IT APPEARS THAT ARIZONA REPUBLICANS COULD SOLVE THEIR ABORTION PROBLEM THEMSELVES, BUT THEY PROBABLY WON'T (updated)

Back in 2016, Arizona's Republican-controlled state legislature passed a law allowing the Republican governor, Doug Ducey, to pack the state's Supreme Court, expanding it from five to seven seats. Ducey signed the bill in May of that year and chose two Republicans, John Lopez IV and Andrew Gould, for the new vacancies. National Republicans howled in outrage in 2020 when some Democrats proposed expanding the U.S. Supreme Court, yet they seemed quite pleased with what took place in Arizona four years earlier.

Gould resigned in 2021 in order to run for attorney general. Ducey replaced him with Kathryn Hackett King, a Federalist Society member since 2017.

The expansion of the Arizona Supreme Court was sold with the sort of bullshit invocations of higher principles that Republicans specialize in. Was Ducey packing the court? Goodness, no:

Ducey ... pushed back on questions about whether he expanded the court to pack it with Republicans, something Democrats said during the legislative debate.

“We have not packed the court, we have right-sized the court,” he said.

And the two new appointees weren't partisan hacks -- they were thoughtful textualists:

“I’m looking to someone who has a fidelity to our founding documents: the Declaration (of Independence), the Constitution and the state constitution, has a love of the law and an understanding of the separation of powers,” the governor explained.

... the governor, who is opposed to abortion, specifically declined to say whether he asked any of the applicants about their views on the legal issues associated with the practice.

“The litmus test is that people want to uphold the law, that they want to be a judge and not a legislator,” the governor said.

“I look for judges that want to interpret the law as written,” Ducey continued, espousing what some call “texturalism” or “originalism.”

“But I don’t think that judges should be writing the law, rewriting the law or fixing the law,” he said. “That is the legislature’s job.”

Ducey added two extra justices, and yesterday the Arizona Supreme Court declared that a pre-statehood law banning nearly all abortions should be upheld. The court asserted that a 15-week abortion ban passed in 2022 did not supersede the earlier ban. The vote was 4-2, with Lopez and King in the majority. Two extra justices made the difference.

*****

The Republican dogs caught the car, and now they're upset about what transpired.

Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.), who represents a seat President Biden won in 2020, called the ruling a "disaster for women and providers" in a statement posted to social media.

Ciscomani said the 15-week ban "protected the rights of women and new life," but the territorial law is "archaic."

Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.), another Biden-district Republican, said the issue "should be decided by Arizonans, not legislated from the bench," urging the state legislature to "address this issue immediately."

Kelly Cooper, a Republican running to challenge Rep. Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.), called for the state legislature to "begin work immediately on reinstating" the 15-week ban.

But that doesn't seem likely. The Republican-controlled legislature has been supportive of that pre-statehood abortion ban:

During a news conference held shortly after the ruling was released, the Democrat called on the Republican-led legislature to repeal the 1864 law, saying it was the right thing to do. Two attempts this year to do just that stagnated in the legislature, where the GOP-majority has the power to decide which bills get heard.

But it seems unlikely that Republicans will respond to the renewed request. House Speaker Ben Toma and Senate President Warren Petersen filed an amicus brief in the case advocating for the reinstatement of the Civil War-era law, saying that lawmakers never intended to supersede the ban when they passed the 15-week law.

The state's legislative session is scheduled to end on April 20. But Republicans could be shameless hypocrites and call a special session to fix the mess their own party created, or demand that the Democratic governor Katie Hobbs call a special session (and accuse her and legislative Democrats of playing politics if they balk). But then Republicans would be alienating their anti-abortion supporters, which seems quite unlikely.

So it will probably be up to voters to fix this. They can vote out some of the GOP legislators, as well as two of the justices who helped make up the majority, because they're on the ballot this year. And, of course, they can back a measure enshrining reproductive rights, which seems to have more than enough signatures to appear on the November ballot.

Maybe state Republicans will surprise me by brazenly pretending to oppose the 1864 law, and voting to overturn it. But I doubt it.

UPDATE: Well, there you go.

Arizona Republicans Thwart Attempts to Repeal 1864 Abortion Ban

... Democrats ... quickly tried to push bills through the Republican-controlled state Legislature that would repeal the ban....

But Republican leaders in the Senate removed one bill from the day’s agenda on Wednesday, legislative aides said. In the other chamber, a Republican House member who has done a political about-face and called for striking down the law made a motion to vote on a Democratic repeal bill that has sat stalled for months. But Republican leaders quickly put the House into recess before any vote could be held.

No enemies on the right! Good luck with that.