by Staff Reporter | Apr 19, 2026 | News
By Staff Reporter |
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors overstepped and must restore elections authority to Recorder Justin Heap, according to a new court ruling.
The Maricopa County Superior Court rejected the board of supervisors’ argument in a new ruling issued on Friday in Justin Heap v. Thomas Galvin, et al. The court said the board does not enjoy “plenary” authority over election administration. Judge Scott Blaney ruled this view wasn’t consistent with Arizona law.
“The Board’s general authority does not override specific statutory delegations to other county officers,” stated Blaney. “The Legislature has authority over the conduct of elections and determines the extent to which the Board may conduct them. The Board may not override these specific allocations by invoking general supervisory authority.”
The court opted for a more balanced view of the law in which both the board and recorder have duties expressly given in elections administration. Blaney’s ruling interpreted Arizona law to reflect that the board holds only those powers expressly delegated to it. The same goes with the recorder.
“Where a valid delegation of authority exists, the delegation must clearly delineate the designated agency or officer,” said Blaney. “Arizona’s election statutes clearly delineate the Recorder as the designated officer for the 111 functions assigned to the ‘recorder or other officer in charge.’ The Board cannot substitute itself for the Recorder without either the Recorder’s consent or express legislative authorization.”
With this view, Blaney said the board had a duty to release withheld funding for those necessary expenses for which Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap has fought for months. The Arizona legislature appropriated $4.1 million from the state general fund for the recorder’s office for elections-related operations. That funding hasn’t been spent.
Blaney also ordered the board to abstain from weaponizing its budgetary authority as a bargaining chip. Blaney went one step further to preserve Heap’s statutory authority, specifying that the board couldn’t exercise those election funds designated to his office without his consent.
As a major part of restoring the power balance, Judge Blaney ordered the board to either return control of IT staff, servers, databases, software, and elections systems to the recorder’s office, or to fund their immediate replacement.
Should the board fail to restore Heap’s functions, Blaney warned that disenfranchisement could occur.
“[T]he Board has acted unlawfully and exceeded its statutory authority by seizing the Recorder’s personnel, systems, and equipment and refusing to return them to the Recorder’s control[,]” said Blaney. “The evidence at trial established that the Recorder’s inability to exercise meaningful control over election systems and staff will likely cause concrete operational harms, including inability to timely process provisional ballots under A.R.S. § 16-134, resulting in voters being denied tabulation of the full ballots that they had voted and to which they were entitled. These harms will not resolve and may likely increase absent court intervention, particularly as general election cycles approach.”
Immediately following the ruling, Heap declared his victory in a press release. Heap credited America First Legal along with attorney and state representative Alexander Kolodin (R-LD3) for the favorable ruling.
“The court confirmed that the Board cannot override state law, use funding as leverage, or take control of election duties assigned to the Recorder,” said Heap. “This ruling restores both the authority and the resources necessary for my office to do its job.”
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
by Ethan Faverino | Mar 18, 2026 | Education, News
By Ethan Faverino |
America First Legal (AFL) has launched an investigation into the Flagstaff Unified School District #1 (FUSD) over its handling of a large-scale student walkout and anti-ICE protest on January 28, 2026.
AFL filed a detailed public records request with the district, demanding transparency about the event in which hundreds of students left school grounds without apparent parental notification or consent.
According to KNAU, approximately 700 to 800 students from multiple FUSD schools—including Coconino High School, Flagstaff High School, Mount Elden Middle School, and Sinagua Middle School—participated in a coordinated walkout beginning around 11:30 a.m.
Students marched more than a mile across busy intersections to Flagstaff City Hall, where they lined the sidewalks with anti-ICE messages protesting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement policies. Students from some charter schools also joined the demonstration, which appeared to be part of a broader national action against immigration enforcement.
America First Legal’s request highlights serious concerns that school employees actively facilitated the protest by escorting students off campus and supervising the march, despite no evidence of prior parental consent or notification.
