by Jonathan Eberle | Dec 8, 2025 | Education, News
By Jonathan Eberle |
More than one hundred days after receiving a legislative request for detailed financial transaction records, the Tolleson Union High School District has yet to turn over the documents, prompting renewed scrutiny from Arizona lawmakers.
State Rep. Matt Gress (R-LD4), a Phoenix Republican who chairs the House Education Committee and co-chairs the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, marked the milestone with a sharply worded statement criticizing the district’s continued refusal to release the information.
Gress first requested electronic copies of the district’s financial transactions on August 26, following a legislative audit hearing on Tolleson Union’s fiscal practices. A follow-up letter was issued on September 17. According to Gress, the district has not complied with either request.
“In that time, the district has refused to provide electronic copies, demanded more than $26,000 in fees meant to discourage oversight, and ignored repeated clarifications,” Gress said. “No other public entity in Arizona has ever tried to block access to routine financial information.
The lawmaker said the Legislature has an obligation to track how taxpayer funds are allocated and questioned why the district is resisting disclosure of what he described as basic purchase order and transaction data. He noted that other school districts routinely produce similar exports from their financial software within days.
Tolleson Union has faced heightened public scrutiny in recent months. In November, voters rejected both a bond and budget override measure by wide margins—an outcome Gress pointed to as evidence of waning community trust. “Their message was clear: restore accountability,” he said. “A 100-day refusal to cooperate is unacceptable and cannot continue.”
Gress urged the district’s governing board to direct staff to immediately release the requested records and pledged that lawmakers would “continue pressing for these records until they are produced.”
Jonathan Eberle is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by Staff Reporter | Nov 25, 2025 | News
By Staff Reporter |
The Arizona Supreme Court held a hearing on Monday to decide whether the city of Phoenix can hide certain public records.
The city is being sued by the Goldwater Institute, a Phoenix-based public policy and litigation organization, over its hiding of records concerning union negotiations.
In Goldwater v. Phoenix, the Goldwater Institute argued the city of Phoenix has a duty to disclose those records in order to allow the public to have an informed decision, and because they serve as the entity negotiating on behalf of the public.
The organization filed their lawsuit in March of 2023 after the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association (PLEA) declined to provide a draft memoranda of understanding (MOU) for public input at the end of 2022. PLEA had provided its MOU drafts in preceding years.
Per the city’s “Meet and Confer” ordinance, unions must submit MOUs by Dec. 1 in the year before the expiration of an operative agreement so that the public may provide input prior to negotiations between the union and city.
Despite not having a draft MOU available for the public to review, the Phoenix City Council moved forward with a meeting to collect public comment on an unsubmitted draft.
The city then began negotiations in January 2023.
The city of Phoenix refused to give PLEA’s draft MOU to the Goldwater Institute upon request, claiming the records were exempt from public records disclosure because public scrutiny would burden negotiations.
The city claimed they were protected under the state’s public records law exemption allowing the withholding of records should they prove detrimental to a government’s best interest.
“Releasing those types of materials would create a chilling effect on the parties’ willingness to candidly engage with each other and it would hinder the negotiations process,” said the city in their denial message.
The city also expressed concerns that public access to MOUs would politicize union negotiations.
Parker Jackson, Goldwater Institute staff attorney, disagreed that these records were covered by the best interests exemption.
“With few exceptions, public records must be made available to the public,” said Jackson in a press release. “When there’s a need to protect things like personal privacy or public safety, the government must be able to show that specific and significant harm is likely to result from public disclosure. It cannot simply withhold information based on self-interested speculation that some minimal inconvenience ‘might’ occur.”
In January, the Arizona Court of Appeals remanded the case to the Arizona Superior Court so that court could privately review unredacted and redacted versions of the contested MOU documents, and determine whether the documents deserved exemption from public disclosure according to the best interests of the state.
The Arizona Supreme Court is considering two issues in this case:
- Did the Court of Appeals err by not requiring the City, after it invoked the “best interests of the state” exception, to establish a probability that specific, material harm will result from disclosure, as Mitchell v. Superior Court requires?
- Did the Court of Appeals err by not applying the Carlson v. Pima County balancing test de novo to independently determine whether the City’s purported interests in nondisclosure outweigh the presumption in favor of disclosure?
