By DEXTER DUGGAN
PHOENIX — By untimely coincidence, no sooner did a leading local Republican activist here send an email to a few friends about the negatives of massive migration than Arizona’s Republican governor named a nationally known open-borders attorney, Clint Bolick, to become a justice on Arizona’s five-member Supreme Court.
Although majority public opposition to dangerous massive illegal immigration is shown across the nation, the citizens of one of the states that has suffered greatly from it, Arizona, learned they still weigh less on the scales of political calculation than “migrants.”
Some of the national chattering class immediately began suggesting Bolick as an appropriate choice for a Republican president to nominate to the U.S. Supreme Court, even before Bolick had served a minute on the Arizona high court or indeed any court. Although a skilled litigator, Bolick never had been a judge.
He had, however, reinforced his libertarian reputation for open borders by co-authoring a book with no less than Jeb Bush, Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution (Threshold Editions, a division of Simon & Schuster, 2013). Former Florida Gov. Bush had earned a justified reputation as an establishment champion undermining borders.
Bush was quick to express his delight with Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey’s court selection — although the gubernatorial news release announcing Bolick was careful to avoid his well-known immigration stand.
Ducey also avoided party loyalty by choosing Bolick, who is neither a Republican nor Democrat but an Independent.
In this new century, illegal immigration is a pressing issue that comes before courts.
National political commentator John Fund posted at the National Review website on January 8 that Bolick’s judicial “opinions will mark him as one of the most interesting judges serving at a high appellate level — and as a potential U.S. Supreme Court justice appointed by a future Republican president.”
A January 6 news release from Ducey’s office announcing the selection said:
“Mr. Bolick has served as vice president for litigation at the (free-market) Goldwater Institute since 2007. Previously, he worked as president and general counsel of the Alliance for School Choice and as vice president and director of litigation for the Institute for Justice. Mr. Bolick also worked as an attorney for the Landmark Legal Foundation, the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Mountain States Legal Foundation.
“Mr. Bolick’s distinguished legal career has been devoted to advancing economic liberty, expanding educational choice, promoting freedom of speech and expression, and the fulfillment of the American Dream for individuals and small businesses,” the news release added.
On January 4, just two days before the Bolick announcement, Rob Haney, a retired chairman of the Phoenix-based Maricopa County Republican Party and a strong foe of open borders, sent an email to a few friends to continue his criticism of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ promotion of massive migration.
He attached a January 3 Breitbart News Service article about the USCCB celebrating “National Migration Week” in early January and urging parishes to do the same.
Haney, a political and religious conservative, wrote: “These Catholic leaders can clearly see what unassimilated Muslim ‘migrants’ have done to Europe and are doing around the world, and yet these Catholic wise men are doing everything they can to ensure that the same policies are in force to bring the U.S. down.
“For decades they have placed their priority on prudential governmental policies as opposed to fundamental religious doctrine,” Haney continued. “They are in step with the political party of death on most social issues, and it troubles them not. This path has led to the decline of Christianity and, through it, Western civilization.”
Asked by The Wanderer for his reaction to Ducey choosing Bolick, Haney enumerated what he saw as Bolick’s connections to the Arizona political establishment as epitomized in open-borders U.S. Sen. John McCain. Haney also noted Bolick’s opposition to popular Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a Republican.
“Bolick’s leanings can be easily deciphered from his published comment when his favored establishment candidate for state party (Republican) chairman lost to a conservative candidate I had helped recruit,” Haney continued.
“Bolick called me an angry and divisive man and then said the party is ‘hell-bent on being unappealing and unprofessional. Mark 2012 as the beginning of the decline as the party grows ever more insular and alienates independents like me that it needs to win’. . . .
“I believe that Bolick will fit in well with the liberals in charge of the judiciary in Arizona,” Haney told The Wanderer. “And with his libertarian bent, I would not expect favorable rulings on any pro-life, illegal-alien, or drug issues which are assigned to his court.”
Another View
On the other hand, conservative Arizona GOP political consultant Constantin Querard took a hopeful view when asked by The Wanderer.
