Corporation commissioner seeks to restrict public access to government records
Arizona Corporation Commissioner Bob Burns says state government employees undertake large amounts of “time and effort” to fulfill the requests to view public records and consideration should be given...
View ArticleJournalists would get email notice of court filings under First Amendment...
As an alternative to gaining access to filings in the U.S. District Court of Arizona via the more expensive and time-consuming PACER program, the First Amendment Coalition of Arizona is requesting the...
View ArticleADEQ opens up records to public access via search function on website
Consumers have access unlike any previously to Arizona Department of Environmental Quality records, as last week the agency began providing a search function on its website, The Arizona Republic and...
View ArticleCoalition lawyer: Public officials’ text messages about public business are...
In a Sept. 30 Q&A with editors of the Opinion section of The Arizona Republic, First Amendment Coalition of Arizona counsel Dan Barr explains why public officials’ text messages about public...
View ArticleJudge to examine corporation commissioner’s text messages
The public may at last be able to know what’s in text messages Arizona Corporation Commissioner Bob Stump has been getting and sending during the 2012 election, according to a Nov. 25 story by Capitol...
View ArticleSouth Tucson denies Arizona Daily Star’s request for emails, newspaper reports
Saying the subject matter of city staff members’ emails about a zoning matter is “too sensitive” and besides, there aren’t enough municipal employees to search for them, South Tucson officials turned...
View ArticleBill calls for fines for taking video too close to an Arizona police officer
Those who stand less than 20 feet away while taking videos of police officers performing duties in public could be fined if a bill becomes law, Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services reported in the...
View ArticleExpiration date of execution drugs may arrive before suit over them...
A federal lawsuit filed by the First Amendment Coalition of Arizona and others over which drugs should be used to execute death-row inmates in Arizona will continue onward, a federal judge ruled Jan....
View ArticleVocal prayers to start Phoenix City Council meetings now a thing of the past
In a 5-4 decision, members of the Phoenix City Council ended a decades-long practice of starting their meetings with a vocal prayer, opting instead for a moment of silence, The Arizona Republic...
View ArticleTwo bills before Arizona Legislature would reduce access to public records
Anyone seeking to view a public record in Arizona and anyone suing Arizona government officials over such access would have a harder time doing it, according to two bills before state lawmakers, The...
View ArticleJudge to mull further inspection of corporation commisioner Stump’s phone
A Maricopa County Superior Court judge will consider more inspections of an Arizona Corporation Commissioner’s state-owned cell phone via use of a different forensic software, The Arizona Republic...
View ArticleJudge orders ‘Republic’ editor to turn over documents about priest’s murder
An Arizona Republic editor must turn over all his documentation about interviews with a Catholic priest relating to the 2014 murder of another priest, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge has ruled,...
View ArticleNone of texts recovered from commissioner’s cell phone are public records,...
A judge has ruled that none of the text messages recovered from of Arizona Corporation Commissioner Bob Stump’s cell phone is a public record, Capitol Media Services’ Howard Fischer reported March 25...
View ArticleFederal judge hears arguments over banned death-penalty drug
A federal judge heard arguments April 7 from attorneys representing the state Department of Corrections and five death row inmates and the First Amendment Coalition of Arizona over whether to lift a...
View ArticleFAC, SPJ react to reporters being barred from floor of House of Representatives
The First Amendment Coalition of Arizona and the Phoenix chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists have issued statements opposing Arizona House Speaker David Gowan’s new policy preventing...
View ArticleNew laws declare Arizona college campuses as free-speech zones, penalize...
Two new state laws, one designating all Arizona public college and university campuses as free-speech zones and another providing penalties for blocking access to such events as campaign rallies or...
View ArticlePima Community College board members want independent look at how school...
Members of the Pima Community College Governing Board in Tucson are asking for an independent examination of the college’s compliance with state public records and open meeting laws, the Arizona Daily...
View ArticleTucson media outlets each receive $1,171 bills for public records in inquiry...
Pima County Supervisor Ally Miller has given a $1,171.80 public-records bill to each of two media outlets seeking to know whether a former staffer of Miller’s “was involved in the creation of a...
View ArticleFederal judge dismisses defamation action filed against ProPublica, Center...
ProPublica reports: “A federal district judge in Phoenix threw out a lawsuit on Monday (July 25) that accused ProPublica and the Center for Investigative Reporting of defaming a government contractor...
View ArticleState appeals court denies murder suspect access to journalist’s notes
Saying that Arizona journalists have a qualified privilege to refuse to surrender their notes, state appellate judges ruled in favor of an Arizona Republic editor, the Republic reported, in a case...
View Article
