PHOENIX (AP) – Arizona budget proposal to donate $15.3 million to Rodeo in Prescott sued by two city residents and advocacy group alleging Arizona constitution prohibits such spending spurred on.
Howard Mechanic and former Yavapai County Superior Court Judge Ralph Hess filed a lawsuit in Maricopa County Superior Court last week with the support of the Arizona Public Interest Law Center, a bipartisan legal advocacy group. report.
In court Tuesday, attorneys for Attorney General Chris Mays and Treasury Secretary Kimberly Yee agreed to suspend spending until the lawsuit is resolved.
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The lawsuit alleges that the planned payments violated the law and Mechanics and Hess would suffer financial losses as taxpayers by sharing the “replenishment burden of unlawful and unlawful spending.”
According to the complaint, the payment violates a gift provision in the state constitution that prohibits government agencies from donating funds to private companies or individuals without direct benefit to taxpayers.
According to the complaint, the state failed to meet two basic criteria of the gift clause: that the gift must serve a public purpose, and that the state must account for any direct benefit to the nation from the gift. That’s what it means.
According to the complaint, the budget item also violates the Constitution’s mandate that legislators must state the purpose in a separate bill if the spending is not intended for state agencies, public schools, or to repay state debt. It will be.
State Rep. Quan Nguyen, a Republican from Prescott Valley, who helped distribute the money for the rodeo, said legislative counsel authorized the spending.
Press secretaries for the Senate and House, who approved the bill before Gov. Katie Hobbs signed it, agreed, saying all budget spending was checked for possible gift clause violations.
Nguyen declined to comment on pending lawsuits.
Danny Adelman, executive director of the Arizona Center for Public Interest Law, told the Arizona Republic earlier this month that the center sees payments at rodeos as potentially problematic.
“These are important provisions to protect taxpayers,” he told the newspaper this week. “It is important to be obeyed.”
The grant was one of a list of cash transfers included in a $17.8 billion state budget signed into law last month by a Democratic governor after informal negotiations with Republican congressional leaders. Democrats and Republicans were allowed to split the $2.5 billion surplus for priorities, and the plan was meant to encourage bipartisan support for the budget.
The rodeo funding came as an unwanted surprise to some Prescott area residents who were already skeptical of the rodeo’s expansion plans. The money would help speed up those projects, but opponents say they could create more traffic and noise that could annoy residents.
Nguyen said he believes strengthening the long-running rodeo, billed as “the oldest in the world,” will increase tax revenue and tourism in northern Arizona cities.
Ron Owsley, chairman of the nonprofit that runs the rodeo, said the money would be used for renovations to recoup the state’s investment. However, he admitted that there was no written contract or promise of benefits to receive the money.
$1 million to the racetrack Turf Paradise, $10 million to the International Dark Sky Discovery Center, and $560 to the non-profit Lowell Observatory if rodeo handouts are found to violate gift and appropriation laws. It could also affect other budget items, such as $10,000.
“While we expect to prevail in this case, we also expect that reducing the number of gifts the state gives will have a positive long-term effect,” Mechanic said.
