You asked, and we will probably answer.
The Agenda started a new initiative in May to have readers brainstorm public records requests we can send to state and national agencies. Using our very reputable brand, we sent out your requests and waited patiently for results.
Luckily, a handful of government agencies have lived up to their legally required responsibility to give us the information needed to answer these questions, even if it took them a month or two.
We’re turning these answers into a series. Be on the lookout as we publish the results of these form submissions, and answer them with good ol’ reporting grit.
Live feed of our intern George emailing agencies for public records.
If you have your own idea for public records we should request, feel free to fill out this form.
A legislative payday for private lawyers
An anonymous reader asked if we could request records for how much money both the Arizona House and the Senate pay private law firms and for what cases.
We finally received them, and there’s a lot to unpack.
First and foremost, spending on outside counsel has erupted since 2023.
And who do top lawmakers blame? None other than Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes.
Republican lawmakers have criticized her absence in several state lawsuits. And they’ve taken matters into their own hands to settle state disputes.
In total, the House and Senate spent $8 million on private law firms since Mayes became attorney general in 2023, a significant increase compared to what was spent during former AG Mark Brnovich’s last year in office, according to data obtained by the Agenda through a public records request.
For example, the House and Senate spent roughly $367,000 in 2022, Brnovich’s last year as attorney general. In 2023, the number jumped to $1.8 million.
This year, spending has already surpassed $1 million.
Arizona law allows the attorney general to decline to represent the state or state agency in a lawsuit if they cannot in good faith provide legal representation or services. The AG can then give notification to the agency, which allows it to seek its own counsel.
Since Mayes took office, she’s declined to defend the state against several lawsuits regarding abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, while also refusing to say whether she would defend current cases against Prop 314, which makes it a state crime to cross the border outside of its port of entry.
The tussle between state lawmakers and attorneys general is not uncommon, Paul Nolette, a professor and director of the Les Aspin Center for Government at Marquette University, said.
But it is more prevalent in swing states like Arizona, where branches of state government are controlled by opposing political parties.
“You have government fighting each other with taxpayer money, and spending more of it than they would otherwise,” Nolette said. “That’s ultimately an issue that I would expect a lot of residents, a lot of taxpayers, would have some issues with.”
Lawyers at the office are paid a fixed annual salary, compared to a commercial legal firm that bills by the hour.
Meaning, hiring private lawyers cost a lot more than relying on the AG’s Office.
But for Republican budget hawk Sen. John Kavanagh, the fights are worth every penny.
“It may cost us a little bit more because we’re using outside attorneys,” he told us. “But it’s not about the money, which there probably isn’t a great difference. It’s about the attorney general basically abandoning her responsibility to defend the laws of the state.”
Senate President Warren Petersen, who controls the purse strings of the Senate and is challenging Mayes for the AG’s Office, also thinks that’s $8 million well spent.
“Taxpayers should not have to keep paying the price for an Attorney General who puts her political agenda ahead of her duty to uphold the law,” Petersen said in a statement.
To be clear, taxpayers are still footing the bill.
But where is this money going?
The Senate and House have spent the most money on Doe v. Horne, paying at least $1 million to D. John Sauer and James Otis Law Group since 2023.
Doe v. Horne focuses on a state law — which was signed by former Gov. Doug Ducey in 2022 — that bans transgender girls from playing in women’s athletics in any public or private school in the state. Two transgender teens challenged the law, claiming it violated protection from sex-based discrimination under the 14th Amendment, as well as the Americans with Disabilities Act and Title IX.
Mayes refused to defend the suit, so Republican leaders and Horne footed the bill.
A Supreme Court opinion shot down a challenge to a similar law in West Virginia this year, and Doe v. Horne was dismissed in July, which allowed the law to stay on the books.
Also, voters are set to see a similar legislative referral on their ballots this November in the form of Prop 318.
Lawmakers also spent at least $800,000 since 2023 for legal advice in Glendale Elementary School District v. State of Arizona, where a judge ruled that lawmakers’ financing system for schools was “unconstitutional.”
Mayes represented the state in the case, a change from Brnovich’s decision to outsource to law firm Snell & Wilmer, but she delayed proceedings and praised the judge’s decision against the state as a major victory for public schools.
Republican lawmakers disagreed with her approach, and sought legal counsel from the Richards & Moskowitz law firm throughout the case, later appealing the final decision.
Nolette said this can make legal conflicts confusing for the average person on what the “state” is fighting for.
“The AG says one thing, and then all these other lawyers that you might not be aware have been hired by the Legislature are saying other things,” Nolette said. “Who’s to credit or who’s to blame for whatever the consequences are?”
Kavanagh noted there are other cases where Mayes refused to defend state laws, including, he said, lawsuits against Prop 314, which criminalizes entering the country anywhere besides the port of entry. But Mayes has yet to comment on whether she would defend the state in that legal battle.
Last year, Mayes declined to defend Arizona in Isaacson v. Arizona, where two physicians challenged old anti-abortion statutes that are still on the books, arguing they conflicted with the state’s new constitutional protections for abortion.
The judge ruled that the laws were unconstitutional, but not before the Legislature spent nearly $500,000 trying to argue otherwise.
