Arizona justices reject redistricting fast track
May 31, 2012, 8:25 AM | Updated: Jun 4, 2012, 10:34 pm
PHOENIX — Arizona’s highest court is refusing to put an open-meeting law
case related to redistricting on a fast track in the state court system.
The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office wanted the state Supreme Court to decide
an appeal without having it heard first by the mid-level Arizona Court of
Appeals.
The appeal is of a trial judge’s ruling that shut down an investigation of
whether the state’s redistricting commission had violated the open-meeting law.
Judge Dean Fink of Maricopa County Superior Court ruled last December that the
commission isn’t bound by the law that generally requires public
bodies to do their work in open view.
The Supreme Court’s action Wednesday means the justices won’t consider hearing
the appeal before the Court of Appeals rules.