Measure to shield officials' addresses lacks accountability step

PHOENIX — Proposed legislation to shield public officials’ addresses on public records has no enforcement mechanism to ensure they live where they claim.

Senate Bill 1061, awaiting action by Gov. Katie Hobbs, would give elected officials that protection, which is already afforded to judges, prosecutors and domestic violence victims. State Sen. T.J. Shope, R-Coolidge, said increasing personal threats against lawmakers and others make such an option necessary.

Once someone became an elected official and opted in, any public records of what they say is their primary residence would disappear. Those are the records that challengers, or anyone else, can use to determine if legislators meet the state constitutional requirements that they reside in the district they represent.

During debate on the measure, Shope said provisions would be added to empower the Secretary of State’s Office, where candidates file nominating papers, to verify addresses. That, however, never came to pass.

“There needs to be a process available for people to look into this,’’ he told Capitol Media Services on Thursday. Shope said he is looking at putting some language into the state budget to give Secretary of State Adrian Fontes authority and money to investigate complaints.

Still, Shope acknowledged, following up on a complaint would require someone to file one in the first place. That possibility would be undermined by cutting off sources someone could use to contest a purported home address, from voter registration to tax documents.

Fontes said he is waiting to see whether Hobbs signs the measure. Only if that happens, he said, will he start to explore options, including what authority he may have.

Comes as senator’s home at issue

The legislation comes amid a very public dispute about whether Republican Sen. Wendy Rogers lives in the Flagstaff trailer park she claimed on her candidacy nomination papers. An effort by an Arizona Capitol Times reporter to verify where she lives, by checking out two other properties she owns, both outside the district, resulted in Rogers getting a judge to order the reporter to stay away from any of her residences.

Shope said his legislation is not an absolute barrier to vetting would-be office seekers. He pointed out it is worded so that it protects the addresses of officials only after they are elected.

He also said nothing in the law would allow elected officials to shield the addresses of other properties they own aside from what they claim as their primary residence. So, in the case of someone like Rogers, a home address would be confidential. But the addresses of other properties she owns would remain on public documents.

There was no immediate comment from Hobbs about the legislation on her desk.

Unnerved by protesters

During debate on the measure, Shope spoke about how he has been unnerved by protesters. He said that on opening day of this year’s legislative session in January, when he went to a newly elected lawmaker’s home, he was surprised to see that he was tagged in a Tweet identifying him and the new lawmaker as being at that person’s house, with the address included.

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“We sign up for this stuff,’’ Shope said of being subject to public scrutiny. “But our families in many cases came later, or kids came later and things like that.’’

The legislation would provide the address disclosure protection to statewide elected officials and to local elected officials as well as to state lawmakers.

Protesters gathered often at Hobbs’ Phoenix home after the 2020 election she helped oversee the election as Democratic secretary of state. Troopers with the Department of Public Safety were assigned to ensure she and her family were safe.

Republican members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors faced protests outside their homes and threats of violence after they certified that former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election there.

Under the legislation, also hidden would be public officials’ home telephone numbers, personal photographs, directions to their homes or photographs of their personal vehicles.

That bothered Rep. Alexander Kolodin, R-Scottsdale, one of a handful of lawmakers who voted against the measure. “It holds public officials like us to a different standard and makes our elections less transparent and more opaque,’’ he said.

Implications

The Secretary of State’s Office says it doesn’t check the veracity of addresses claimed on candidate nomination forms. That is left to others, usually political foes.

Getting candidates disqualified based on residency issues is difficult.

Justice Robert Brutinel, writing for the Arizona Supreme Court, has pointed out that state election laws define a resident as someone with “actual physical presence’’ in the affected community “combined with an intent to remain.’’ The law does not say how long someone must be physically present.

The issue of intent arose in the November 2022 election as Republican Justine Wadsack of Tucson survived a legal challenge to her legislative candidacy. A judge said he believed her claim she rented a room in the legislative district where she was running to protect her family from attacks by political opponents and “antifa.’’

Shope’s legislation, even if it had been in effect in 2022, would not have protected Wadsack’s reported address in Tucson because she was not yet an elected official.