‘I don’t have a lot of fear about speaking truth to power’: Roopali Desai honored by USA TODAY
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Roopali Desai is one of USA TODAY’s Women of the Year, a recognition of women across the country who have made a significant impact. The annual program is a continuation of Women of the Century, a 2020 project that commemorated the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote. Meet this year’s honorees at womenoftheyear.usatoday.com.
Her legal work is tied to some of the most important political and election issues in Arizona.
She fought lawsuits and false claims about the election after Joe Biden's narrow victory in the state.
She successfully defended a voter-approved education-funding initiative against myriad legal challenges.
She helped launch the state’s voter-approved recreational marijuana program, which she wrote and defended against yet more lawsuits.
And she scored yet another victory when the Arizona Supreme Court voided dozens of laws, including a ban on mask mandates, that lawmakers had improperly tied to the state budget months before.
Roopali Desai, the daughter of hard-working Indian immigrants, is a hero of Democratic legal causes.
Her high-profile work in politics and election law is among the reasons she is the Arizona honoree of USA TODAY’s Women of the Year. She also is one of a handful of women being recognized nationally by the news organization.
She’s done it all in her trademark manner, with a steady grasp of the law and a respect for her political adversaries that has earned her admiration of those on both sides of the political spectrum.
“The most you can hope for from an opponent working against you is that they are fair,” said Kirk Adams, the former chief of staff to Republican Gov. Doug Ducey and a conservative Republican strategist who has been on the opposite side of issues as Desai, including the school-funding initiative.
“I think that describes Roopali,” he said. “Even when she’s an opponent, she’s fair.”
Adams has frequently opposed measures Desai has championed, but he also worked with her on a failed 2020 ballot measure called the Second Chances, Rehabilitation and Public Safety Act, which failed to gather enough signatures for the ballot.
The cornerstone of the measure involved "earned release credits," which criminal offenders could have used to shave time off their prisons sentences. It would have cut nonviolent offenders' sentences by up to 50%, with participants earning a one-day reduction for every day served.
Desai recruited Adams to work on the measure to ensure that it would be palatable to conservative Republicans were it to make the ballot.
“She has very high political acumen. Second Chances was good example of that,” Adams said. “When trying to make big improvements like criminal justice reform, you really can’t do it with one side cramming it down the throats of the other side.”
Adams said the reform effort, which won support from a broad coalition of conservative groups, showed Desai’s ability to work across the aisle.
“We have a habit in our political class these days in ascribing the most negative motivations possible to your opponent,” Adams said. “She does not do that. I think that is part of the reason why she is able to work with others on the other side of the aisle because she doesn’t burn the bridges that way.”
Election work: ‘It is time for this to end’
Desai has been a critical part of the legal teams that defended the Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, and the Arizona Democratic Party in multiple cases that all were unsuccessful in reversing the election.
In one of several cases Desai handled in late 2020 and early 2021, state GOP Chair Kelli Ward sought to have a court void the outcome of Arizona's presidential election — which Biden won by 10,457 votes — based on claims involving how officials count ballots that tabulation machines can't read.
Ward’s team failed to prove any of those claims, the courts repeatedly found.
"It is time for this to end," Desai told a judge in December 2020. "We cannot underestimate the negative impact that vague and unsupported claims of misconduct and illegality in our elections have on the public perception of the integrity of the election.
"While not everyone's favorite candidate won, there is no reason to reverse the will of the voters and declare that the candidate with fewer votes is the winner. The (results) must stand."
The judge agreed, but Ward appealed first to the state Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court, which rejected the case and put the issue in the courts to bed forever in February 2021.
Of course, the efforts to overturn Biden’s victory didn’t stop there, and neither did Desai’s work.
Republican Senate President Karen Fann ordered an “audit” of the Maricopa County election results and selected a small, obscure Florida tech company called Cyber Ninjas, led by a conspiracy theorist, to do the work.
Fann said the work was not intended to reverse the election, although many of the people encouraging Fann voiced their hopes that would be the outcome.
Desai sued on behalf of the state Democratic Party attempting at first to stop that audit. When that failed, she sued to require the procedures to be open to the public and to follow state election laws.
