of AZ Voters Rights, filed a lawsuit against the State Bar of Arizona last September, alleging it targets conservative attorneys. Kolodin sponsored a bill earlier this year that would stop the SBA and officials from using lawfare to target political opponents.
Previous bills to reform the SBA have gone nowhere in recent years, primarily due to Governor Katie Hobbs vetoing them. Trial lawyers, who are heavily involved in the Democratic Party and in state bars, give 99 percent of their campaign contributions to Democrats.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to [email protected].
