The Executive Guidance Committee (EGC) of the Maricopa County Republican Committee unanimously passed a resolution Tuesday calling for the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to “[i]mmediately commence an [i]nvestigation of the State Bar of Arizona [SBA].”
The resolution, which was enacted by nearly 100 members present, comes after Reverend Al Sharpton’s National Action Network (NAN), Phoenix Metro chapter, also urged the DOJ to investigate the SBA due to its targeting of conservative, minority, and other attorneys.
The document focused on the SBA’s disbarment of former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, who “was the only Maricopa County Attorney who has ever fully enforced the state’s laws against illegal immigration, resulting in illegal immigrants leaving the state in droves while he and Sheriff Arpaio were in office.” It said “the State Bar of Arizona was weaponized for this purpose against Mr. Thomas and his deputies.” Thomas was elected to office in 2004 and served until April of 2010.
The EGC noted that “the disbarment of Mr. Thomas and the destruction of the legal careers of his deputies violated their civil rights, greatly damaged the rule of law in Arizona, and still shocks the conscience of all fair-minded people.” The MCRC issued a similar resolution in 2011 condemning the SBA’s disciplinary action against Thomas.
Thomas ruffled the establishment by going after corruption within the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and the judiciary. He criticized judges for circulating a memo that instructed the bench not to enforce a law he’d helped get passed with over 70 percent voter approval, no bail for illegal immigrants who commit serious crimes. He attempted to prosecute former Maricopa County Supervisor Don Stapley for raising approximately $70,000 in a campaign with no opponent and spending most of the funds on personal and luxury expenses.
The SBA disbarred Thomas and his associates’ law licenses for six months in 2012. However, the SBA will not permit any of the three to resume practicing law unless the entire $101,500 is paid first, covering the cost of the disciplinary proceedings against them. Typically, attorneys who are disbarred incur approximately $2,000 in disciplinary costs.
The resolution went on, “[T]he State Bar of Arizona has continued to target conservative and Republican attorneys because of their beliefs and clients, including but not limited to attorneys for our great President Donald Trump, Kari Lake, and other candidates — such as attorneys Kurt Olsen, Bryan Blehm, Alex Kolodin, among others.”
Blehm’s law license was suspended for 60 days for challenging election illegalities. The disciplinary panel’s decision stems from Blehm’s statement in a pleading that 35,563 ballots were inserted into the 2022 election. Blehm represented Lake in an election lawsuit regarding illegal activity during the election.
Lake’s attorney Olsen, who challenged the use of voting machine tabulators in elections, was also investigated by the bar, but was ultimately exonerated. Bar disciplinary authorities have sentenced State Representative Alex Kolodin (R-Scottsdale) to 18 months of probation for filing election lawsuits related to the 2020 election.
Many in Arizona now claim that every conservative election attorney they know in the state has been disciplined by the bar, is currently under investigation, or has been fortunate enough to receive a diversion agreement. Diversion agreements are a lesser form of discipline, where the attorney is put on probation and monitored, and the discipline is not publicly released, but the attorneys are closely watched.
Other conservative attorneys in Arizona who the SBA targeted include former Maricopa County prosecutor April Sponsel. Her law license was suspended for two years for prosecuting violent Antifa rioters after the death of George Floyd.
The EGC’s resolution concluded by urging the DOJ to “immediately commence an investigation of the State Bar of Arizona over its pattern of civil rights violations, and that proper amends be made for that agency’s past actions, up to and including the full restoration of Mr. Thomas and his deputy prosecutors to the practice of law, and other relief as the Department of Justice deems appropriate.”
Also on Tuesday, NAN issued another statement condemning the SBA. The press release stated, “The Phoenix Metro Chapter of the National Action Network (NAN) is raising urgent concerns over what it describes as a pattern of disparate treatment, retaliatory practices, and institutional silence by the Arizona State Bar. … One of the most compelling aspects of the testimonies NAN received is that the impacted attorneys represent a broad political spectrum — including conservatives, moderates, independents, and progressives.”
The National Action Network (NAN) in Phoenix Metro is advocating on behalf of several attorneys whom the SBA has reportedly targeted. Among them is Sheree Wright, a black attorney who, according to NAN, “was denied due process, retaliated against for protected speech, and economically punished for representing marginalized clients.” Holly Marshall, another black attorney, “was targeted by the Bar over a clerical oversight that, under similar circumstances, would not have triggered full disciplinary proceedings had she been a white attorney.”
NAN also cited the case of Attorney Vlad Gagic, stating that his suspension “represents one of the most egregious due process violations in recent Arizona disciplinary history.” Gagic, who represented a black defendant accused of sexual molestation, faced a one-year license suspension, even after the key witness recanted, and prosecutors refused to drop the case. He was not allowed a trial and was suspended for a year, but believes that due to his treatment, he will never be allowed to return to the practice of law.
NAN called for various actions to be taken, including “[a] public, independent review of the Arizona State Bar’s disciplinary practices” and “[s]tate-level oversight and investigation into patterns of bias or abuse.”
David Mast, the president of AZ Voters Rights, filed a lawsuit against the State Bar of Arizona last September, alleging it targets conservative attorneys. The SBA has come under intense criticism in recent years for this bias.
In contrast, when bar complaints were filed against Cochise County Attorney Brian McIntyre, an election fraud denier, over a Super Extreme DUI, the SBA secretly gave him a diversion agreement to keep his law license and his elected position.
Efforts to reform the SBA have gone nowhere. Bills were introduced regularly in the Arizona Legislature since Thomas was disbarred but consistently failed, usually due to the SBA’s powerful lobbyists convincing a lone Republican legislator to vote against them. The Arizona Supreme Court, which oversees the SBA, has made nothing but minor changes, rejecting proposed common sense reforms from the Goldwater Institute, State President Warren Petersen (R-Mesa), and other top legal minds.
The latest proposed rule change, which would make the SBA a voluntary bar, is expected to fail, due to Arizona Supreme Court justices already posting comments opposing it. Former Arizona Supreme Court Justice Andrew Gould proposed it.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to .
Editor’s Note: Rachel Alexander was a deputy member of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, working under Andrew Thomas. She was among the attorneys suspended and sanctioned by the Arizona State Bar during the time period addressed by the Resolution.
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