Chutzpah alert: Look who's fighting Arizona's new dark money disclosure law now

Arizona’s new “dark money” disclosure law is once again under attack.

This time, it’s Arizona House Speaker Ben Toma and Senate President Warren Petersen hoping to kill a law voters approved nearly 3-1 last year.

It seems the Legislature “will suffer ongoing, irreparable injury and loss of its constitutional rights” should the Voters’ Right to Know Act be allowed to stand.

That’s some serious chutzpah right there, asking a judge to toss out a law passed by 72% of the state’s voters.

And paying their high-powered lawyers over at Snell and Wilmer to sue us with our money, no less.

Other lawsuits say it violates free speech

This is the third attempt by the power set to torpedo the long-awaited law that will require the disclosure of the major donors behind the dark money campaigns that have become a centerpiece of Arizona’s elections.

I say long awaited because our leaders literally had years to pass a dark money disclosure bill and wouldn’t even consider it.

So, finally the citizens did it for them, using our constitutional power to overwhelmingly pass Proposition 211 last November.

Under the law, any nonprofit or political party spending $50,000 or more on any combination of statewide races must now disclose all donors who contributed $5,000 or more, regardless of whether the money was passed through intermediary groups.

For local races, the threshold is $25,000.

A national dark money group, Americans for Prosperity, filed a lawsuit in federal court, claiming the law will have an unconstitutional “chilling effect” on its donors' right to free speech by subjecting them to “government doxing.”

That case is pending.

Lawmakers say it infringes their rights

Meanwhile, the Center for Arizona Policy and the Arizona Free Enterprise Club sued in state court, calling the voter-approved law is an outrageous assault on the First Amendment right of their deep-pocketed donors to spend whatever it takes to get their candidates elected without anybody knowing about it.

In June, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott McCoy tossed their lawsuit.

Tossed lawsuit: It's a win for voters who demanded disclosure

Campaign finance disclosure is warranted, he noted, both to give voters information they need before an election and to deter corruption afterward “by permitting voters to assess whether donors receive post-election favors.”

So, now come Toma and Petersen with a new lawsuit and a new angle.

They’re asking Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Frank Moskowitz to throw out the Voters’ Right to Know Act, contending it infringes on the Legislature’s constitutional right to make laws.

Former Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, who championed Proposition 211, declined to comment, saying he had not yet read the lawsuit.

They wouldn't act, so Arizona voters did

Specifically, the Republican leaders are steamed that the voters cut out the Legislature when it comes to making new laws to remedy problems with the measure, which they contend is “riddled” with “inconsistencies and contradictions.”

Instead, that rule making authority is vested with the Arizona Citizens Clean Election Commission — “with no legislative approval, limits, or oversight.”

“Defendants stand to violate under color of state law the rights and plenary lawmaking power of the Arizona Legislature under the Arizona Constitution, and the Arizona Legislature will suffer ongoing, irreparable injury and loss of its constitutional rights,” the lawsuit huffs.

Oh, the absolute indignity of it all, to be bypassed after years of refusing to act while dark money has flowed like a river in this state.

“Neither the proponents of Prop 211 nor the voters have the authority to statutorily delegate the legislature’s constitutional authority to an unelected Commission with no limiting principles or guidelines,” the lawsuit puffs.

In other words, how dare three in four of the state’s voters, 1,736,496 in all, tell the Arizona Legislature what it can — and in this case, can’t — do.

Just who do we think we are?

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, at @LaurieRoberts.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona dark money disclosure law has a new fight — from state leaders