Arizona Senate Asserts It is Above The Law, Not Subject To Public Records Requests

Our MAGA/QAnon blog trolls have frequently posed a defense of the Arizona Senate’s GQP sham “fraudit,” to wit, “if you are so confident in the election results, what harm is there in letting this audit play out?”

This false framing presupposes this Cyber Ninja Dude, Doug Logan, is a legitimate election audit expert and is acting in good faith. But we already know that Doug Logan is neither.

Doug Logan is a QAnon conspiracy cultist who advanced election theft theories for Trump”s “elite strike force team” of Kraken lawyers that the courts summarily tossed out of court because they were so ridiculous and unsupported by any credible evidence.

And we know that this failed inventor and treasure hunting pulp fiction writer is no election audit expert. He is a grifter and a fraud, cashing in off this sham “fraudit.”

Cyber Ninja Legal Department? Here’s their suite, a mailbox in a UPS store. @Bob_Ortega @annamajaCNN pic.twitter.com/BXoqqfkoL7

— Kyung Lah (@KyungLahCNN) June 18, 2021

Japanese folklore says you should never see a ninja. The Cyber Ninja office was indeed, empty. w/@Bob_Ortega @annamajaCNN pic.twitter.com/OptTnHWOtR

— Kyung Lah (@KyungLahCNN) June 18, 2021

The official Cyber Ninja address w/the state of Florida is this. Yep. Still no ninjas. w/@Bob_Ortega @annamajaCNN pic.twitter.com/OqlSC5KUPy

— Kyung Lah (@KyungLahCNN) June 18, 2021

Tony Summerlin, who’s known Logan for 15 yrs, says Logan is smart, kind, but devoid of any election audit skills. He says Logan has bought into the Big Lie conspiracies. w/@annamajaCNN @Bob_Ortega pic.twitter.com/WAMmTUrm1o

— Kyung Lah (@KyungLahCNN) June 18, 2021

Arizona Senate President Karen Fann supposedly vetted a handful of bidders to do the Senate’s sham “fraudit,” but she hired the one guy who was certain to produce the predetermined outcome she wanted to fulfill her QAnon wet dream that the election was stolen. Arizona Senate hires a ‘Stop the Steal’ advocate to lead 2020 election audit. The “fix” was in, alright.

The correct question to be asking is the one posed to every corrupt politician: “if you did nothing wrong, what do you have to hide?”

Senator Karen Fann is asserting that the state legislature is above the law (“we ARE the law“) and does not have to answer to the lowly voters through a public records request. No, seriously.

The Arizona Capitol Times reports, Senate says lawmakers not subject to public record laws:

Senate President Karen Fann is taking the position that Arizona courts cannot force her or any other member of the Arizona Legislature to comply with the state’s Public Records Act.

In a new court filing, attorney Kory Langhofer who represents the Prescott Republican and the entire Senate, is asking Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Kemp to throw out a claim by a self-described nonpartisan watchdog group American Oversight to get access to all documents and materials related to the Senate’s audit of the 2020 election results.

Langhofer said the Senate has or will produce documents in its possession. Ditto with those in the possession of Ken Bennett who was tapped by Fann to be her liaison with Cyber Ninjas, the private company hired to conduct the audit.

The only exception, Langhofer said, are those which are protected as privileged or confidential.

In March, the State Bar of Arizona dismissed a bar complaint against Kory Langhofer for his frivolous election lawsuits on behalf of the Arizona Republican Party and the Trump campaign. Complaints against 9 attorneys involved in election lawsuits dismissed by Arizona Bar. This is Arizona, where the GOP culture of corruption has reigned supreme for decades, and the State Bar is not immune. This latest unsupported legal argument should lead the Bar to reopen its ethics investigation. The State Bar’s failure to hold Langhofer accountable was a green light for him to continue his unethical ways unabated, and unchastened.

It's not a winning argument to tell a judge that a law doesn't apply to you when there are literally decades of examples of you recognizing it applies to you and responding in accordance with the law.

— Jim Small (@JimSmall) June 18, 2021

Another problem with this argument, aside from the Senate's record of recognizing its duty under public records law: The House of Reps has an attorney on staff whose *entire job* is to receive and process records requests, because following the law is that important

— Jim Small (@JimSmall) June 19, 2021

Langhofer said, though, what American Oversight wants are documents that are in the hands of Cyber Ninjas or other companies it has, in turn, hired as subcontractors.

He said the Public Records Act does not apply to private companies. And he rejected arguments by attorney Roopali Desai that the records are public because the only reason Cyber Ninjas got the materials in the first place was because they were subpoenaed by the Senate.

The Arizona Senate has been arguing for months that Cyber Ninjas is its agent, it stands in the shoes of the Senate, and that is why this private company is protected by legislative privilege, or whatever other nonsense that Karen Fann and her unethical attorney can assert to avoid accountability.