According to AFL, the district has not publicly disclosed when it first became aware of the planned event, how it prepared its response, the extent of staff involvement in organizing or assisting, or any disciplinary consequences for students who left class or school property without authorization.
The organization argues that these actions may have violated parents’ fundamental constitutional rights to direct their children’s education and upbringing, as well as Arizona’s Parenal Bill of Rights and related federal laws that protect pupil privacy and related rights.
“Parents do not surrender their rights at the schoolhouse gate,” stated James Rogers, Senior Counsel at America First Legal. “When hundreds of students are permitted to leave campus during the school day for a political protest, families deserve complete transparency about who approved it, how it was supervised, and why parents were not notified.”
The public records request, submitted under the Arizona Public Records Law, seeks a wide range of documents from August 1, 2025, onward. These include:
- Records of FUSD employees who organized or participated in the protest.
- Communications and preparations related to the event.
- Details on how students and staff were processed back onto school property that day.
- Policies on students leaving campus and any parental consent communications.
- Social media posts, flyers (including one titled “Walk Out Against ICE”), and messages via platforms like ParentSquare.
Rachel Griffin, Attorney at America First Legal, added: “Schools exist to educate children, not to sideline parents, and certainly not to indoctrinate students. This investigation seeks basic answers about how this political protest was handled and whether the district respected parental rights and the rule of law. America First Legal will bring the truth into the light.”
Ethan Faverino is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by Staff Reporter | Feb 7, 2026 | News
By Staff Reporter |
In the latest escalation between Maricopa County leaders’ legal jockeying for elections authority, the Board of Supervisors reportedly subpoenaed staff with the Recorder’s Office.
Recorder Justin Heap issued a statement on Tuesday accusing the board of attempting “to intimidate and bully” his staff and “unduly influence” the pending court ruling. The recorder and board have been fighting for months in the Maricopa County Superior Court over who has proper authority over which elections administration powers.
“Their actions are beyond inappropriate,” said Heap. “My staff has bent over backwards to work with the Board, yet despite our earnest efforts the Board continues to engage in unhinged, emotional, and unprofessional behavior.”
Within the hour of Heap’s post, supervisor and former chair Thomas Galvin quoted Scripture that appeared to allude that the truth of the matter was beyond Heap’s remarks.
“‘And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.’ – John 8:32,” posted Galvin.
Galvin also shared a video from Chair Kate Brophy McGee addressing the accusations from Heap. McGee said their subpoena concerned an apparent conflict between Heap’s remarks during his annual budget request and sworn testimony on voter disenfranchisement from Heap’s staff, both of which took place last week on separate days.
“At Maricopa County, we count every lawful vote. That’s why we take any claim of disenfranchisement seriously, and have asked the Recorder’s office to provide further testimony regarding conflicting claims recently made by Recorder Heap and his staff,” said McGee. “This is an important issue and we need straight answers. If any voters are being disenfranchised, we will fix it immediately. If not, then the Recorder’s office must clarify to the court why it provided such testimony. Maricopa County voters need the truth.”
During last week’s board hearing, Heap said no voters had been disenfranchised since he took office in January 2025.
“We stated that we want this machine to make sure that we don’t disenfranchise voters. We didn’t say that any voters have been disenfranchised since I took office in the administration,” said Heap.
Two days earlier, Heap’s chief of staff, Sam Stone, issued sworn testimony in the Maricopa County Superior Court that disenfranchisement was occurring in the present.
“We had two potential places we would have made the substantial changes to one or the other to bring this in, to not disenfranchise voters, which is happening now,” said Stone.
Stone directed the court to testimony from Janine Petty, senior director of voter registration, who said disenfranchisement occurred during the 2024 election when certain provisional ballots were processed as federal-only due to time constraints even though they were voted as a full ballot.
