January 2026 President's Message

January 2026

January PVRW President’s Message – January 5, 2026 Welcome to January 2026! It has been a whirlwind few days here in the U.S., as President Trump continues his mission to protect the American people, to bring peace through strength to the world stage, and to seek out those who deserve to be held accountable for their crimes resulting in the death and destruction of American lives. The extraction of Venezuelan Dictator Nicolas Maduro and his wife, with no loss of life or U.S. assets, in the dead of night, was downright miraculous. A noted politician described this flawless achievement as one of Guts, Grit, Glory and Gallantry. The transparency of the mission as described by General Dan (“Razin”) Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was extremely impressive and summarized to a level the average citizen could comprehend. He oversaw the execution of Operation Absolute Resolve, the high-profile U.S. military mission in Caracas, Venezuela, resulting in the capture of Maduro. The preparation was extensive, the planning was continually reviewed, rehearsed and revised, the involvement and cooperation of multiple governmental organizations was impeccable, and the engagement and achievement of top-notch Delta Force personnel was flawlessly executed. The commitment, dedication and talent of our military forces is commendable, and they deserve all of the credit and praise for this accomplishment. The impact of this mission is being felt worldwide, and more developments will unfold over the coming days. But in the midst of it all, we have a President and his Administration who are steadfast, committed and focused on delivering promises made to the American people, and for that, we are grateful!!

Judicial Branch of the Federal Government

Now to switch from current events to our PVRW focus for January – the Judicial Branch of government. We have already shared why gaining an understanding of our Yavapai Superior Court Judges is important. But why was the Judicial Branch created in the first place by our Founding Fathers? Many of us would answer to create a system of Checks and Balances within all 3 U.S. branches of government, and that is correct. The Constitution divided the Government into three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. That was an important decision because it gave specific powers to each branch and set up something called “checks and balances.” Just like the phrase sounds, the point of checks and balances was to make sure no one branch would be able to control too much power, and it created a “separation of powers.” Established by Article III of the U.S. Constitution, its key roles include resolving legal disputes, protecting individual rights, and ensuring the government acts within constitutional limits, upholding the rule of law. However, as we have all seen over the past several years, specific members of the Judicial Branch at multiple levels have gone rogue in their positions, violating their powers and over-extending their constitutional reach by making laws instead of interpreting existing laws. For our system to work as designed by the Founding Fathers, people in each branch of the federal government and in the state governments must do their jobs and stay in their respective lanes. To find out more about the Judicial Branch, the Federal Judicial Center website has a wealth of information on this topic at https://www.fjc.gov/.

Yavapai County Superior Court

With regards to the Yavapai County Superior Court, the Superior Court is the trial court of general jurisdiction for the State of Arizona and the judges hear cases which involve felony prosecutions, civil cases over $10,000, probate matters, marriage dissolutions and annulments, real property title and possession matters. The Superior Court is the state’s general jurisdiction court, with locations in each county. Each county has at least one superior court judge. In counties with more than one superior court judge, such as Yavapai County, the judges operate in numbered divisions. In the superior court system, each court is entitled to one superior court judge and one additional judge for every 30,000 county residents or majority fraction thereof. Superior court judges serve four-year terms, and there are now more than 100 Arizona superior court judges, most of whom are in Maricopa and Pima Counties. We will be hearing from our Yavapai Superior Court Judges on Thursday, but in preparation, you may want to explore the Yavapai County Superior Court website at https://courts.yavapaiaz.gov/Departments/Superior-Court. In addition, an interesting read on the same site is the Yavapai Courts Strategic Plan (2022-2-26), which I found to be very enlightening: https://courts.yavapaiaz.gov/files/sharedassets/courts/v/1/superior-court/documents/yavapaicourts-strategicplan.pdf.

Thank you for your continued support of Prescott Valley Republican Women. We are looking forward to bringing excellent speakers and programs into 2026, to educate and inspire us all to take Arizona back during our midterm elections. Let’s not become complacent but rather do our part to learn as much as we can over the next several months and determine our personal plans for being active participants in 2026 for the Republican Party. Our collective efforts will be crucial to the resulting outcome. Looking forward to seeing you on Thursday, January 8th!