Kari Lake almost worked for group supporting Arizona abortion law she now opposes

The political earthquake unleashed Tuesday by Arizona’s Supreme Court—ruling that the state’s anachronistic, draconian 1864 abortion ban could now go into effect—didn’t arise in a vacuum. It was the product of a multi-year effort by the anti-abortion lobby and its allies in the then-Republican Arizona Attorney General’s office, who initially argued that the ancient law should take precedence over the state’s current 15-week abortion ban. 

As reported in 2022 by Stephanie Innes, writing for the Arizona Republic, “Outgoing Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich wanted to uphold a 19th-century, Civil War-era near-total ban on abortion.”  Brnovich filed the original lawsuit in Pima County, arguing that the law should be enforced. The case ultimately found its way to the Arizona Court of Appeals, which held that the state’s 15-week ban was controlling, the position sought by Planned Parenthood Arizona. The case could and should have ended there.

But the well-organized, well-funded anti-abortion lobby could hardly resist a chance to impose an even harsher regime under the aegis of a Civil War-era statute. So, as reported by Jimmy Jenkins, also writing for the Arizona Republic, the anti-choicers turned to their legal arm, the Alliance Defending Freedom. This is the same right-wing lawyers’ advocacy group, described by POLITICO as “a conservative Christian legal fund,” that recently argued the case before the United States Supreme Court that will determine the fate of mifepristone, the abortion pill.

The Alliance is also the group that represented the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court’s infamous Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision, overruling Roe v. Wade. And, according to an offhand remark current Senate candidate Kari Lake made during her failed 2022 gubernatorial campaign, the Alliance was nearly her employer.

As Jenkins reports, the Alliance sought review of the Appeals Court’s decision with the Arizona Supreme Court, and that effort resulted in the Arizona Supreme Court’s ruling that the 1864 law is valid and enforceable. As Jenkins reports, the Alliance has wildly celebrated the court’s decision, for which one of their own attorneys had argued so successfully.

"Life is a human right, and today's decision allows the state to respect that right and fully protect life again — just as the Legislature intended," the Alliance’s senior counsel said.

However, the celebratory atmosphere among some conservatives has been less than universal. In particular, Lake, sensing dire political peril to herself and her ambitions for high office, immediately castigated the court’s decision.

“I oppose today’s ruling,” she said in a statement Tuesday, and called on the Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs and the state legislature to “come up with an immediate and common sense solution.”

But as The New York Times reported, that’s not how she felt two years ago, when she was running against Hobbs and was very much in favor of the ban, calling it a “great law.  

Lake is, of course, facing charges of hypocrisy for now opposing a law she once championed. However, she now has another problem to deal with.

Video has surfaced of Lake speaking to a crowd of well-wishers at a 2022 Republican Breakfast Club meeting, where she not only praised the work of of the Alliance Defending Freedom, but also said she had intended to seek employment with the right-wing group prior to her decision to run for governor. 

In the video, she urges her fellow Republicans to donate to the organization to help fund its “amazing legal work.” At the end of the video clip (apparently taken by a phone camera), she again acknowledges that it was her intent to work for the Alliance. She jokes about passing their “background check,” so this was apparently more than just a hypothetical aspiration on her part.

Watch: 

LAKE: Actually, I’ll let you in on a secret. I was gonna go work for one of our great national organizations that’s based here in Scottsdale. Alliance Defending Freedom, have you heard of them?

(applause)

And let me tell ya: If you can pass the background check for Alliance Defending Freedom? That is the most rigorous—they don’t have anything on me, because I got through the Alliance Defending Freedom. And they do great work, by the way. I recommend, if you make charitable contributions, that you make contributions to ADF. They are doing amazing legal work, protecting the sanctity of marriage, protecting life, protecting our religious freedom. So I was thinking of going to work for them, but the people of Arizona reached out to me.

To recap: Lake is on record not only fulsomely praising the archaic, near-total abortion ban that has so riled the Arizona political landscape this week, but praising, urging monetary support, and revealing she sought employment at the very same right-wing organization that argued for the implementation of that law in front of the Arizona Supreme Court. And it also happens to be the very same organization that was responsible for the Dobbs decision. 

It’s not clear if Lake’s likely opponent in the Senate race this year, Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, and his team have seen this video clip as of this writing. But Gallego, Lake, and Arizonans are sure to become very familiar with it before the 2024 election. Campaign Action