Transparency is the rule for public records in Arizona, and for good reason: sunshine, as the saying goes, is the best disinfectant. But the city of Phoenix rejected transparency in favor of secrecy regarding its union negotiations. So now, the Goldwater Institute is asking the Arizona Supreme Court to hold the city accountable and allow records exchanged during the negotiations to come to light.
On Monday, Goldwater Institute lawyers will appear before the Arizona Supreme Court to argue that the city of Phoenix must comply with Arizona’s Public Records Law and ensure that the public is not kept in the dark about taxpayer-funded union negotiations. This will be Goldwater’s fourteenth time arguing before its home state’s highest court.
“With few exceptions, public records must be available to the public,” says Goldwater Institute Staff Attorney Parker Jackson, the lead attorney on the case. “When there’s a need to protect things like personal privacy or public safety, the government must be able to show that specific, material harm is likely to result from public disclosure. It cannot simply withhold broad categories of records based on self-interested speculation that some small inconvenience ‘might’ occur.”
The origins of the case date to December 2022, when the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association and other public-sector unions ignored a city ordinance requiring them to submit draft contract proposals for public comment before beginning negotiations with the city. Phoenix leaders acknowledged that the unions’ inaction violated the city code but did nothing to hold them accountable. When the city agreed to negotiate behind closed doors without the required disclosure, the Goldwater Institute got involved and requested records related to the negotiations, including draft agreements and proposals received or created by the city.
City leaders claimed that releasing the records “would hinder the negotiations process.” They argued that the records could be hidden from the public under the so-called “best interests of the state” exception to public records disclosure—a judge-made rule that enables government entities to withhold information if they believe that releasing it would be bad for the “public interest.”
Essentially, the city argued that hiding information about the union negotiations from the public was in the public’s best interest. However, Phoenix leaders never showed how disclosing the documents would harm the public—they claimed only that disclosing the documents “may result” in the “politicization” of union negotiations. But public-sector union negotiations are inherently political—nothing in the requested records would have changed that. And the city’s related assertions that disclosure would lead to collusion between the various unions and/or increased rates of impasse during the process were likewise unsubstantiated.
The Goldwater Institute is now asking the Arizona Supreme Court to clarify the scope of the “best interests” exception. Goldwater is also asking the court to reiterate that any time the government claims it must withhold public records without express permission from the legislature, the government must demonstrate a probability that specific, “material” harm would result from disclosure, not that there is merely “potential” for a little bit of public “pressure.” Courts cannot simply defer to the government on such questions, or even to lower courts. Instead, courts must carefully and independently examine the government’s rationale—a process called a “de novo” review. (That requirement is also at issue in another Arizona Supreme Court case being heard the same day, Abraham v. Arizona Board of Regents, in which Goldwater also filed a brief.)
Goldwater’s position in the case is supported by the Phoenix-based nonprofit Poder in Action, which the city shut out of the negotiation process, and by the ACLU of Arizona, which will also participate in the oral argument on Monday.
Labor agreements and related records are particularly important documents for the public to see. Not only do they outline compensation and other policies for government employees, but they are also sometimes used to hide wasteful, corrupt, and unconstitutional practices like taxpayer-funded release time or dues deduction revocation restrictions. The public should have meaningful opportunities to provide informed input into the negotiation process. After all, the city is supposed to be negotiating on the public’s behalf, not hiding what it’s offering or being asked to provide to public employees.
In short, the public deserves to know how its own government conducts public business and spends taxpayer dollars. That’s why in Arizona and across the country, the Goldwater Institute will always fight for open, transparent government and to protect taxpayers.
Click here to access court document and read more about the case.
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