by Staff Reporter | May 2, 2026 | News
By Staff Reporter |
A federal judge dismissed the Trump administration’s lawsuit against Secretary of State Adrian Fontes over his refusal to turn over voter registration records.
The Arizona District Court ruled in United States v. Fontes on Tuesday that the federal government didn’t have justification under federal law to force Fontes to turn over the records.
The court dismissed the claim with prejudice, calling the federal government’s claim on the law “[an] amendment [that] would be legally futile.”
District Judge Susan Brnovich, widow to former Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, found “unconvincing” the DOJ’s argument that the Civil Rights Act of 1960 (52 U.S.C. § 20702) gave the federal government authority to request state voter records and documents. Brnovich said this interpretation conflicted with the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and Help America Vote Act (HAVA).
“[T]he Attorney General’s interpretation places § 20702 in conflict with multiple provisions of the NVRA and HAVA,” said Brnovich.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) filed the lawsuit against Fontes in January. Then-Attorney General Pam Bondi sought Arizona’s entire statewide voter registration list, which would include a registered voter’s full name, date of birth, residential address, and driver’s license number or last four Social Security Number digits.
At the time, Bondi said voter registration database transparency between the states and federal government fulfilled a “basic obligation of transparency.”
Fontes said the court ruling represented a victory for preserving the security of voter privacy.
“Looks like your personal data is safe yet again because the case against me and the Department of Justice’s illegal requests to grab that voter registration have been dismissed,” said Fontes. “I will continue to protect your personal identifying information from these illegal requests no matter what.”
The DOJ requested records from Fontes twice last summer and once last winter. Fontes denied all requests. He has maintained that state and federal privacy laws preempt him from turning over voter records.
Attorney General Kris Mayes supported Fontes’ refusal from the start.
In a statement released on Wednesday, Mayes said the ruling was a rightful dismissal and a vindication of Fontes’ actions.
“That database contains the sensitive personal information of millions of Arizona voters — home addresses, dates of birth, and Social Security and driver’s license numbers. But the Court was clear: Title III of the Civil Rights Act does not authorize this demand,” said Mayes.
Five other federal courts in California, Oregon, Michigan, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island have rejected this Civil Rights Act argument by the Trump DOJ.
The DOJ has 25 lawsuits on their claim of Civil Rights Act authority pending in Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Utah, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
Earlier this month, Arizona Senate leadership referred Fontes to the DOJ for allegedly obstructing justice and tampering with a witness concerning a federal probe into Arizona election records.
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by Michael Way | Jun 5, 2025 | Opinion
By Representative Michael Way |
Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs has signaled again and again that she is so committed to the dogma of the most extreme elements of her party that she’s willing to ignore wide swaths of the Arizona public and veto the most commonsense bills. The most recent is her veto of my bill, HB2868, that would have ended taxpayer-funded DEI in K-12 schools and public universities. She claims (disingenuously, of course) that such a commonsense prohibition will “jeopardize the continued stability” of Arizona’s universities and community colleges. How exactly, is intentionally left unclear. This adherence to extreme ideology by a blue governor in a red state is not unique to Arizona. Kentucky’s Governor, Andy Beshear, just did the same.
DEI—or “diversity, equity, and inclusion”—is the slick marketing name for what is a dangerous, bigoted, and divisive ideology. It’s actually about ideological sameness, inequity of opportunity, and exclusion. Today, it flavors the instruction in our K-12 schools, exerts total control over places of higher learning, and is used as a corporate bludgeon (or “re-education” tool) for employees who espouse ideas the ruling Left deems “out of line.” Not very American.
I’m a Constitution-loving, free-speech believer. Anyone is free to like or discuss bad ideas. If you want to think individuals should be elevated because of immutable characteristics like race or gender, and not by merit, go right ahead. But taxpayers shouldn’t be funding the totalitarian use of DEI in public classrooms. Students shouldn’t have to bend the knee to ideas they don’t agree with or face social shunning or worse.
How does totalitarian DEI look in practice? Think publicly-funded DEI offices charged with implementing this thinking across departments, curricula, and in hiring, selecting employees based on their race, sex, color or ethnicity (is this not a blatant violation of the Civil Rights Act?), requiring the signing of what amounts to a DEI-statement of faith, mandating “re-education classes,” and more.
President Trump signaled nationally that the federal government was done funding this circus and states’ funding was in jeopardy if they didn’t take action to eliminate it. The President is smart and understands—beyond the constitutional ramifications—that Americans are tired of being controlled by a woke, DEI thought-police funded by their own hard-earned dollars. I’ve sensed the same frustration from my own constituents. So, while I’m a first-term legislator, this was one of my top priorities. And we got it done. I held out hope, perhaps naively, that the Governor would sign at the very least out of political self-interest. She presumably hopes to be re-elected. But she once again signaled that she either doesn’t know the state she governs (her ban on tamale trucks, anyone?) or doesn’t care. She has been vetoing with immunity until now with the only consequence being that she is universally disliked on both sides of the aisle.
My fellow Republican legislators and I are holding the line against all the really dangerous stuff she’d like to do. But we’d like to do more than stop the bad. We’d like to make some real, positive, America-first change for our constituents. And that will require a governor who knows (and actually likes) the state he or she represents.
As a father of four, I’d like my children to grow up in a world where they can think and believe what they choose, disagree openly in institutions of higher learning, and rise in their careers based on merit, not race or gender. The extreme Left is clearly intent on taking us back. Next year, Arizona voters will have a chance to let them know exactly how they feel about that, starting at the top.
Representative Michael Way serves Legislative District 15 in the Arizona State House. He makes his home in Queen Creek with his wife Raimee and their four children.
