Arizona judge deals major blow to effort to overturn state’s dark money law

After Arizona voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure to abolish dark money in state and legislative elections in November 2022, two conservative groups filed a lawsuit to block the law from taking effect, saying it violated their First Amendment rights.

On June 22, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott McCoy issued a ruling dismissing the lawsuit, citing earlier rulings and writing that “the Court may not ‘ignore the competing First Amendment interests of individual citizens seeking to make informed choices in the political marketplace,’” according to the Arizona Mirror.

The statute, which had been presented to voters as Proposition 211, or the Voters’ Right to Know Act, requires political committees that spend at least $50,000 in a state or legislative election to disclose the identities of donors that contribute at least $5,000. If a committee spends $25,000 in a local election — a town council or school board election, for example — it must then provide the names of donors who contributed at least $2,500 to the committee. More than 70% of Arizona voters approved the measure when it was on the ballot in the 2022 midterm elections.

The Arizona Free Enterprise Club and the Center for Arizona Policy, two nonprofit groups that support conservative policies, said in their suit challenging the law that it violated their free speech rights because it might discourage potential donors who might be afraid they’d be doxxed, or have their personal information released to the public, and judged for their political beliefs, according to the Arizona Capitol Times.

Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that prohibits the federal government from restricting the amount of money that corporations and political committees can spend to influence elections, the amount of dark money in politics — the money spent by nonprofit organizations that don’t have to disclose their donors — has skyrocketed.

Since then, Alaska, Montana, and Maine  have passed laws similar to Arizona’s to shine a light on dark money in their state and local elections. A number of other states have also passed or introduced legislation to require more disclosures of who’s spending money to influence elections. Proposition 211’s success is seen by election reform advocates as a model for how other states can fight to get rid of dark money in their elections.

“Other states have passed laws that aim to address secret spending, but Prop 211 puts Arizona at the forefront of securing voters’ right to know … and Prop 211 is a model for other states to follow,” Patrick Llewellyn of the nonpartisan organization Campaign Legal Center told Cronkite News in December.

Despite the dismissal of the Proposition 211 lawsuit, the Arizona Mirror reported that the plaintiffs may amend their challenge to the ballot initiative. Because the Arizona Citizen’s Clean Elections Commission is still developing the guidelines for enforcing the new law, Judge McCoy gave the two groups until July 7 to file an amended complaint.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.