A judge is expected to rule this week whether Kelli Ward, as chair of the Arizona Republican Party, has unrestricted dominion over whether to hold a special meeting petitioned for by more than 300 state committeemen following concerns with the integrity of the party’s January election of officers, including Ward.
Judge Michael Kemp of the Maricopa County Superior Court conducted oral arguments Tuesday on two motions filed by Ward in response to a lawsuit brought by state committeemen William Beard and Sandra Dowling who led an effort about whether to re-do of the party’s Jan. 23 biannual election. The judge took the matter under advisement but should make his ruling by Friday.
Ward was purportedly reelected by about 40 votes during the January election, during which Dowling was publicly declared winner for the executive committee member-at-large of Congressional District 8, only to be later informed that “human error” led to the wrong winner being announced.
Beard ran for the executive committee member-at-large of Congressional District 8. After the Jan. 23 election, he and Dowling asked Tyler Bowyer, the AZ GOP’s national committeeman for an audit. Bowyer agreed to an audit of the ballots which he said should be in the possession of the state party, according to a lawsuit filed when Ward denied the requested audit.
Ward also denied a Feb. 24 request for a special meeting for the purpose of a recount. Beard and Dowling, along with others, then collected signatures from 352 members of the state committeemen across 11 counties on a petition for a special meeting. The purpose of the meeting was to vote on whether to set aside the Jan. 23 election of the AZ GOP chair, secretary, treasurer, and members-at-large, and if so, to conduct a new election for those positions.
That meeting was proposed for last month, but Ward and AZ GOP secretary Yvonne Cahill took steps to quash the gathering, according to attorney Timothy La Sota, who is representing Beard and Dowling. Without Ward and Cahill’s ministerial actions, there cannot be a new meeting and thus no new election, La Sota argued to Kemp.
La Sota went on to argue that if the party chair truly has no check-and-balance, then Ward could refuse to authorize a special meeting even if every other state committeeman signed the petition. That, La Sota argued, allows Ward to act as “judge, jury, and executioner” in a dispute involving the legitimacy of her own election.
But attorney Jack Wilenchik told the judge that if members of the AZ GOP are not happy with how Ward conducts herself per bylaws as “the recognized leader of the state party” then the remedy is for the committeemen to wait until the next scheduled election in January 2023. Or form their own party.
What they cannot do, Wilenchik contends, is ask a judge to intrude on the inner workings of a political party. He argued to Kemp that the solution to the dispute “belongs to the body alone” and that the courts have no jurisdiction to get involved.
Beard and Dowling counter that state law provides for the establishment of political parties and even requires parties to adopt bylaws. It therefore makes sense to allow a judge to address whether those laws are being complied with.
A May 18 evidentiary hearing with sworn testimony has been placed on Kemp’s calendar in case the judge denies the motion to dismiss.
Also during the hearing, Kemp denied a motion by Wilenchik to have La Sota disqualified from the case. Ward and the AZ GOP sought the dismissal because La Sota used to serve as the party’s general counsel. However, Kemp noted the defendants failed to present evidence that La Sota was relying on previously obtained confidential or protected information in his representation of Beard and Dowling.
Another lawsuit filed by Beard in connection to the AZ GOP’s January election is pending before Judge Christopher Coury. In that case, Coury is being asked to require Ward to make a number of election and bylaw-related documents available for inspection.