Jan Brewer tried everything to keep Arizonans on pins and needles. The pundits played along for what seemed like an eternity; will she, or won’t she run for a second or third term?
After it was revealed that her office was instrumental in crafting SB 1062, the law which would have protected small business owners’ religious freedom, the governor had little choice but to announce that she would not be seeking another term. Brewer had earned the wrath of democrats, establishment republicans, and the grassroot conservatives when they learned that she had a role in the bill before she very publically denounced and vetoed it. Once again throwing republicans legislators under the proverbial bus.
Public opinion had turned in the few days after the bill’s passage and the Governor always tests the wind before signing any piece of legislation. She is known to govern by polls.
Last year, Brewer had hired the same attorney, whose advice served the IRC in their outcome-oriented efforts on behalf of Democrats, to help her craft an argument which would have allowed her to avoid term limits provided for in Arizona’s constitution.
Attorney Joe Kanefield was brought in to offer a convoluted legal rationale for Brewer. Kanefield was Brewer’s chief legal counsel when she was Secretary of State and employed in the Arizona Attorney General’s Office under Janet Napolitano.
The Arizona Constitution which says statewide elected officials can serve only two consecutive terms, no matter how short one of those terms might be. However, Brewer is currently serving her second, and what nearly everyone but pundits believed to be her final term.
Brewer was Secretary of State in 2009, when then Governor Napolitano quit to take the Homeland Security a job in the Obama administration. Brewer’s succession to the Governor’s Mansion was automatic.
Kanefield essentially argued that the term “term” doesn’t really mean “term” if that term isn’t a full term, and that a law to limit terms didn’t apply to her first term as Governor.
When Kanefield became the Republican legal counsel for the IRC, it raised eyebrows because he “was a newly minted Republican having changed his registration from democrat to republican on July 22, 2010, only nine months prior to responding to the RFP. He was a registered Democrat for at least the preceding 17 years (since August 1, 1994).”
The hiring of Kanefield raised “concerns that the IRC process was outcome-oriented in nature,” due to the “scoring of responses to the RFP.” At least one Democrat Commissioner “gave perfect scores to the Democrat Commissioner’s preferred candidates and an unjustifiably low score to the candidate preferred by the Republican Commissioners. One other Commissioner’s written comments during the procurement process reveal concerns about the possibility that the scoring had been rigged” according to a lawsuit filed against the IRC.
Although the constitution is very clear, Kanefield says the rule should apply to someone who seeks and is appointed to fill out someone else’s term not someone who automatically filled the spot.
The law, Article V Section 1, defines terms as lasting four years and specifically mentions partial terms: “No member of the executive department shall hold that office for more than two consecutive terms…. No member of the executive department after serving the maximum number of terms, which shall include any part of a term served, may serve in the same office until out of office for no less than one full term.”
Brewer’s change of heart on SB 1062 was similar to her move on another controversial Arizona law; SB1070. She had opposed the immigration law, but after extensive polling, she signed the bill into law, which secured her another term as governor. Last year, Brewer ushered in the largest expansion of a federal government program in Arizona’s history with her Medicaid expansion program. To win that battle, she had to call a Special Session during the Regular Session, during which her cobbled together caucus of democrats and a handful of republicans pushed the legislation through in the middle of the night.
Brewer has also recently come under fire for her staunch support of Common Core.
U.S. Senator John McCain, one of the only Arizona politicians less popular than Brewer said, “I thank my dear friend Governor Jan Brewer for her years of outstanding service to the State of Arizona.”
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