“Bolick was the best of the bunch, so count it as a win,” Querard said. “I don’t think it matters what his personal policy preferences are on different issues….I’m confident that he’ll apply the law as it was written by the legislators, and he’ll apply the Arizona Constitution as it was written. He won’t legislate from the bench. If all of our judges ruled according to the Constitution and the actual laws as written, this would be a much better world to live in.
“I think any attempt to make this appointment about borders is just folks playing politics,” Querard continued. “Most immigration issues are going to be resolved in federal court anyway. But their thinking is that McCain controls everything in the state and so whatever happens was John McCain making it happen. That’s nuts. McCain is too busy trying to save his own seat to worry about the rest of this.”
The reference to McCain trying to save his seat meant the tough campaign the senator currently is assumed to be in to win a sixth six-year term in the Senate.
Querard added, “None of this is my personal guarantee that (Bolick) won’t disappoint us someday on some issue, but he was by far the best of the bunch” to fill the Supreme Court vacancy, created by the retirement of Justice Rebecca White Berch.
The Yellow Sheet Report, a news digest followed by political insiders here, quoted Bolick as saying:
“I take the words of the Constitution literally. When judges stray from the text of the Constitution and supplant their own ideas, like changing the words ‘public use’ into ‘public benefit,’ they’re amending the Constitution. That, to me, is beyond the scope of proper judicial action.”
Ducey selected Bolick for the court from a list of names submitted to him by the Arizona Commission on Appellate Court Appointments. No further approval was needed for Bolick to assume his seat.
Howard Fischer, a reporter with Capitol Media Services, wrote: “Ignoring six appellate court judges and even members of his own Republican Party…Ducey…chose a lawyer known for his views and legal battles on limited government to serve on the Arizona Supreme Court.”
The conservative Haney, calling attention to Ducey coming from the McCain wing of the state GOP, told The Wanderer: “The Arizona Republican establishment is a well-trained organization of conniving deceivers led by Sen. McCain. They will talk a good game on closing the border or ending sanctuary cities but, like Congress, nothing will be done. . . .
“If you connect the dots from the McCain operatives to the Chamber of Commerce cheap-labor crowd to the liberal media to the political judiciary to the education lobby to the Interfaith Alliance and to the Democrat Party, you will understand why Arizona has failed to address the biggest problem it and the nation face: the illegal alien invasion,” Haney said.
Haney also noted that Bolick’s wife, Shawnna Bolick, ran twice in recent years for the Arizona legislature but lost the primary-election race in 2012 and the general election in 2014.
“I think Bolick’s wife lost the 2012 primary because she was endorsed and funded by the open-borders McCain crowd. I was not shy in exposing her,” Haney said. “That is another reason why Clint isn’t very fond of me. I also visited his office with (GOP activists) Don Goldwater and Tom Husband to call him out for attacking Arpaio.
“I think Shawnna lost in 2014 because the RINOs of (Legislative District) 28 felt more comfortable with the Democrat Eric Meyer they knew than with Shawnna Bolick, who was claiming to be a conservative, who they did not know,” he said. “The Bolicks have moved to much…pricier digs in LD 20. I believe they did that because it would be easier for Shawnna to be successful running from LD 20.”
On January 7, the conservative “Seeing Red AZ” blog noted Clint Bolick’s lack of judicial experience, writing that “Bolick, a member of Ducey’s gubernatorial transition team, has never served as a superior court or appellate-level judge, though the other applicants possessed that crucial background.
“A Jeb Bush adviser and amnesty-bent co-author of Immigration Wars, Bolick has morphed into a registered Independent on his unusual route to the judiciary. His wife, a perennial candidate, has retained her squish Republican cloak,” the blog added.
Publisher Simon & Schuster offered this take on Bush and Bolick’s immigration book: “In the first book to offer a practical, nonpartisan approach, Bush and Bolick propose a compelling six-point strategy for reworking our policies that begins with erasing all existing, outdated immigration structures and starting over.
“From there, Immigration Wars details their plan for advancing the national goals that immigration policy is supposed to achieve: build a demand-driven immigration system; increase states’ autonomy based on varying needs; reduce the significant physical risks and financial costs imposed by illegal immigration; unite Mexico and America in their common war against drug cartels; and educate aspiring citizens in our nation’s founding principles and why they still matter,” the publisher said.
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