Sanchez has asked a hearing in the Flagstaff Court of Justice this week to challenge Rogers’ harassment injunction. The proceedings will take place in an unusually full courtroom.

Rodgers supporters lined up in the front row of the gallery, including Republican State Senator Anthony Khan.

Rogers attended the hearing in person wearing a dark skirt suit and Air Force wings clipped to the collar of her blazer. Upon her arrival, she leaned over the bar and conversed amicably with her supporters.

It became the senator’s attorney’s responsibility to prove that Sanchez’s actions leading up to the April 19 order submission would have harassed, annoyed, or threatened a person of decency. He also had to prove that Sanchez was harassing Rogers for no good reason.

Sanchez is the only journalist in Arizona whose sole job is to cover the State Senate and is a qualified media member to work for the Arizona State Capitol.

In April, Sanchez investigated rumors about Rodgers’ retention. The senator claims to represent Flagstaff’s 7th congressional district and reside primarily in the northern Arizona region.

Rogers owns two more homes, one in Tempe and one recently purchased by Chandler. She claims to keep her Maricopa County home so she can live near the Arizona State Capitol during Congress.

Under state law, Mr. Rogers, as a Coconino County resident, is entitled to mileage refunds and per diem payments related to travel to and from Flagstaff.

Sanchez had filed a series of public records requests for Rogers’ mileage reports and the per diems she was earning, which reporters testified totaled in the $19,000 range. Sanchez, meanwhile, was working to find out if Rogers actually used the Flagstaff home as his primary residence.

Rogers’ address is listed in documents available for public records. During the course of Sanchez’s investigation, she visited both of the senator’s Maricopa County homes to see if they lived there full-time.

Sanchez testified that he would have questioned Mr. Rogers if he had been at home, but said he was also looking for evidence of his primary residence. She told her neighbors about her observations.

Sanchez was wearing a Senate-issued press card during his visit to both houses on April 18. He then testified that he returned to one of Mr. Rodgers’ homes in the “twilight” of April 19, before learning of the injunction, and visited later in the House. This is because people with full-time jobs are more likely to be available for interviews at home.

Ms Rogers testified at the hearing that she was surprised when reporters showed up at her home unannounced and at night.

When Ms. Rogers filed for the injunction, she told Judge Amy Criddle that she didn’t believe it was normal journalistic behavior to knock on people’s doors. The senator also issued a press release, arguing that “no sane person” would knock on the door of a house he was not invited to visit.

The question of the definition of “welcome” came up frequently during the hearings. Rodgers’ attorney, William Fischbach, asked Sanchez if he had seen a “reporters welcome” sign at his home in Rodgers. The judge later responded to this point in plaintiffs’ closing arguments, noting that anyone could knock on the door at any time.

Grodman said the processor would have to knock on the door of the reporter’s home for the injunction to be served on Sanchez. Perhaps it wasn’t a welcome visit, Grodman added, and there probably wasn’t a “Processors Welcome” sign on the door of Mr. Sanchez’s home. He stressed that it’s not illegal to knock on your front door without notice unless a no-trespassing sign is posted.

Sanchez’s attorney said in a closing statement that the word “welcome” suggested the reporter needed some form of permission to do his job.

When Rogers was cross-examined by Sanchez’s attorney, Christopher Hennessy, Rogers said she herself had knocked on “tens of thousands of doors” as a candidate and voters who ostensibly didn’t ask her to get involved. He testified that he had spoken with

“Are campaigners not allowed to knock on doors?” Mr. Rogers asked Sanchez’s attorney.

“You mean reporters shouldn’t knock on doors?” Hennessy replied.

Knocking on the door of potential sources is not uncommon in journalism.

“I think a lot of reporters are knocking on the door,” Sanchez told the Arizona Daily Sun. “It happens a lot. It’s part of our job. It’s part of our due diligence. We have to give people a chance to speak up.”

Mr. Sanchez testified that while writing the article about Mr. Rogers, he had made several attempts to talk to the senator and get his side of the story.

On April 17, Sanchez texted Arizona Senate Majority Public Affairs Director Kim Quintero, asking for an interview with Rogers. Quintero questioned Rogers’ offer of comment, but promised to send screenshots of the request to the senators, according to elements of the conversation read in court records Tuesday.

Mr Fischbach argued that the conversation was evidence that Mr Sanchez knew not to speak to Mr Rogers and that there was no reason for Mr Sanchez to seek a meeting with lawmakers at his private residence.

Sanchez said on stage that he was visiting homes not just to meet with senators, but to make broader observations and talk to neighbors.

Ms Rogers said she was most alarmed by “a visit to my private residence by someone who was not allowed to approach me in the office”.

Previously, Mr. Sanchez, in his capacity as Senate correspondent, approached Mr. Rogers at his desk on the Senate floor. Mr. Rogers testified that it was customary and permissible for reporters to approach senators on the floor after the gavel had fallen and the proceedings had ended. Mr. Sanchez asked Mr. Rogers in January if he wanted to talk about Senate Bills 1045 and 1046, which Mr. Rodgers had proposed.

“I didn’t want to be questioned,” Rogers said at the hearing.

When the senator did not respond, Mr. Sanchez asked Mr. Rogers if he had been bribed by the Sinaloa cartel, following up on comments that surfaced during another journalist’s interview.

Mr. Rogers characterized the question as rude and said his space was violated. Rogers insisted he was “not easily intimidated”, but described Sanchez as having an “athletic physique” and relied on the fact that he was taller and younger.

Rogers said Sanchez “invaded her personal space” on the Senate floor and said the two were about three feet apart.

“That’s the seat of the people and where they elected me to be that member. I treasure that space as a sacred space… [anyone in that space] It’s violating me and my people,” Rogers said.

Sanchez, who asked several senators the same day if they were being bribed by cartels, said it was a tool for journalistic due diligence in pursuing informers. Another senator responded amicably, Sanchez said.

Mr. Rogers called the question rude and told the reporter, “You’re going to be fired.”

Sanchez was then asked to stay away from the senator in his seat. She was warned that if she did so, she would risk disqualification from her Senate seat for her actions. The reporter said she later asked Quintero about the restrictions and was told she would be allowed to approach senators under other circumstances.

“My request is not to allow Mr. Sanchez access to the Arizona Senate, where I work,” Rogers wrote in his restraining order.

The judge denied this request, which would effectively put the reporter out of work.

Rodgers went on to claim on Twitter that Sanchez was “creepy” and used the word “stalking” on the stands. During his cross-examination and closing argument against Sanchez, Fischbach attempted to equate the reporter’s conduct with robbery and trespassing. At one point, I asked Ms. Sanchez if Mr. Rogers’ house hadn’t been across the fence if he would have stolen the ornaments and flower pots.

The judge clarified that there was no evidence under the law that Sanchez had stalked, robbed or trespassed at any point.

Before formally announcing the denial of the injunction, Grodman noted that Rogers’ nuisance claims were likely valid. But under the law, he added, a person of decency must be threatened, harassed or annoyed. As a public figure, Mr. Rogers said he may have been sensitive to the situation in a way that caused genuine concern.

Still, the judge said he did not believe there was a chain of events in the case that would have made a person of decency be harassed. Approaching the senator’s desk didn’t seem like an ambush, he says.

“The strongest point is [the restraining order] If it’s within the bounds of a legitimate purpose, they have to be fired,” Grodman said. “Investigative reporting is a legitimate cause. It just is.”