{"id":225165,"date":"2025-09-14T03:19:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T03:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/225165\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T03:19:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T03:19:09","slug":"arizona-supreme-court-hears-prop-211-arguments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/225165\/","title":{"rendered":"Arizona Supreme Court hears Prop. 211 arguments"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHOENIX \u2014 The fate of Proposition 211, an overwhelmingly popular law passed in 2022, was placed in the hands of the Arizona Supreme Court on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The justices heard oral arguments from the Goldwater Institute, the plaintiff, and from the Arizona secretary of state, whose office defended the proposition.<\/p>\n

Proposition 211, popularly known as the \u201cVoter\u2019s Right to Know Act,\u201d passed with 72% of the vote. The Goldwater Institute, a public policy research organization, filed a lawsuit challenging the proposition in December 2022, asserting that it infringed on free speech and privacy rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe unfortunate reality is that this law simply does not allow that speech to occur. It does not allow space for expression in this state,\u201d said Jon Riches, the vice president for litigation and general counsel at the Goldwater Institute.<\/p>\n

The law requires major statewide campaign donors to disclose where the money came from. Any entity spending at least $50,000 on campaign media has to identify its donors who gave at least $5,000. In local elections, the disclosure threshold is $25,000.<\/p>\n

Campaign media spending refers to money spent in support or opposition of a candidate through television, digital media, print, radio or other similar advertisements.<\/p>\n

The Goldwater Institute called the proposition \u201cdonor doxing\u201d \u2014 publishing private information with malicious intent. The Arizona Secretary of State\u2019s Office, the defendant in the case, disagreed with that characterization, and said the law calls for transparency.<\/p>\n

The Goldwater Institute said that it worries for donors whose information is made public, such as their address and employer. Other opponents of the law argued that the information gives ammunition to the opposition, who might be unhappy, and puts a target on the backs of donors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re afraid of the activist organizations out there, they\u2019re afraid of politicians and others that want to exact retaliation because they simply support a position or belief that they disagree,\u201d said Scot Mussi, the president and executive director of the Arizona Free Enterprise Club.<\/p>\n

Former Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, the driving force behind the law\u2019s passing, said the transparency is necessary for informed voting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a way to allow the voters to have the chance to know who it is that\u2019s trying to persuade him one way or the other,\u201d Goddard said. \u201cAnd without that information, you just can\u2019t cast a knowledgeable vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arizona\u2019s 2014 \u201cdark money\u201d scandal inspires Prop. 211<\/p>\n

Goddard said the proposition and the sentiment behind it are important countrywide, especially in Arizona, after a \u201cdark money\u201d\u00a0scandal in 2014<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dark money refers to the\u00a0money that moves<\/a>\u00a0from one donor to another entity and then finally to a campaign. The entity that actually donates the money to campaigns takes the original donor out of the equation.<\/p>\n

In 2014, Arizona Public Service, a power company, donated more than $10 million to various groups supporting two Arizona Republicans\u00a0running for Arizona Corporation Commission positions<\/a>. Both Republicans won their races and later supported an APS request to increase electric bills in the state.<\/p>\n

The Arizona Supreme Court is deliberating the arguments, and a resolution is not expected anytime soon. Both sides said they felt confident after the arguments, and remained hopeful that the ruling would go their way.<\/p>\n

Andrew Gould<\/a>, a former Arizona Supreme Court justice, represented the Goldwater Institute during the oral arguments on Thursday. He \u2013 along with other Goldwater Institute staff \u2013 focused on the infringement of free speech.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat this law does is it takes people who want to anonymously express themselves through organizations that will speak on their behalf,\u201d Gould said. \u201cIt denies them that way. It strips them of that anonymity, and it exposes them to retaliation in every form,\u201d<\/p>\n

But Eric Fraser, an attorney for the Citizens Clean Election Commission, disagreed. He said free speech and donations are not the same thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe donor is not speaking, donor is not writing, donor is not publishing,\u201d he said, comparing donations to speech.<\/p>\n

Goddard echoed the sentiment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s no infringement on free speech,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s an effort to make sure that voters have all the information they need to cast a knowledgeable vote. And I think that\u2019s our fundamental obligation, is to make sure that people feel confidence that they\u2019re making the right decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

We want to hear from you.<\/p>\n

Have a story idea or tip? Pass it along to the KTAR News team here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\t
\n\t<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX \u2014 The fate of Proposition 211, an overwhelmingly popular law passed in 2022, was placed in the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":225166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[7155,5229,5643,1587,316,1589,7154,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-225165","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-92-3-ktar","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-arizona","11":"tag-az","12":"tag-home","13":"tag-phoenix","14":"tag-phoenix-and-arizona-breaking-news-and-news-headlines-home","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115200495987294697","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}