Then Desai and colleagues at the Coppersmith Brockelman law firm filed suit on behalf of a left-leaning watchdog group from Washington, D.C., known as American Oversight, to access texts, emails and other records from Cyber Ninjas and its subcontractors that the Senate and the companies were not making public under the state Public Records Law.
The Arizona Republic filed a similar lawsuit that also sought records held by Cyber Ninjas as part of the state-directed ballot review. The cases have been consolidated.
Those cases have resulted in court orders to turn over thousands of emails, texts and other documents. The Senate has partially complied, and Cyber Ninjas have turned over a small number of documents. The state Supreme Court is now reviewing which, if any, of the other documents can remain shielded from the public.
Desai argued that lawmakers can't subpoena the ballots for an official government action and then keep the records of the review from the public by claiming they are controlled by Cyber Ninjas and other non-government entities.
"This attempt to shield the Senate's illegitimate investigation from public scrutiny poses a serious threat to voter privacy, civil liberties, and confidence in future elections," Desai said in a written statement when the American Oversight lawsuit was filed.
Victories with education, marijuana initiatives
As monumental as those cases are, they don’t begin to encompass Desai’s work in 2021.
On top of election challenges, she fought for the survival of Proposition 208, an education initiative voters approved in 2020 that imposed a 3.5% tax surcharge on higher income earners.
Desai represented the Invest in Ed committee, which brought Proposition 208 to the ballot.
Desai first wrote a successful 100-word summary to explain the initiative to voters. Opponents of the measure thought they would be able to sue over that description and prevent the measure from going to the ballot.
The measure faced a host of challenges from conservative lawmakers and groups, with Ducey and other state officials speaking against it frequently.
Desai successfully defended the summary, keeping the measure on the ballot, then successfully defended the measure against legal challenges after voters approved it.
“She literally won the 208 education funding initiative,” said political strategist Stacy Pearson, who has worked with Desai on multiple issues. “She single-handedly saved the education-funding initiative in court and ultimately bought enough time for it to succeed at the ballot as well.”
Opponents of the measure were so confident that their legal challenge to the 100-word summary of the measure would succeed that they apparently were not ready to begin advertising against the measure after Desai defeated their challenge in court, Pearson said. The proponents anticipated the opposition ads would go up immediately.
“It was a few weeks … from the day Roopali won at the state Supreme Court over the 100-word summary challenge and when the first opposition ads went up,” Pearson said. “That gave the education community enough daylight to grow a lead that survived through November.”
After months of legal challenges, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge struck down the measure March 11, stating it can't be enforced because of an Arizona Supreme Court ruling.
Desai also wrote the other major Arizona 2020 ballot measure, Proposition 207, legalizing adult use of marijuana. She’s continued to work on that measure.
The legalization initiative allows people with minor marijuana convictions to get them expunged, which many people have been pursuing in court thanks to the measure.
The law also allows for 26 “social equity” licenses to be issued to people who have been unequally harmed by previous marijuana laws.
Desai has been tapped by the state to help educate the potential applicants for those licenses and to help roll out that social equity program, a controversial task.
Desai said that while legal marijuana programs and social-equity licensing have run into serious challenges in other states, she’s proud that Arizona’s program is moving along.
Pearson also worked on that campaign with Desai.
“There are very few high-profile Democratic victories in Arizona that Roopali is not involved with,” Pearson said. “When people say things can’t be done or this won’t survive or look at the composure of the Arizona Supreme Court, or our Legislature, or our Governor’s Office, none of that matters because Roopali can create a strategy that survives. And it is not by trickery but anything other than really good legal work.”
One of the most commendable things Pearson sees in Desai is her commitment to her work even when the stakes are not as high as presidential elections.
“Roopali saved the Tucson zoo with me in 2017,” she says candidly.
The duo was hired to pass a sales-tax increase to help the Reid Park Zoo that year.
“Roopali was as committed to funding a larger enclosure for a lion as she was for criminal justice reform or marijuana legalization,” Pearson said. “Without that, the Tucson zoo would have closed and an entire generation of kids would not have been able to see animals that ultimately need to be protected.”
