Currently, Senate Bill 1487 acts to protect Arizonans from certain government actions which violate their rights under Arizona law. Specifically, SB 1487 states that “At the request of one or more members of the legislature, the state Attorney General shall investigate any ordinance, regulation, order or other official action adopted or taken by the governing body of a county, city or town that the member alleges violates state law or the Constitution of Arizona.” If the Attorney General finds that an ordinance may violate state law, then the office must ask the Arizona Supreme Court to settle the question of whether the ordinance is illegal.
SB 1487 actions have been taken with regard to whether certain city and county ordinances requiring employees to receive a COVID vaccination as a term of employment violate state laws; whether county wide moratoriums on eviction proceedings violates the Arizona Constitution; and whether Sedona’s bed tax and agreement with the Chamber of Commerce violated the Gift clause of the Arizona Constitution. The bill was enacted to protect Arizonans from a multitude of areas of local government overreach and to ensure uniformity of laws across the state through city compliance with state law.
Though this bill allows the Attorney General to take actions in a number of areas, there is a glaring absence of specific protection for Arizona parents, and thus their children, which necessitates an expansion to this bill. SB 1487 must be expanded to include school districts as an entity that can be investigated by the Attorney General for violation of state law.
Though many politicians talk about keeping critical race theory out of our schools, little action has been taken to actively fight against this dangerous indoctrinating curriculum and the inevitable division that it produces. Due to the lack of political action, parents have been forced to take matters into their own hands by attempting to make their voices heard at schoolboard meetings. These attempts, however, have proven futile, as there is no system in place to mandate open schoolboard meetings, or even check the schoolboard on its actions, which very well may violate parents’ rights. Though parents should be able to make educational decisions for their children, the government bureaucrats continue to wield total control over such delicate matters.
Just recently, a Scottsdale Unified School District President appears to have kept a dossier of sensitive information on outspoken parents who opposed school board policies. However, the Attorney General currently has no authority to open its own investigation into this bizarre, retaliatory act of surveillance on parents who merely sought involvement in their children’s’ education. Attorney General Brnovich has requested that Attorney General Merrick Garland investigate.
We have already seen the weaponizing of the Department of Justice by the Biden administration against parents. Parents who are speaking out against school boards are being labeled as terrorists by this administration. Currently, the wolf that targets parents is who we are forced to have guard the henhouse in investigating this alleged secret dossier.
This is why we must immediately amend SB 1487 to include school districts as a listed entity subject to investigation by the Attorney General. By expanding SB 1487 to include school districts, we can finally guarantee that our parents and children are defended, and not retaliated against, when school boards or school administrators attempt to overreach into family decisions. Parents need an advocate to protect them from this grotesque abuse of power and that’s why we must elect an Arizona Attorney General who knows their job is to protect Arizona’s students and families from the government.
Rodney Glassman is currently Major in the United States Air Force JAG Corps Reserve and practicing attorney at Beus Gilbert McGroder PLLC. He may be reached at rglassman@beusgilbert.com.
