Ducey bypasses GOP applicants, picks another Dem judge

Hands out judicial appointments to Democrats as though there were no Republicans on the vetted lists he receives from judicial selection commissions

With this hyperbolic announcement Gov. Doug Ducey, who twice ran as a Republican, boldly shows his leftist stripes by appointing yet another Democrat to the judicial bench. Superior Court Judge David Gass has been elevated to the Arizona Court of Appeals.

Among the accolades Ducey heaped on his new appointee was pointing out that he “served as counsel to the Democratic Caucus of the Arizona House of Representatives and currently serves on the Maricopa County Superior Court where he has been for the past 10 years after his appointment by Governor Napolitano.” Ducey didn’t miss a trick, adding that earlier in his career, Gass “clerked for then Arizona Court of Appeals Judge Ruth McGregor,“ another Democrat.

Those are definitely credentials that warm the cockles of the Republican base, whose votes put him in office, first as state treasurer and then for two terms in the lofty ninth floor governor‘s office.

The gaseous Gass appointment was made to fill the vacancy created by the appointment of Justice James P. Beene to the Arizona Supreme Court. Currently, Ducey has far outpaced hyper-partisan Democrat Gov. Janet Napolitano who also had an aversion to Republican judges, as SRAZ pointed out in 2007. So far during his terms, Ducey has made 26 cross-party judicial appointments — far outpacing his predecessors — leftist Napolitano at 16 or Republican Jan Brewer who jumped the political fence 7 times.

On the governor’s office home page is a box containing these words:

AtYOURService

Connect. Engage. Speak out.

Don’t kid yourself thinking the Guv actually wants to hear from you. He’s obviously still busy channeling his RINO McMentor. Ducey’s first job when he arrived in Arizona to attend ASU was working at Cindy Hensley McCain’s Anheuser-Busch beer distributorship empire, which fostered a enduring friendship between Ducey, later including his wife, and the McCain’s. John McCain reveled in his “maverick” status, even bucking the Republican Party with his thumb-in-the-eye, “thumb’s down” final senate vote. (brief video.)  Ducey was an able pupil.