“Somebody has to defend laws that are passed by this state, and if the attorney general is backing away with political reasons, then the Legislature will just step up and fill the void,” Kavanagh said.
Mayes’ office did not respond to a request for comment.
But Arizona lawmakers aren’t just spending millions to protect the laws they’ve passed.
They’ve also hired private lawyers to challenge voter-approved laws, a move that’s not in Mayes’ jurisdiction.
Roughly $954,000 went toward fighting against Prop 211, a citizens initiative that requires a person who makes an expenditure of more than $25,000 on local campaigns or more than $50,000 on statewide campaigns to disclose the original funding source.
Conservative groups challenged the proposition, claiming it opens donors up to potential harassment and threats. Mayes defended the law, alongside Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and the Citizens Clean Elections Commission, while the Legislature weighed in via court filings against it. The courts have so far upheld the law.
Despite lawmakers’ efforts, 72% of Arizona voters approved that anti-dark money initiative in 2022.
Somebody call Dateline: For the moment, Arizona’s gubernatorial race is all about sexual predators. Allies of Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs say her Republican rival, U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, voted to protect child predators, per Dennis Welch at AZFamily. The Democratic Governors Association pointed to Biggs’ votes as a state lawmaker in 2007 against a bill to increase criminal penalties for child sex predators. And also in 2025 when the congressman voted against releasing the Epstein files. Biggs, in turn, said Hobbs vetoed bills that would have blocked anyone convicted of a sexual offense with a minor from playing high school sports. Meanwhile, a new poll (for whatever polls are worth this far out, or ever) showed Hobbs up by 13 points in the race, including a huge lead among independents. Finally, Politico reports Freedom Caucus members like Biggs are having a rough time in races across the country.
Business as usual: The news that 1,300 mail ballots weren’t delivered in Navajo County stirred up a minor kerfuffle last month, but Votebeat’s Sasha Hupka found that’s actually quite common. In fact, the 50,000 ballots that weren’t delivered statewide prior to the July 21 primary elections were in line with past elections, and fewer than the 71,000 in the 2024 general election. Most county recorders chalked up the undelivered ballots to voters being out of town, especially given the moved-up date for the election.
Just fine as is: The Arizona Supreme Court won’t force Secretary of State Adrian Fontes to rewrite the description of Proposition 144, a ballot measure that would enact sweeping changes to the state’s voting laws, per the Arizona Mirror’s Caitlin Sievers. The justices said the America First Legal Foundation didn’t have standing to sue, and the language Fontes used for Proposition 144 was within his discretion. That puts Prop 144 on the list of eight ballot measures voters will consider in November, which you can peruse with this handy guide from the Mirror’s Jim Small.
Looking for a lifeboat: Arizona officials decided to spend $7 million to study projects they hope could spare the state from at least some of the pain of dwindling Colorado River water, Tony Davis reports for the Arizona Daily Star. The money will be used to examine how to store surface water underground, as well as take a look at wastewater that’s treated in California well enough to drink. The Water Infrastructure Finance Authority of Arizona also will look at a handful of other projects down the road, such as building a desalination plant in Mexico.
The Journalism Infrastructure Finance Authority still hasn’t sent us our check. While we’re waiting, how about supporting us with a few bucks?
Blurred blue lines: Democrat Amish Shah scored an endorsement from the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Arizona, which picked him over Republican rival Jay Feely in Arizona’s Congressional District 1, the New Times’ Morgan Fischer reports. The association’s executive director said the organization didn’t have anything against Feely, it just liked Shah’s voting record and his willingness to listen to their concerns. It’s relatively rare for the association to endorse Democrats, but it did endorse Shah in 2022, alongside Democrat Ruben Gallego, the same year it endorsed President Donald Trump. This time, the other candidate the association endorsed was Republican U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani.
Ok, folks, we have a new game for election season.
It’s called “Which dumb hoax will Kimberly Yee campaign on next?”
Earlier this week, the state treasurer and GOP nominee to be superintendent of public instruction was talking to a crowd in Legislative District 3 when she brought up the “kitty litter in schools” bit.
Remember that one? Back in 2022, this particular slice of bonkerdom was everywhere. Republican politicians were talking about kitty litter from state capitols to the halls of Congress, kind of like the “Haitian immigrants eating pets” nonsense from the 2024 election.
The kitty litter hoax got so widespread that “Litter boxes in schools hoax” now has its own Wikipedia page, including a term we’d never heard before: “furry panic.”
But Yee, who is running to be the state schools chief, apparently disregarded all the debunking as she spoke to the crowd in LD3.
She didn’t name any specific examples of kitty litter in a classroom, of course. Instead, she cited a Fox News story about a Phoenix-area school board member wearing cat ears to a board meeting and voting against a partnership with a Christian school.
Yee said she “looked further” and found out that “woke” teachers were “doing cat litter boxes with our taxpayer dollars for those who also identify as cats,” which prompted a chuckle or two from the crowd.
It’s just kind of interesting that while she was paying so much attention to kitty litter, she didn’t even notice that Arizona schools were being infiltrated by ISIS. Or that students at a charter school in the Valley were drinking donkey urine before recess. Or that… (fill in the blank with your own ludicrous conspiracy theory).