Arizona Senator Wendy Rogers, R-Flagstaff, persuaded a judge to issue an order barring reporters from contacting her at home.
Flagstaff Judicial Court Magistrate Judge Amy Criddle detained April 19 against Camryn Sanchez, head of the state Senate for the Arizona Capitol Times, following a petition from Rogers, R-Flagstaff. signed the order. Criddle’s orders don’t seem to indicate that Sanchez is doing anything unusual in his job as a reporter.
Sanchez was investigating where Rogers lived, according to the Capitol Times Court Order Articles, specifically a “no harassment order.” State law requires lawmakers to reside in counties in the legislative districts they represent, and Sanchez was investigating a property in Chandler’s Tempe owned by Rogers. The senator lists a Flagstaff address on documents related to her office.
The 7th legislative district represented by Rogers includes Payson and Grove in Gila County and parts of Flagstaff in Coconino County.
Rogers wrote on social media On Thursday, a “creepy” reporter was “stalking me and my neighbors in my private residence without explanation,” and a judge issued an order against Sanchez’s “strange behavior.” posted a photo of Sanchez ringing the doorbell and standing outside the house.
In a written statement released by the state Senate, Rogers said he doesn’t know what Sanchez “can do,” adding, “None of them in their right mind will show up at my house at night uninvited.” Therefore, I will not. Please trust me that this person will not verbally abuse me or attempt to physically harm me in any way.”
Rogers was criticized last year for saying on social media that her political opponents should be hanged. She did not return emails or phone calls seeking comment.
Gary Grad, Executive Editor of the Capitol Times, did not return voicemails. Sanchez declined to comment.
Rogers told the court that Sanchez rang a doorbell at her property “near the Capitol” on April 18 and asked an electrician who worked for Rogers and her husband about the senator’s “whereabouts.” Rogers also told the court that Sanchez approached her on the Senate floor in February and “continued to ask me questions, even when I was rejected.”
The petition states that Rogers filed the complaint “at the request of the President of the Arizona Senate” and asked Sanchez “not to grant access to the Arizona Senate.”
The Senate Speaker proposed to obtain an order
Senate Speaker Warren Petersen said in an interview that Sanchez would have access to the state Senate “unless he goes near[to Rogers]the desk.” However, he defended Rogers for obtaining the injunction, saying that an “uninterested third party”, Criddle, had approved it.
Sanchez previously made Rogers nervous by asking him a question when he was at his desk. He said Rogers told him that Sanchez went “inside” a house under construction.
“She was pretty upset about it,” he said of Rogers. Told.
Arizona Law, What the Court Says About Rep. Residency
Arizona law requires legislators to have lived in the state for at least three years and reside in a “county elected at least one year before the election.” Tempe and Chandler are in Maricopa County, but not Flagstaff, the city in northern Arizona that Rogers listed as her domicile in nominating papers and campaign finance reports.
Yet, according to newspaper reports in the late 1990s, court rulings have diluted residency requirements over the years, making legal residency for legislators a “state of mind” rather than a hard and fast rule. After the primary election, now Sen. Justin Wadsak, R-Tucson, legalized when he claimed he was forced to move out of his Tucson home in a Democratic-leaning neighborhood and into a Republican-rented room due to an attack by “Antifa.” You have successfully defeated a residency challenge. The leaning district where she won the election in November.
The Capitol Times reported in a January 2023 deed of the house Rogers and her husband purchased in a housing development near Stellar Airpark in Chandler that they “currently reside” in Tempe. He reportedly signed a document stating that
The article states that Rogers collected $24,000 in Congressional income plus $19,754 in mileage and living expenses between March 31, 2022 and January 6, 2023. Lawmakers who live in Maricopa County receive a fairly small payout.
Rogers would not have won the election in the Democratic-leaning Tempe or Chandler neighborhoods.
Petersen played down the Capitol Times article, stating, “If you have three houses, you can decide which one to live in.”
Please contact the reporter atrstern@arizonarepublic.com or 480-276-3237. follow him on twitter@raystern.
