It was awkward enough for Donald Trump when his Monday announcement that abortion would henceforth be settled for all time by the states was followed the next day by Arizona — a swing state, no less — becoming subject to a draconian 1864 law outlawing virtually all abortions. But Trump’s predicament was mild compared to the Republican politicians in the state of Arizona itself.
The genesis of the law is a ruling by the state’s Supreme Court. How did the court get so conservative? Well, in 2016, the state’s Republican governor, Doug Ducey, and legislature added two state Supreme Court seats and filled them with Republicans, creating a body with seven conservatives and zero liberals. “Arizonans deserve swift justice from the judicial branch,” said Ducey.
In the wake of Dobbs, that majority handed down a ruling putting Arizona’s 1864 law — which had been nullified by Roe as unconstitutional, but was now constitutional again — into effect. Republicans are panicked. Fox News, in a reliable sign of distress, is pretending it isn’t happening.
And Ducey is complaining, “The ruling today is not the outcome I would have preferred.” Maybe justice was a little too swift?
Meanwhile, Kari Lake, the defeated former candidate for governor now running for senator, is frantically distancing herself from the new law. The trouble is, as recently as 2022, she endorsed the law.
Lake’s spokesperson told the New York Times she had not been referring to that law in particular. The trouble, as the Times points out, is that Lake was extremely specific about the law she wished to see enacted.
“I’m incredibly thrilled that we are going to have a great law that’s already on the books,” she told a talk-show host. “I believe it’s ARS 13-3603.”
Oh, you mean that ARS 13-3603? I was referring to a different ARS 13-3603.
