How Many Complained about Alleged Rent Price-Fixing? Arizona’s AG Won’t Say

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes made national headlines last year when she sued nine residential landlords and a prominent software company, accusing them of working together to artificially inflate rents. But when the Goldwater Institute asked a basic question—how many Arizonans actually claimed they were harmed by the alleged conspiracy? —the Attorney General refused to say.

So yesterday, the Goldwater Institute and its American Freedom Network attorney Michael Bloom filed a lawsuit against Mayes to get answers.

“I firmly believe in vindicating Arizona’s Public Records Law, which exists to ensure that government remains accountable to the people it serves,” Bloom said. “Transparency is the cornerstone of public trust.”

In February 2024, Mayes announced the lawsuit, accusing RealPage, a property-management software company, of colluding with the Arizona landlords in an illegal price-fixing scheme. According to the lawsuit, the landlords used RealPage’s revenue-management algorithm, which compiles competitors’ pricing data, to create a “rental monopoly” and force Arizonans to pay millions of dollars more in rent than they otherwise would have.

Mayes’ lawsuit is almost identical to several other lawsuits filed by blue state attorneys general and a class-action lawsuit brought by the private law firm Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP. Mayes hired the same firm for the Arizona lawsuit.

Notably absent from the Arizona lawsuit was any information about Arizona consumers who had complained. That’s why the Goldwater Institute filed a public records request asking for the number of complaints related to RealPage—no names, no private information, just a number. If the attorney general had received any unsolicited complaints from the public, it should be easy for her to simply state the number.

Instead, the Attorney General’s Office denied the request claiming confidentiality. But numerical data like this is not confidential, and if the allegations in Mayes’ complaint against RealPage are true, there should be several consumer complaints to report. If the alleged harm is real and widespread, why not release the numbers that prove it?

The public is entitled to records showing if there were any consumer complaints about the alleged price-fixing scheme. This is especially true when the public is being asked to foot the bill for outside legal counsel—potentially costing tens of thousands of dollars or more.

The Goldwater Institute will continue to demand transparency in local, state, and federal agencies to hold the government accountable to the governed. The public has a right to know what its government is up to and how justice is being pursued in their name.

The Goldwater Institute is the nation’s preeminent liberty organization scoring real wins for freedom from coast to coast. We’re committed to empowering all Americans to live freer, happier lives, and we accomplish tangible results for liberty by working in state courts, legislatures, and communities nationwide to advance, defend, and strengthen the freedom guaranteed by the constitutions of the United States and the fifty states.

Stacy Skankey is the Litigation Director of the Goldwater Institute’s American Freedom Network.