“[Those provisional ballots] would be counted, but they would not be afforded the full ballot. So they would be duplicated by the elections board to be a federal ballot, when that voter was entitled a full ballot and voted a full ballot,” said Petty.
Heap earned a legal win on Wednesday against the board after the Maricopa County Superior Court rejected the board’s move to stop America First Legal (AFL) from representing Heap in court going forward.
AFL sued the board on behalf of Heap last summer over the contested elections administration powers, a battle stemming from a “lame duck” agreement between the outgoing recorder, Stephen Richer, and a board majority also on their way out.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
by Matthew Holloway | Aug 31, 2025 | News
By Matthew Holloway |
The legal fight between Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap and the County Board of Supervisors escalated Monday. America First Legal filed two motions on Heap’s behalf, and Arizona’s legislative leaders submitted an amicus brief supporting him.
In a press release, the County Recorder’s Office stated that the motions filed by America First Legal “reveal how the County Board of Supervisors and County Attorney Rachel Mitchell have weaponized county government against duly-elected Recorder Justin Heap simply because he dared to fulfill his statutory duties and protect the sanctity of Arizona elections.”
Heap said in a statement, “It’s unfortunate that the Board’s unprofessional and bad faith actions have forced us to litigate this issue; however, it’s significantly more unfortunate that the Board continues to deny the voters of Maricopa County the positive, common sense election integrity reforms that they voted for last November when they elected me. As I’ve promised from day one, I am working to ensure honest, secure, and transparent elections for every voter in Maricopa County. I am not, and will not, waiver in my commitment to executing on this promise. I’m grateful to America First Legal for standing by my side in this battle.”
America First Legal detailed Heap’s allegations in the first filing: “The Defendants — the members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors (‘BOS’) — have crossed from fiscal oversight into outright sabotage. Ignoring [state law] and decades of precedent, the BOS has refused to fund the Recorder’s ‘necessary expenses’ — from modern ballot-processing equipment to indispensable IT staff — while simultaneously seizing control of the very election functions its stonewalling endangers. The BOS’s obstruction is not mere bureaucratic foot-dragging; it is a calculated power grab that throttles the Recorder’s constitutional duty to administer secure, timely elections.”
In an amici filing in support of Heap, Arizona House Speaker Steven Montenegro and Senate President Warren Petersen’s legal representation call for a strict interpretation of state statutes which govern the responsibilities of the county recorder and board of supervisors. They argue that the “court should narrowly conclude that, based on the statutes’ plain language, when the statute authorizes ‘the county recorder or other officer in charge of elections’ to act, it is the recorder’s duty to ensure the statute is complied with unless the recorder expressly agrees to delegate that duty to another ‘officer in charge of elections.’”
As previously reported by AZ Free News, the months-long negotiations between Heap and the Board, led by Chairman Thomas Galvin, devolved steadily since Heap’s election and the replacement of Stephen Richer in January until finally collapsing into litigation in June.
The crux of the disagreement between the Board of Supervisors and County Recorder Heap rests upon a Shared Services Agreement (SSA) agreed to by Heap’s predecessor, Richer, who ardently opposed the election integrity efforts that Heap ran for office to enact. For nearly six months, the two county offices negotiated; however, Heap and the Supervisors were unable to reach an agreement, culminating in a lawsuit filed by Heap.
Since then, Heap has alleged that the Supervisors have “taken retaliatory actions” describing a series of measures that “make it impossible for him to do his job, including removing nearly all his election-related IT staff; seizing the servers, databases, and websites necessary to fulfill his duties; and restricting access to necessary facilities and equipment,” as reported by The Federalist.
In a second filing, Heap and America First Legal introduced allegations involving Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, bringing a third County office into the fray in a dispute over who may represent the County Recorder, an attorney chosen by Heap or Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell. In the legal brief, they allege, “Attorney Mitchell originally appointed a criminal defense attorney to advise the Recorder; however, in April, America First Legal agreed to represent Heap pro bono, a move that Mitchell objected to.”
