So the Arizona Republic recently named Gov. Doug Ducey “Arizonan of the Year,” after he and his toadies in the legislature dismantled school funding, reduced healthcare benefits, prohibited cities from enacting stronger environmental policies, ramped up attacks on Planned Parenthood and the LGBT community, and did their best to shove people and the press out of the political process. Way to go, Republic!
Another gubernatorial responsibility is appointing justices to the five-member Arizona Supreme Court, which Gov. Ducey did today. Imagine if the next US President nominated someone like this to the federal bench—someone Think Progress calls “The Most Chilling Political Appointment That You’ve Probably Never Heard Of.”
Unless you’re unusually familiar with libertarian legal activists (or you are a Republican presidential candidate) you probably have never heard the name “Clint Bolick.” But Mr. Bolick has spent the last quarter century working — at times quite successfully — to make the law more friendly to anti-government conservatives. Thanks to an appointment, announced Wednesday by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R), Bolick will now bring this agenda to his state’s supreme court.
One of my neighbors in downtown Phoenix is the Goldwater Institute, whose policies make their namesake senator look like Bernie Sanders. Their extreme libertarian tentacles reach well beyond Arizona, and Clint Bolick has been GI’s litigation director for a long time, pushing through pro-business legislation that undercuts social safety nets, attacks public school funding, dismantles voting rights, reduces healthcare benefits, abolishes workplace safety mandates, demeans Latinos and eradicates collective bargaining. For starters. It’s ALEC in action, which the Arizona Republic notes without comment:
Bolick, who is 58 years old, comes to the court with no judicial experience but with 30 years of experience as an activist litigator at Goldwater and elsewhere. He has fought in the courtroom for school-choice programs in Arizona and across the country, culminating in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court victory upholding school vouchers in Cleveland. Goldwater has also taken on police unions in Phoenix, the state's Medicaid expansion and Obamacare.
One of Goldwater Institute’s board members, Randy Kendrick, is a “key player” in the Koch Brothers universe, which was handy when Kendrick also became an advisor and fundraiser for candidate Ducey in 2014. The Kochs pumped gobs of money into the former ice cream tycoon’s campaign, and they continued to underwrite attacks on teachers and superintendents who spoke out against the governor’s draconian education measures.
The Kochs have been well rewarded for their investment in Doug Ducey. If they wanted to design a Supreme Court for Arizona, one that would rule for their business interests and little else, certainly not the poor or the land, they couldn’t do better than begin with the über-federalist Clint Bolick.
Jeb! Bush, who co-authored a book on immigration with Mr. Bolick, said Ducey’s appointment today is “fantastic,” which indicates the kind of US Supreme Court nomination Bush would make. Yeah, he’s “fantastic” if you’re a business that thinks it should not be responsible for working conditions, pay overtime or serve African Americans and gays, positions Bolick supports. Nationally it’s even scarier, thinking about a Trump or Cruz nomination. Hack! Citizens United? Pfft, just you wait.