Supreme Court rejects Arizona GOP leaders' effort to avoid deposition in voting rights suit

Arizona legislative leaders will submit to depositions in a lawsuit over two voting rights laws after the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected their application for an emergency stay.

The court released a brief reply to the emergency application, stating "the application for stay presented to Justice (Elena) Kagan and by her referred to the Court is denied."

State Senate President Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, and Speaker of the House Ben Toma, R-Glendale, both said they would comply. Toma's deposition is scheduled for Nov. 28.

The state's top lawmakers and their lawyers filed a 66-page emergency application for the stay on Nov. 20. They hoped to avoid the depositions of up to seven hours and additional demands for records such as emails with other legislators.

"Unless the Court issues an immediate stay the Legislative Leaders will quickly find themselves between the mythical Scylla and Charybdis: they’ll either need to submit to improper depositions or refuse to do so and expose themselves to potential sanctions and contempt charges," the motion to stay says.

The plaintiffs want to find out if Republican lawmakers created the bills with discriminatory intent.

The U.S. Supreme Court released a brief reply to the emergency application, stating "the application for stay presented to Justice (Elena) Kagan and by her referred to the Court is denied."

Civil rights organizations and the Democratic Party sued the state after former Republican Doug Ducey signed two bills into law last year that sought to stop non-citizens from registering to vote. U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton blocked key provisions of the law from taking effect in a Sept. 14 ruling.

If not for Bolton's ruling, House Bill 2492 would ban federal-only voters from voting by mail and in presidential elections unless they present a birth certificate or other proof of citizenship. Currently, such voters use only a federal registration form that asks them to check a box stating they're eligible to vote. It also would require the state attorney general to investigate cases in which authorities suspect a non-citizen voted or registered to vote. House Bill 2243 demands county elections officials to cancel the registration of voters on the rolls who couldn't prove their citizenship or had moved - or obtained a driver’s license - in a different state.

Arizona Freedom Caucus Chair Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek, sponsored both bills. The conservative Free Enterprise Club, which helped write HB 2492, wrote in an essay on its website last year that HB 2492 could "help stop illegals from voting."

The plaintiffs include Mi Familia Vota, Living United for Change in Arizona, the national and state Democratic Party, and others from seven consolidated lawsuits. Represented by the law firm of Washington D.C. Democratic Party lawyer Marc Elias and other lawyers, the plaintiffs claim in their federal complaint that the laws are unconstitutional and would harm people of color more than white people.

Petersen and Toma moved to intervene in the case in April, arguing that state Attorney General Kris Mayes "may not fully defend the constitutionality" of the two laws or "adequately represent the Speaker and President’s interests."

Mayes' defense of the laws rejected a primary aim of HB 2492: to challenge a 2013 U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down a voter-approved 2004 ballot measure that sought to tighten proof-of-citizenship requirements for voters.

But her office has defended against some of the lawsuit's allegations, including the claim that the laws discriminate by race or national origin. The plaintiffs won't be able to prove that, state lawyer Joshua Whitaker said in an Oct. 19 trial brief.

Although Mayes does not represent Petersen and Tomas as intervenor defendants, Whitaker wrote in the brief that "plaintiffs may cite statements by individual legislators, but such statements must be considered in context and, in any event, 'may not be probative of the intent of the legislature as a whole.'"

Closing arguments in the trial are scheduled for Dec. 19.

Reach the reporter at rstern@arizonarepublic.com or 480-276-3237. Follow him on X @raystern.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Supreme Court: Arizona Republican leaders to be deposed in voting rights suit