PHOENIX — Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes said she'll take action within "a couple of weeks" on one of her top campaign pledges: reining in a company that gets free access to groundwater on state land to grow alfalfa for export to Saudi Arabia.
"I can do something about it," Mayes said in an interview for this weekend's "Sunday Square Off." "In the next couple of weeks, we are going to take action on this.
"It's my view that the lease itself is being violated. I also think it violates the gift clause. Watch for an announcement from my office soon."
The so-called "gift clause" in the Arizona Constitution has been at the center of several legal challenges in recent years.
Two years ago, the state Supreme Court ruled that the fair market value of the benefit the public received from an expenditure should be proportional to the expenditure.
A Saudi company, Fondomonte, leases the land in La Paz County from the State Land Department for what experts say is one-sixth the market rate. The groundwater is free.
The lease shines a harsh light during this megadrought on Arizona's lax laws governing groundwater use. Fondomonte is far from the only company taking advantage of those laws.
"This is one of the most egregious, outrageous examples of inaction by state government that I have ever seen," Mayes said.
Mayes has been in office for seven weeks. Before serving as attorney general, she was chairwoman of the Arizona Corporation Commission. The five-member commission is the elected state watchdog for electric, gas and water utilities.
Probe of Rio Verde Foothills land sales
Mayes' swift legal opinion cleared the way for a proposed agreement to restore water service to the Rio Verde Foothills. It was apparently the result of a concern that "folks were within, we think, a couple weeks of running out of water."
"It needed to be fast and we really kind of dropped everything to get this done," Mayes said.
But her office's involvement with Rio Verde Foothills won't stop with the legal opinion.
"The Legislature has to ... get its act together and deal with this problem," Mayes said. "But I'm going to do everything I can as attorney general to stop it, including investigating whether there is land fraud going on, and whether there is false advertising and false marketing."
Under Arizona law, the builders in the unincorporated Rio Verde Foothills, north of Scottsdale, don't have to show that homes have a guaranteed 100-year supply of water, as other developments do. The so-called "wildcat subdivision" has no water infrastructure for its 500 homes.
Some homebuyers have claimed they were misled about the community's water source.
Investigation of 'fake electors'
Mayes will also launch her own investigation of Arizona's "fake electors" in the 2020 presidential election.
"There are several state laws that may have been broken," she said. "And frankly, I'm not fully convinced that the federal government is in fact investigating the fake electors."
Mayes stopped short of laying out the specific grounds or targets for building a prosecution.
"This is a very serious matter," she said. "There was an attempt to undermine American democracy. And those are the (elections) cases that I will take most seriously."
The House January 6 Select Committee subpoenaed two Arizona Republicans in its investigation of phony slates of electors that were submitted to Congress in December 2020, in an apparent effort to undermine the certification of the presidential election.
The New York Times has reported that former Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward, one of the 11 fake electors, was subpoenaed by the US Justice Department for its investigation. According to emails reviewed by the Times, Ward was concerned the fake electors scheme could appear to be "treasonous."
The phony electors scheme in Georgia in 2020 could result in state charges there.
"Sunday Square Off" airs at 8 a.m. Sundays on 12News, after NBC's "Meet the Press," with Chuck Todd.
Scottsdale Mayor David Ortega talks about plan to deliver water to Rio Verde Foothills
Sunday Square Off
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