Arizona Court Bars Recall Vote in Wake of Mecham’s Removal

The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the cancellation of the May 17 gubernatorial recall election because its target, former Gov. Evan Mecham, already has been removed from office.

The high court, in a 4-1 decision, ordered acting Secretary of State Karen Osborne to cancel the election, effectively guaranteeing that Rose Mofford will serve the remainder of Mecham’s four-year term, through 1990.

Mecham Recall Committee founder Ed Buck, who favored holding the election anyway, said he felt disappointment and relief.

Few Mecham Votes Seen

“I’m a little bit disappointed because I think a recall election would have given us the opportunity to put Evan Mecham behind us once and for all,” Buck said, “because Evan Mecham would have received so few votes that he and his supporters would see how weak Evan Mecham really was.”

Attorney Andrew Gordon told the state high court in oral arguments earlier Tuesday that “the purpose of the recall has been fulfilled” by the removal of the first-term Republican governor.

Mofford, the former secretary of state who automatically became governor when Mecham was convicted by the state Senate, is not a “stopgap governor” but is the new chief executive who should finish Mecham’s term, Gordon said.

The attorney general’s office, however, argued that the election should go forward because Arizona voters have the right to decide who their governor will be.

The election “has been called for by the people and there is no way that we can see that it can be cut off,” Assistant Atty. Gen. Jessica Funkhouser contended.

Ballot Just Listed Hopefuls

The recall ballot did not ask if Mecham should be recalled but simply listed the candidates. Mecham’s name would have been included if he was still governor, but he was removed from office last week after the impeachment conviction. Mofford’s name was put on the ballot by petitions signed in a draft campaign.

Gordon represented two taxpayers who filed a special action seeking cancellation of the vote that was ordered after the recall committee filed nearly 400,000 signatures seeking Mecham’s ouster.

Mecham was removed April 4, when the state Senate convicted him of trying to thwart a death threat investigation and of misusing $80,000 from the governor’s protocol fund by lending it to his auto dealership.