JEROD MACDONALD-EVOY
Arizona Mirror
A judge on Friday refused a bid by Arizona Republican legislative leaders to block an anti-dark money law that voters passed in 2022, concluding that their claims that the new state law is unconstitutional don’t pass muster.
House Speaker Ben Toma, R-Peoria, and Senate President Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, filed a lawsuit in October alleging that Proposition 211 is unconstitutional because it violated legislative authority. They asked the court to immediately block the law so it could not be used to unveil the sources of campaign spending in the upcoming 2024 election that would have remained anonymous in previous years.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and the Citizens Clean Elections Commission, which is charged with enforcing the dark money disclosures, all defended the new law.
More than 70% of voters approved of Proposition 211, also known as the Voters Right to Know Act, which requires any person or organization making campaign media expenditures of more than $50,000 to statewide elections or $25,000 to local elections to disclose the original source of any contributions totalling more than $5,000.
Toma and Petersen’s attorneys have argued that the act has no guardrails and no oversight from the legislature. However, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Timothy Ryan wrote on Friday that their challenge isn’t on solid legal ground.
