On June 27, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that Don Shooter should be on the August 28 Republican primary ballot for State Senate, and seemed to rule that there is no requirement that candidates for the state legislature must have lived in the district for a full year before filing. See this story. The case is Backus v Shooter, cv-18-152. The opinion isn’t up on the court’s web page yet.
State courts getting brain rot infections from SCOTUS election law junk opinions ???
Shooter was expelled from the Senate in February. For a two week period he was registered in Maricopa County where his wife lives (and he stayed while the legislature was in session). He then decided to run for his old seat, and changed his registration back to Yuma County. The Supreme Court ruling was that the district court decision in Shooter’s favor was not clearly erroneous. The decision appears to be that he was a resident of Yuma County at the time he applied for the ballot.
The Arizona Constitution is somewhat ambiguous. It was written at a time when senators were elected at large by county. The senate district includes part of Maricopa County, though not the part of the county where Shooter’s wife resides, and Shooter often visits. The constitution requires a one year residence in the county a candidate is elected from.
I made a mistake. Shooter was expelled by the House on a 56-3 vote in February. He is running for election to the Senate in 2018 (Arizona elects two representatives and one senator from each district, so he is running in the same district).
If Shooter were to be nominated, then elected, the senate could rule on his qualification. The district is mostly in Maricopa County, and both of his primary opponent are from Maricopa County.
Shooter’s electoral history is somewhat odd. In 2010, he was nominated as a write-in candidate to the Senate in a Democratic-leaning district, and defeated an incumbent Democrat in the general election.
After he redistricting, he was re-elected to the Senate from a much more Republican-friendly district in 2012 and 2014. In 2016, he swapped places with a Representative from the district, and was elected to the House.
Now after being expelled from the House, he is running for his old Senate seat (the senator unsuccessfully ran in the special election for Congress)
Shooter was planning to sue Arizona over his expulsion (he may still be doing so). He claims that while his expulsion was formally for sexual harassment, that it was a plot to reign him from his investigation of state contracting practices (he was chair of the House Appropriations committee).