AG calls Brewer's special session 'shameful stunt'

(Phoenix, Ariz. -- March 29, 2010) Attorney General Terry Goddard issued the following statement today regarding Gov. Brewer's decision to call the Arizona Legislature into special session to consider joining a lawsuit seeking to overturn the federal health care law.

Calling the Legislature into special session to become an additional and unnecessary plaintiff in a legally dubious and highly political lawsuit filed in Florida shows that this Governor's priorities are seriously misplaced.

The lawsuit at issue today raises a Constitutional challenge. Constitutional experts across the country have reviewed the law and the claims made in the lawsuit and have concluded that those claims are legally weak and have little chance to prevail. This conclusion is shared by many scholars on the conservative side, who see the lawsuit as much more about politics than the law.

Today's special session is a shameful stunt to score political points when our state has many more urgent needs.

Instead of joining a lawsuit, Gov. Brewer should be focused on solving our state's budget crisis -- reversing her heartless and thoughtless decision to eliminate KidsCare and putting more Arizonans back to work. By focusing on this lawsuit, the Governor has made clear that she cares more about political grandstanding than the health of our children and families.

I call on the Governor to end this frivolous special session and call the Legislature to a substantive special session to restore health coverage for more than 300,000 Arizonans for whom the voters specifically demanded coverage when they passed Prop. 204 and to restore coverage for some 40,000 children she cut from KidsCare.