In the middle of that zoo campaign, Desai also delivered her youngest daughter, Pearson said, adding to her admiration of how Desai balanced work and family.
Desai upheld masks in schools
In January, Desai scored yet another victory when the state Supreme Court announced its reasoning for voiding dozens of laws that lawmakers had improperly tied to the state budget months before.
One of the laws the court threw out was a ban on mask mandates in schools.
"The issue here is not what the Legislature decided, but how it decided what it did," Justice John Lopez wrote for the high court.
Desai said at the time that while the practice of “logrolling” or tying unrelated issues to the budget had become common at the statehouse, the measures dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic were more extreme than usual.
"They've pushed the envelope before. But this is unprecedented," she said when filing the suit on behalf of the Arizona School Boards Association and other civic groups.
Personal life brings fulfillment
Desai is a partner in the litigation group at Coppersmith Brockelman. She is the mother of three daughters, ages 4, 7 and 9, and has been married to her artist husband for 20 years.
Her parents immigrated to the U.S. from India, with her father intending to become a chemical engineer but instead being offered an opportunity at Honeywell to work in technology. She is a 1996 graduate of Barry Goldwater High School in Phoenix and earned three degrees, including her law degree, from the University of Arizona.
Part of her work ethic can be attributed, she said, to her parent’s adherence to Jainism, a religion that believes in reincarnation, even though Desai said she does not practice that religion today.
“I really try to make decisions about the cases I’m working on, the boards I sit on, the activities I participate in, based on whether it’s the right thing to do and whether it will result in positivity and goodness down the road,” she said.
Her mother worked at nursing facilities, and after watching her mother’s career, Desai thought she would go into health care.
“My mother definitely paved the way for me in the sense that I learned how to become a really strong woman and overcome a lot of difficulty,” she said.
After being placed on a wait list for medical school, she found a new way to work in health care and pursued law school while spending a year working at a facility that helped domestic violence victims.
In the meantime, she earned her master’s degree in public health.
“I have a very low tolerance for bullying. I don’t have a lot of fear about speaking truth to power,” she said.
After law school, she said she was helped by colleagues who believed in her abilities.
“A lot of the people who paved the way for me were people who were unexpected champions of mine: the gray-haired partners in the law firm," she said.
"Many mentors of mine were the most senior litigators in the firm who decided they were going to champion me and go out on a limb and ask a client to hire me. A partner at Lewis and Roca made the phone call to then-Chief Justice Mary Schroeder on the Ninth Circuit (U.S. Court of Appeals) and said, ‘Hey I’ve met this remarkable young smart lawyer and she’s graduating from law school and wants to clerk. Will you consider interviewing her?’”
Desai got that clerkship.
Election, COVID-19 bring challenges
The convergence of the 2020 election and pandemic have created increased pressures on many people, and Desai she says she is not immune to those new challenges.
“It continues to take a significant toll on the physical and mental health of women and moms in particular,” she said. “I know all people are suffering from this.”
Desai said she’s thankful for close friends and family who help her keep a balance of work and the other enjoyable elements of life.
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“I have a village of friends and family and community,” she said of finding time to work and be present for her daughters. “The family part for me is incredibly filling.”
She said she finds balance by making sure the children get some of her attention ahead of time. For example, if she knows she’ll be up late writing a court motion, she might take a day before to plant a backyard garden with the girls.
To help stay grounded, Desai said she enjoys taking early morning walks through the Phoenix Mountains Preserve in the middle of the city near her home.
She also tries to take opportunities to mentor young lawyers, particularly women of color. She also teaches a law course and guest lectures for other courses.
Desai said she also gets fulfillment working on pro bono cases for people without the ability to hire lawyers, such as a prisoner with constitutional claims who, she said, was mistreated.
“I take on cases that are not necessarily for a paid client. They are not necessarily well known or have a broad impact. But I think they are important cases for those individuals.”
Reach reporter Ryan Randazzo at ryan.randazzo@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4331. Follow him on Twitter @UtilityReporter.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona election law attorney fights political misinformation in court