“When the Recorder complained that the original attorney appointed for him lacked sufficient subject matter expertise, County Attorney Mitchell appointed former Arizona Supreme Court Justice Andrew Gould to advise the Recorder only during negotiations with the Board. However, County Attorney Mitchell and the Board did not allow Justice Gould to litigate on the Recorder’s behalf,” the filing revealed.
But according to AFL, that wasn’t the end of it. “In May of 2025, Justice Gould specifically asked the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office for permission to litigate on Recorder Heap’s behalf but was not allowed to do so because the scope of his representation was limited to negotiation of the SSA and did not include litigation, and, accordingly, the County would not compensate him for litigation-related work.”
Mitchell responded by penning a letter to the AFL attorneys, writing in part, “This letter is to inform you that I am the Recorder’s attorney and that you do not represent the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office or Recorder Heap in his official capacity.”
Per The Federalist, AFL attorney James Rogers retorted that the “County Recorder is allowed to pick his own lawyer in litigation,” adding that Heap “is not subject to the whims of the county attorney.”
In the midst of the complex legal battle between the Recorder’s Office and the Board of Supervisors, which has drawn the attention of legislative leaders, the dispute with Mitchell adds yet another layer of infighting within the already divided county government, with the calendar counting down to the 2026 elections.
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
by Staff Reporter | Apr 17, 2025 | News
By Staff Reporter |
All of Arizona’s 15 counties are now undertaking efforts to remove any illegal aliens from their voter rolls following a lawsuit filed by America First Legal (AFL), a right-wing nonprofit.
There is no certainty as to how many — if any — illegal aliens exist on Arizona’s voter rolls. There are nearly 50,000 individuals registered to vote in the state that only vote in federal races because they did not provide proof of citizenship. These voters are known as “federal-only” voters.
AFL filed its lawsuit last year and secured settlements in waves, first from Yavapai and Mohave counties last year and then the remaining counties last week. Per a press release from AFL on Monday, all 15 county recorders are now obtaining assistance from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to verify the citizenship status of all registered voters who have not provided proof of citizenship.
AFL explained it filed the lawsuit because it believed the county recorders were not “utilizing all available resources” for citizenship verification, despite Arizona law requiring monthly voter roll maintenance to purge noncitizen voters; federal law also permits state and local to seek confirmation of citizenship status.
AFL senior counsel James Rogers expressed further confidence in Arizona’s election integrity going forward with these settlements.
“This settlement is a great result for all Arizonans. This will help County Recorders find and remove any aliens on their voter rolls,” said Rogers. “It will also potentially enfranchise federal-only voters whose citizenship is confirmed, which would allow them to vote in State and local elections. AFL congratulates each of Arizona’s 15 County Recorders for taking this bold and important step for election integrity in the State.”
AFL filed the lawsuit on behalf of Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona, also known as “EZAZ,” and registered voter Yvonne Cahill.
As reported by AZ Free News, there were over 11,600 federal-only voters who cast a ballot in the 2020 presidential election.
On the day of his inauguration earlier this year, President Donald Trump issued an executive order requiring the DHS secretary and personnel to equip state and local governments with all necessary resources and tools to secure confirmation of citizenship and immigration status. Trump followed up this directive with another executive order last month directing DHS to share its citizenship and immigration status database with states.
Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap said he plans on complying with the settlement once he secures an IT team.
“We will have transparency in our elections. We will have integrity. One citizen, one vote. But I am unable to do that when the office of the Recorder is being deliberately gutted by insiders who like the status quo…” said Heap. “I wasn’t elected to beg unelected bureaucrats for the right to carry out the will of the voters and my statutory duties. Maricopa County needs to stop playing games and let me do my job.”
Heap was referring to an ongoing disagreement with the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors over the reduction of his office’s authorities under an agreement executed months before Heap took office.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
