AZ Supreme Court Holds that Courts Have No Jurisdiction to Weigh In on Legislature’s Compliance with Open Meeting Law

Today the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that whether the Legislature violated Arizona’s Open Meeting Law by virtue of GOP members’ attendance at ALEC conferences is a nonjusticiable political question.

In essence, although the Open Meeting Law is codified as a statute, it nonetheless constitutes a “procedural rule.” The Arizona Constitution gives the Legislature (nearly) carte blanche authority to follow or ignore its own rules, thus Courts generally have no role in second-guessing this practice under the political question doctrine.