BREAKING: AZ Supreme Court Rules In Favor Of Payson Mayor Tom Morrissey - No Recall Election

The Arizona Supreme Court has decided that Payson Mayor -  and, former Chairman of the Arizona Republican Party - Tom Morrissey will not face a recall election on March 10. The justices unanimously agreed with the trial court that the Town Clerk inappropriately used a 2002 election to calculate the number of petition signatures needed, rather than the election last year that elected Morrissey.

The surprise Friday night ruling was not announced by the court, although a ruling was expected by this coming Tuesday on the expedited appeal.* As is typical with such election cases, a written opinion will follow "in due course".

The Arizona Constitution requires the number of necessary petition signatures to successfully place a recall election on the ballot be calculated as a percentage of votes cast in the "last preceding general election." Payson, like many other towns and cities, uses a two-part, non-partisan election; Payson, calls the first election a "primary", but if a candidate gets a majority of the votes cast, then that person is elected as the mayor without a second, "general" election.

With those terms in mind, the Payson Town Clerk - after consulting with legal counsel - decided that because 2002 was the last time the town had a second, "general" election, that that would be the basis for determining the recall minimum. Payson has grown considerably in the past 17 years, and more votes had been cast in the 2018 "primary" election which elected Morrissey.

Chief Justice Robert Brutinel noted briefly that the court was unanimous and that "article 8, part 1, section 1 (of the Arizona Constitution) requires the number of signatures needed to trigger a mayoral recall election must be calculated based on the 2018 election." In effect, the determination means that the term "general election" means the contest where the mayor is actually determined.

AZ Law reported on the arguments made by the recall committee Unite Payson and by Morrissey. We will update this article once reactions are received from the parties.


*The Court had been advised by Gila County that the deadline to begin printing ballots for the March 10 election would be December 11.

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