Arizona Attorney General debate

Arizona Attorney General candidates Abe Hamadeh (R) and Kris Mayes (D) participated in a half-hour debate to talk about why their campaigns are the best for the best for the state.

Mayes was a Republican until 2019 and is a former Arizona Corporation Commissioner. She has said she would not prosecute any doctor, pharmacist or other person who aided a woman in having an abortion.

Abe Hamadeh is a former prosecutor at the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. He is also an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army Reserve and just returned from a 14-month long deployment to Saudi Arabia. He has been endorsed by Trump, which helped him defeat several candidates in the primary, according to Axios Phoenix.

Who is more qualified?

Kris claimed she had the most experience to be Attorney General. “I decided as a judge on the Corporation Commission, 2,700 cases worth billions of dollars, prosecuted security fraud at the commission, I oversaw a division of law enforcement officers at the commission,” explained Mayes.

“I am the only candidate who’s actually practiced law and has actually been a prosecutor,” said Hamadeh. He mentioned his experience in the army, “I was managing the security cooperation in a foreign government, I was interacting with foreign generals; I’m used to challenges working with pretty big bureaucracies,” he said. He believes that Attorney Generals need to be leaders and have leadership experience.

Hamadeh has made claims that Mayes has not practiced law in her career. “This is absurd for my opponent to say I haven’t practiced law, again I have served 7 1/2 years as an Arizona Corporation Commissioner,” said Mayes. She further explained that the Attorney Generals office is 70% administrative law.

Arizona’s ban on abortion

“We have to understand the role of Attorney General. As Attorney General I enforce the laws, so we have to understand that the legislator passed this law back in March, the 15-week restriction, but it’ll have that ability that if Roe v. Wade got overturned that our laws remain intact,” said Hamadeh. He further expressed that his role is to not create laws, but rather enforce them.

“Arizona’s constitution has within it Article 2 section 8, which is an expressed right to privacy and when you are reading all of these laws, whether it’s the 1901 law or the 15-week ban, but the Arizona constitution makes all of these laws unconstitutional,” explained Mayes.

The two engaged in back and forth exchanges about passed mistakes the two seemingly made prior to their campaigns.