Gov. Doug Ducey must be cozier with the Arizona Supreme Court than I thought.

Clearly, a whole lot cozier than he's supposed to be.

Two weeks ago, the court – the one he expanded from five justices to seven in 2016 – voted to throw Invest in Ed off the November ballot.

We were told only that a majority of the court voted to toss out the initiative petitions that had been signed by 270,000 Arizonans. This, because the description of the proposition "creates a significant danger of confusion or unfairness."

We won’t know the actual vote tally – or who voted how – until the full opinion comes out, presumably in a few weeks.

How did Ducey know Invest in Ed vote?

That’s the way the Supreme Court is supposed to work – independent from political considerations. Concerning itself with the law, not the political fallout of putting a proposal to raise taxes on the wealthy on the ballot while Ducey is seeking re-election.

So imagine my surprise to learn that within hours of announcement of the Supreme Court ruling, Ducey’s campaign team knew that which no one outside the state’s highest court should have known, then or now: The vote tally.

That little bomb was dropped on 12 News’ Sunday SquareOff this week, as host Brahm Resnik and the Arizona Capitol Times’ Carmen Forman were discussing Invest in Ed’s belief that the ruling was the result of Ducey stacking the court with his legal minions.

Cue the convo:

Forman: “Immediately after the Supreme Court ruling came down, they (Invest in Ed) blamed it on Ducey. They said he stacked the Supreme Court …”

Resnik: “We both got a text that morning from Ducey’s campaign people. What did that text say?”

Forman: “The text said how the Supreme Court decided on the Invest in Ed Act. They said it was a split decision.”

Resnik: “They said it was a 5-2 vote. We both got texts from Ducey campaign people saying it was a 5-2 vote. We don’t know that. There’s no independent way to verify that.”

(Note: Resnik says he misspoke on the show about the timing. He says got the text around noon the day after the ruling came out.)

Ducey appointed 3 of 7 justices

I can’t verify it either, and let me tell you, I tried. I grilled my sister, who happens to sit on the Supreme Court, about the vote. I got the old stiff arm and a lecture about how that information will become public when the formal opinion is released. And. Not. Until. Then.

Yet we now learn that within hours of the announcement that Invest in Ed was off the ballot, Team Ducey was telling reporters that the vote was 5-2.

Ducey, who has appointed three of the seven justices: Clint Bolick, Andrew Gould and John Lopez IV.

Ducey, whose chief of staff, Kirk Adams, wrote an op-ed the day before the Supreme Court ruled, saying the justices had “a significant and consequential opportunity” to reinforce a new state law boosting the legal standard by which initiatives must be judged by throwing out Invest in Ed.

Ducey, who this week chastised Invest in Ed supporters for their suspicions that court minions did his bidding.

“I would point them to a civics 101 class,” Ducey told Capitol Times’ Forman. “The Supreme Court is a separate and co-equal branch.”

One wonders, then, how he would know the inner workings of that "separate and co-equal branch."

Invest in Ed leaders are out for blood

Ducey’s campaign spokesman, Daniel Scarpinato, insists Ducey didn't have any inside information when he contacted reporters about the vote.

"He did not know. I do not know. We still don't know," Scarpinato said, via email. "I heard a rumor, shared with Brahm Resnik on background, not for attribution, as I often do with reporters I know (including you), and he chose to share it on television. I have no idea if it's true or not."

No idea if it's true or not ... so you just slipped it to a couple of reporters on the sly, hoping to tamp down coverage of speculation that Ducey's court appointees were largely responsible for getting Invest in Ed tossed?

Hmmmm.

Some Invest in Ed supporters are making noise about mounting an opposition campaign against Bolick and Vice Justice John Pelander, who are up for retention in November. That's a curious move, given that the ouster of Pelander would give Ducey, should he win re-election, the opportunity to appoint that all-important fourth member of the seven-member court.

But Invest in Ed leaders are out for blood and news that Team Ducey claimed to know the vote in advance will certainly fuel that blood lust.

I’m not a generally a fan of going after judges for making a controversial call. I worry that it’ll lead to other judges in other courts pondering their political future rather than pondering the law as they go about the business of pronouncing judgments.

Besides, we don’t yet know how anyone on the Supreme Court voted.

Well, most of us don’t know.

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Disclosure: As mentioned above, I am related to a Supreme Court justice. But unlike some people, I can't get any inside info.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com.

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