Welch v. Cochise Board of Supervisors
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The Supreme Court held that Arizona's open-meeting and conflict-of-interest laws broadly confer standing based upon a claimant's interest in preserving the values of transparency and accountability that the laws enshrine, not because of a claimant's equitable ownership of tax revenues.
The laws at issue in this case grant people affected by either an alleged violation or a public agency's decision standing to enforce their respective requirements. The open-meeting law also provides that legal action taken in violation of the law is null and void unless the public body later takes the proper steps to "ratify" that action. Before the Supreme Court was private claimants' standing to challenge alleged violations of Arizona's public accountability laws and the effect statutory ratification has on a private claimant's open-meeting claim. The Supreme Court vacated the portions of the court of appeals' opinion analyzing the laws' enforcement provisions through the lens of taxpayer standing, holding (1) Ariz. Rev. Stat. 38-431.07(A), and -506(B) grant standing to all who fall within the broader "zone of interests" protected by Arizona's public accountability laws; and (2) ratification under section 38-431.05(B) does not act as a complete cure to an open-meeting violation but merely negates the original action's default nullification.
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