A judge in Prescott has saved Republicans in the Arizona Legislature from a political mess they created when they repealed elections for political party precinct committeemen and set off a firestorm among Republican party activists.
Yavapai County Superior Court Judge John Napper ruled Tuesday that the law eliminating elections for party offices was illegal special legislation and therefore void.
Republicans in the House and Senate have been frantically searching for a solution since they got rid of elections for precinct committeemen in a section of a larger emergency measure they enacted on March 3. That bill was designed to fix a glitch created by the once-a-decade re-drawing of congressional and legislative district lines that led to wild swings in the number of qualifying signatures candidates need to gather to appear on the ballot.
But buried in the bill, and apparently overlooked by Senate President Karen Fann and House Speaker Rusty Bowers, was a passage making precinct committee offices for the state's 30 legislative districts appointed this year. Precincts can have more than two dozen committeemen. Elections are held only if there are more candidates than available seats, which happens rarely.
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