Judge to hear Open Meetings law case against AIRC today

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

A Maricopa County Superior Court judge will consider Wednesday whether to end or to allow a civil investigation into whether Arizona’s redistricting commission violated the open meeting law to proceed. Judge to mull whether to end redistricting probe – Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required):

County attorneys leading the investigation are asking that the recently ousted chair of the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission and two other commissioners be ordered to cooperate. The probe is examining allegations that the three had secret one-on-one talks about selecting mapping consultants.

The commission contends it’s subject to only a constitutional requirement that its business be “open to the public” and that the open meetings law doesn’t apply to it.

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The Arizona Attorney General’s office had sued the three commission members to require their cooperation. The commission, in return, sued the attorney general alleging that he didn’t have the authority to investigate.

In late October, a judge removed Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne from the investigation, ruling Horne’s office couldn’t investigate the commission for possible open meetings law violations because it had advised commissioners on that same subject before the panel hired its own attorneys. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office is now handling the investigation.

The commission is asking Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Dean Fink to declare the open meetings law doesn’t apply to the commission.

County attorneys argue that the law requires all public bodies, including the commission, to meet in public and that the state Constitution doesn’t exempt the panel from the open meetings law.

"All public bodies" except the GOP legislative caucus apparently, which frequently operates in secret behind closed doors without any public transparency. I would expect a decision on this question of law fairly quickly, but probably not in advance of Thursday's Supreme Court hearing.