By Ray Stern | Arizona Republic
The $15.3 million giveaway in the state budget to Prescott’s rodeo has spurred a lawsuit by two residents of the city and a legal rights group who claim the Arizona Constitution bans such spending.
They want a permanent injunction to block the state from distributing the money when the new fiscal year begins July 1.
Howard Mechanic and retired Yavapai County Superior Court Judge Ralph Hess filed the lawsuit in Maricopa County Superior Court last week with the help of the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest, a nonpartisan legal advocacy group.
The suit claims that the planned payout would violate the law and that Mechanic and Hess — as taxpayers — will suffer a financial loss by sharing in the “burden for replenishing … wrongful and illegal expenditures.”
The plaintiffs say the payment runs afoul of the state Constitution’s “gift clause,” which prohibits government entities from giving money to private companies or people without direct benefits to taxpayers. The budget item also would violate the Constitution’s directive that when spending doesn’t go to state agencies, public schools or to pay down state debt, lawmakers must list its purpose in a separate bill, according to the suit.
