The same attorney, whose advice served the IRC in their outcome-oriented efforts on behalf of Democrats, is now being of service to Governor Jan Brewer. The Governor wants to avoid term limits provided for in Arizona’s constitution, and Joe Kanefield offers a convoluted legal rationale for her.
Brewer wants to ignore the Arizona Constitution which says statewide elected officials can serve only two consecutive terms, no matter how short one of those terms might be.
Brewer is serving her second, and what should 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.
Now the Governor says 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.
Attorney Joe 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.
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.”