But Langhofer has a backup legal argument just in case the judge does not read the scope of the Public Records Act as narrowly as he does. He told Kemp he has no jurisdiction in the fight.

The Arizona law spells out that public records and other matters in the custody of any officers “shall be open to inspection by any person at all times during office hours.”

Langhofer concedes that the Senate is a “public body” and lawmakers are “public officers” who, in any other circumstance, would be covered by the law.

Only thing is, he said, they are not subject to it.

“The Arizona Constitution entrusts each house of the Legislature plenary power to order its own internal procedures and affairs,” Langhofer wrote.

More to the point, he said even if there is a question — a point he is not conceding — courts are powerless to determine if lawmakers need to comply with the laws they enacted.

“Statutory measures (such as the Public Records Act) necessarily subordinate to this constitutional function,” Langhofer wrote. “Allegations concerning the legislature’s compliance with them present nonjusticiable political questions.”

Our Authoritarian GQP legislature now argues that it is above the law – “we ARE the law“, just like Louis XIV of France, ‘L’etat c’est moi’ (‘I am the state’), expressing a rule in which the authoritarian GQP legislature holds all political authority, not the citizens of Arizona, who unfortunately elected these damn fools.

Just a reminder, the Arizona Constitution, Article 2, Section 2 expressly provides: “All political power is inherent in the people, and governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and are established to protect and maintain individual rights.”

So screw you, Langhofer.

If the courts agree, that would do more than leave American Oversight without a legal remedy. It also could set the stage for setting a new precedent which could leave all Arizonans powerless to use the Public Records Act to demand everything from legislative documents to letters sent to lawmakers and texts they send and receive.

Our longtime blog troll, Rep. John Kavanagh, would be relieved. He has used his legislative email address to troll this blog, a misuse of state property. Just ask our former blog troll John Huppenthal about that.

But Dan Barr, attorney for the First Amendment Coalition, said he believes courts will reject any effort by Fann and her legal adviser to rule that lawmakers need not comply with the Public Records Act. He said they are clearly public officers.

“I don’t buy this notion that even though the state legislature, passing the public records law, didn’t have the power to bind itself to the law,” he said. “That’s sort of nuts.”

And Barr said that while Langhofer is relying on the constitutional provisions allowing lawmakers to set their own rules, the laws on public records actually predate the 1912 Arizona Constitution.

Doh! Lazy lawyering by Langhofer.

He also brushed aside claims that courts have no right to tell another co-equal branch of government how they have to behave.

“The (U.S.) Supreme Court decided years ago … about courts having authority to tell other branches of government what they can and can’t do,” Barr said.

“Courts strike down statutes all the time,” he said. “Courts rule on actions taken by the governor all the time.”

Correct. Everyone knows this, but Kory Langhofer apparently. They will give anyone a law license these days.

The lawsuit, filed by American Oversight last month, does not seek access to the ballot themselves.

Maricopa County turned them over under subpoena. And they are not public records.

And Fann already has made public the contract documents between the Senate and Cyber Ninjas.

But the lawsuit says at least part of what is missing are any contracts involving third-party vendors that the Senate directly or indirectly retained through Cyber Ninjas.

Desai also wants any records reflecting the audit’s budget and any external funding that may have been received.

Fann has told Capitol Media Services the only thing she knows about is the $150,000 that the Senate has agreed to pay.

That clearly is not covering the cost of the audit which has now been going on for months. And the America Project, started by millionaire Patrick Byrne, the former CEO of overstock.com., who says the election results were fraudulent, is trying to raise $2.8 million “to support and pay for expenses of the Maricopa Audit.”

“It was a fraudulent election,” he told the television network. “It didn’t end for us on Jan. 20.”

So far the group, operating a site at “fundtheaudit.com,” says it has raised more than $1.9 million.

Fann said she has been promised there will be an accounting at the end of the audit. But questions remain as to how much will be made public.

The American Project was set up under a section of the Internal Revenue Code as a “social welfare organization.” That means it is not legally required to disclose the names of the people who donate.

Desai said her contention that the records being sought from Cyber Ninjas and the other contractors are public are buttressed by statements made by Fann.

The Senate president has said that the purpose of the audit is not to overturn the election results that showed Joe Biden defeating Donald Trump. Instead, Fann said, senators want to examine how the balloting process was handled, at least in Maricopa county, giving information to senators to decide whether changes need to be made in laws governing the conduct of future elections.

That, Desai said, makes everything the Senate — and its contractors — are doing to accomplish that goal a matter of public records.

Langhofer, however, said Kemp has no choice but to dismiss the case.

“When adjudication of a claim will entail incursions into the internal domain of the legislature or executive, respect for those coequal branches necessitates dismissal,” he said. And Langhofer said if there are questions, then they have to be resolved within the branch of government itself or, ultimately, by the people who elect them.

Throw all of these Authoritarian seditious insurrectionist Republicans out of office. End this tyranny.

A hearing on the issue is set in July.