Court Grants Restraining Order Against Journalist For Performing Acts Of Journalism On A Politician

Free Speech

from the what-1st-Amendment-amirite dept

Some politicians get elected and think they’re heading up the musical equivalent of vaporware. Just a heads up: you may have more power than you’re used to but it’s constrained by the Constitution: both the one ratified by the nascent US federal government and the one adopted by individual states, which are required to use the federal version for a baseline, rather than a high bar they should never feel compelled to clear.

Constitutions in the US apply to everyone, including the checks and balances that are supposed to ensure politicians don’t wield powers they shouldn’t be wielding. So much for that. An Arizona court has decided to abdicate this responsibility to allow a local politician to shut down a particularly tenacious journalist.

It would seem obvious you can’t ask a court for a restraining order that would prevent a journalist from doing their job. Welcome to Arizona, where rights are whatever this particular court says they are, despite plenty of precedent saying otherwise. Here’s Ray Stern, who has composed a righteously indignant response to a local court ruling, with more details on this latest failure to check and/or balance:

Camryn Sanchez, who covers the state Senate for the Arizona Capitol Times, was the target of an injunction against harassment filed by state Sen. Wendy Rogers, R-Flagstaff, and approved by a Flagstaff judge April 19.

Rogers, who was reelected to a second two-year term last year, didn’t allege that Sanchez threatened her in the petition for the injunction, only that Sanchez had once persisted in asking her questions and recently rang the doorbell at two of her homes.

First, this is just journalism. A journalist will locate any residence associated with the person they want to speak to and attempt to speak to them.

Second, this politician — while only a state senator — possesses at least one more residence than a majority of their constituents. Not exactly representative of the people they represent. That’s an issue in and of itself, but one that can’t be addressed by US/state constitutions.

What can be addressed is this problematic ruling, which basically allows Senator Rogers to avoid press scrutiny as long as this bullshit remains in place. The order may only target journalist Camryn Sanchez, but it can be read to discourage other journalists from approaching the state senator at their multiple residences, or pretty much anywhere else this senator may choose to go. Those places include the public office Senator Rogers holds, supposedly in service of Arizona residents.

The lawmaker also asked that Sanchez be banned from the state Senate, but Senate President Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, said Sanchez can continue to work as a reporter in the Senate as long as she doesn’t approach Rogers at her desk.

Not only is the journalist prevented from visiting Senator Rogers’ home(s). The journalist is forbidden from approaching the senator while she’s on the clock.

The basis of Senator Rogers’ complaint is extremely bizarre — a term she leveraged successfully against a journalist who thought she might get some answers about some apparent reimbursement fraud by approaching the reluctant senator directly. Rogers allegedly collected $19,000 in mileage and subsistence reimbursements in recent months, a total that far exceeded compensation requests from other state reps who also lived in the Phoenix area.

In her request for an injunction, Senator Rogers expressed her fear of the journalist, claiming she didn’t know what the reporter who showed up at her door(s) was “capable of” and alleged she felt fearful for her own safety. Perhaps the court should have expressed its concerns about what Senator Rogers (or her voter base) might be “capable of.”

Rogers was censured last year in part for stating on social media that her political enemies should be hanged.

Calls for lynching vs. a reporter just trying to do their job. WHO WOULD WIN. The court, for now, says the more powerful person gets to have more power. And that power will discourage journalists from seeking the truth and providing this information to their readers: the constituents this senator is supposed to be serving.

This is obvious bullshit. The court granted a restraining order, deferring to a very subjective set of perceptions — one that obviously and immediately does damage to First Amendment protections. It’s a garbage ruling. How soon it will be kicked to the curb by a competent judge remains to be seen, but it is undeniably unconstitutional. This is the Constitution being curb-stomped, and all because one politician decided she shouldn’t be subjected to further scrutiny from the press.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, arizona, camryn sanchez, flagstaff, free speech, injunction, journalism, wendy rogers