The public may watch the archived video of Goldwater v. Phoenix here.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
by Ethan Faverino | Nov 17, 2025 | News
By Ethan Faverino |
The Goldwater Institute has filed a lawsuit against Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, demanding the release of consumer records tied to the AG’s 2024 antitrust lawsuit against nine major residential landlords and RealPage, Inc.
Filed on November 12, 2025, in Maricopa County Superior Court, the suit accuses the Democratic attorney general’s office of violating Arizona’s public records law by refusing to disclose basic information about complaints, or lack thereof, that prompted the state’s allegations of an illegal rent price-fixing conspiracy affecting hundreds of thousands of renters in Phoenix and Tucson metros.
Stacy Skankey, litigation director for the Goldwater Institute’s American Freedom Network, noted that there was no mention of any actual consumer complaints.
Skankey emphasized that Goldwater takes no position on the underlying antitrust claims. Instead, it seeks only aggregate data: the total number of consumer complaints received by the AG’s office regarding RealPage and the defendant landlords, including any unsolicited submissions.
The Goldwater Institute first requested the records in April 2024. After months of silence, the AG’s office issued a denial in January 2025. Follow-up attempts went unanswered, prompting Wednesday’s legal action.
“It should be very easy to comply with, and yet, you know, after this long, drawn-out process, here we are now having to demand that these be produced,” stated Skankey.
The Center Square reported that when it contacted the Attorney General’s Office, the agency responded that it had produced all documents required under state law.
Kris Mayes’ communications director, Richie Taylor, also told The Center Square, “Attorney General Mayes is proud to have taken on major corporate landlords and RealPage for allegedly orchestrating a price-fixing scheme that drove up rents for families across Arizona.”
Skankey responded, saying she and her team disagree with the statements made by the AG’s office, and there is no proof they complied with the state public records law.
Ethan Faverino is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by Jonathan Eberle | Nov 8, 2025 | News
By Jonathan Eberle |
The watchdog organization Judicial Watch has filed a lawsuit against Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, seeking access to documents it says may shed light on whether the governor directed state agencies to limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
The suit, filed in Maricopa County Superior Court, comes after Judicial Watch submitted a public records request on December 17, 2024. According to the group, the Governor’s Office responded that no responsive records existed, prompting the legal action. The case is listed as Judicial Watch Inc. v. Office of the Arizona Governor (No. CV2025-039217).
Judicial Watch’s records request sought two categories of documents: any instructions, communications, or policies given to state agencies that would restrict participation in federal immigration enforcement efforts; and any legal analysis or anticipated litigation documents tied to the governor’s position on the state’s role in enforcing federal immigration laws. State law prohibits Arizona officials or agencies from limiting enforcement of federal immigration laws “to less than the full extent permitted by federal law.”
The dispute follows comments Gov. Hobbs made in November 2024, when she was asked whether state police or the Arizona National Guard would cooperate with federal immigration authorities. Hobbs said Arizona would not support what she described as “misguided policies that harm our communities,” and said the state would not participate in efforts she believes “terrorize our communities.”
Immigration enforcement is primarily a federal responsibility. Under the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause and the Immigration and Nationality Act, federal authorities retain sole authority over immigration regulation, enforcement, and removal. Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton criticized the governor’s reported approach, saying that declining to support federal operations “undermines the rule of law and places law enforcement and other innocent lives at risk.”
The case now moves forward in county court, where a judge will determine whether the Governor’s Office must turn over any documents or further justify its stance that none exist.
Jonathan Eberle is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Oct 18, 2025 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
Ever since Arizona passed universal school choice, the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program has been the target of the Red for Ed teachers’ union, Democrat lawmakers and their corporate media allies. They demand transparency and accountability for alleged abuse of ESA dollars—all while scandal after scandal continues to pop up in our state’s K-12 public schools.
We saw it at the beginning of the year when the Isaac Elementary School District (IESD) was placed under a state receivership after it was determined that it had a budget shortfall of over $12 million! And this wasn’t a surprise. The Auditor General had been sounding the alarm on IESD’s mismanagement of funds for five years!
But where was the corporate media? Where was the digging? Where was the series of articles and threads on X exposing the corruption?
We got none of it. Instead, we have certain Red For Ed reporters, like Craig Harris, attacking Arizona’s popular ESA program with liberal talking points about unspent funds and alleged waste and abuse.
But if the failures of IESD weren’t enough, now we have the sordid financial tale of Tolleson Union High School District, a story so scandalous that it should make every taxpayer’s blood boil…
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