AG Mayes reflects on first year, braces for battles ahead
Ask Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes to outline her priorities for her second year in office, and she’ll share a lengthy list.
Prosecute elder abuse. Combat fentanyl. Object to a major grocery merger. Protect Arizonans, and the state itself, from environmental harm. Be more accessible to the public. Hold steady the office budget in light of the state’s expected deficit.
And push for change at the state Legislature on potentially thorny issues, like preventing people who pose a public safety risk from obtaining firearms and restoring law enforcement’s ability to seize profits from criminal activity.
The to-do list captures the broad scope of Mayes’ authority and her eagerness to use the reach of her office to make change across the state.
“If there’s a significant consumer aspect or if something is a serious menace to Arizonans, like fentanyl, then I put in time on it,” she said in a recent interview. “I am not an absentee AG.”
Approach has led to friction
Mayes’ approach in her first year has led to some friction, including with fellow Democrat Gov. Katie Hobbs over water policies. Critics say she has politicized the office in a way that she promised as a candidate would not continue. Those politics could impact Mayes’ planned policy pitches to the Legislature.
While many of Mayes’ priorities fall squarely under her authority to put in place, such as a ramp-up of elder abuse prosecutions, others will take the cooperation of the Arizona Legislature.
Mayes said her office has drafted a version of what is often called a red-flag law. Broadly speaking, those laws allow courts to order the seizure of firearms from people who might be a threat to
“I really try hard not to let politics creep into my decision-making.”
Attorney General Kris Mayes
themselves or others.
Former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey proposed a similar law, under a different name, in 2018 after 17 students and staff were killed in a shooting at a Parkland, Florida, high school. But his bill was rejected by the Republican-majority Legislature.
Mayes said her proposal is more narrowly tailored and would apply only to people who make threats to schools, which could increase its chances of becoming law.
“It would allow for a process to take a gun away from an individual who is a threat or has threatened a school, a school official, a teacher or other students,” she said.
Mayes said she was also considering a push to restore some provisions of a civil asset forfeiture law that was scaled back during the Ducey administration in 2017.
She said law enforcement needs more ability to seize suspected criminal proceeds, but that was curtailed by the changes to anti-racketeering or RICO law six years ago. Those changes won the support of Republicans and Democrats who say the system led to “policing for profit.”
“It’s absurd when a sheriff’s officer stops a car on I-40 loaded with cash and feels like he has to let it go because the RICO law was gutted,” Mayes said. “I’d like to at some point see RICO restored somewhat. I understand the balance between personal property rights and law enforcement, but we swung way over here, and away from law enforcement.”
A look back at first year
Mayes said her first year in office laid the groundwork. She stood up for reproductive rights and elder affairs units. She dealt with the “overhang” of the prior administration and launched a high-profile investigation of 11 Republicans who signed false documents claiming to be electors for Donald Trump in 2020 in an apparent attempt to reverse Trump’s loss.
Mayes this year used a public nuisance law to seek an injunction to stop the development of a mine in Chino Valley. The mine plan was axed when a neighbor bought the land. But Mayes, a proponent of renewable energy and former environmental law professor, said her office would revive that law to protect the Grand Canyon State’s water and environment.
“You can anticipate that nuisance law is going to be a big part of our environmental efforts going forward,” she said. “It has been dormant in the last couple of decades, but it’s an important and fundamental part of our environmental laws. And I intend to use it.”
Mayes’ office has several ongoing environmental cases that will continue for months if not years to come. In May, she filed suit against 3M, DuPont and others over their use of so-called “forever chemicals” that could pollute Arizona’s water. In November, she announced an investigation of telecommunications companies that may use lead-covered cables, citing environmental and public health risks connected to the toxic metal.
Concerns of politics at play
Mayes campaigned on a pledge to depoliticize the office after her predecessor, Republican Mark Brnovich, was seen as using his position to play to GOP issues and to benefit his ultimately unsuccessful campaign for U.S. Senate.
Republican critics say Mayes’ first year at the helm shows she has not kept that pledge, and that perception could pose an ongoing challenge for her next year.
Earlier this month, Mayes stood outside the Arizona Supreme Court, which is considering a consequential case that will determine which of two conflicting abortion laws goes into effect. Asked about enforcing a prestatehood ban, should the court rule it prevails, Mayes said plainly she would not.
“We are not going to prioritize prosecuting doctors for abortion in the state of Arizona,” Mayes said. “So no, we will not be doing abortion prosecutions in Arizona while I’m (attorney general). Ever.”
In alignment with Hobbs, Mayes pulled back on death penalty orders and took authority from county prosecutors to pursue abortion cases. Tension has built with county prosecutors, including Republican Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, over those directives.
The December indictment of two Cochise County supervisors on charges related to the 2022 election raised condemnation from conservative leaders, even as Mayes was praised by voting rights groups.
Tim La Sota, a Republican election lawyer, said Mayes has been “rattling the saber” in many ways and had “injected a very unhealthy level of politics into that office.”
In particular, he said, Mayes’ prosecution of the Cochise supervisors came after she lost a case against them challenging their decision to delegate some election duties to the county recorder. La Sota represented the county and has also represented the GOP candidate for attorney general that Mayes defeated, Abe Hamadeh, in a lawsuit challenging his loss.
“I’m not one of those people who just thinks that Democrats should be investigated and Republicans shouldn’t,” La Sota said. “I think these types of what I view as politicized forays into the criminal justice system are eroding our republic.”
In an interview, Mayes affirmed her duty to follow the law. But when asked about the perception that she has not always done that, Mayes said “there’s a political side to everything.”
“There are few issues that are completely devoid of politics and you can view everything through a political lens,” she said. “I really try hard not to let politics creep into my decision-making, and I’ve had to make decisions from time to time that I didn’t want to have to make, but that I did, because it was the right thing to do.”
‘Best job in state government’
Mayes’ career in public service included stints working for the state’s last Democratic governor, Janet Napolitano, and as an elected utility regulator on the Arizona Corporation Commission.
But she declared being attorney general the best job in state government. Mayes won the office by just 280 votes, and political insiders speculate she has higher political aspirations, including the Governor’s Office. Pressed about whether a bid for governor could shift her thinking about the best job in state government, Mayes said that thinking “could shift by 2030.”
If both are reelected in 2026, Mayes and Hobbs in 2030 would be term-limited and unable to seek their current offices again.
“There’s so much that you can accomplish in this state as attorney general,” Mayes said. “When I look back at why Grant Woods didn’t run for governor I sometimes now wonder if it’s because he realized that he had accomplished so much as AG and had the best job in state government. There’s some truth to that.”