(The Center Square) – The Arizona Senate majority leader has pre-filed a 2026 bill designed to protect the information of small-dollar donors.
Under Senate Bill 1006, campaign finance reports won’t include personal information on donors who give $200 or less. The only exception would happen if donors give their permission.
Majority Leader John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, who sponsored SB 1006, said Arizona’s current law protects the identity of people who donate $100 or less. SB 1006 raises that to $200.
“Campaign finance disclosure laws try to balance the public’s need to know who is influencing elections with the privacy of donors,” Kavanagh told The Center Square. “The question is what donations should be known?”
Most people would agree big donors should be known, Kavanagh said. But he added there’s no need to disclose donors of small sums.
“I think small players should have their privacy,” the senator said.
Privacy of small donors needs to be protected because if a person’s name, address and employer are publicly available, it opens them up to harassment, he said.
Kavanagh cited an incident of supporters of Proposition 8 in California being doxed and harassed. Californians voted to approve Proposition 8 in 2008, keeping marriage defined as the union of a man and a woman, by a margin of 52% to 48%.
The New York Times reported in February 2009 that the names of donors who backed traditional marriage saw their names appear on a website that listed their personal information.
The Times said these donors faced death threats and “received envelopes containing a powdery white substance.” On top of this, people boycotted the businesses of donors, the Times stated.
Prop. 8 was overturned when the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 let a lower court ruling stand in Hollingsworth v. Perry. That effectively ended Prop. 8 and allowed same-sex marriage to resume.
Kavanagh, meanwhile, doesn’t plan to introduce any other bills related to campaign finance law in 2026.
In November 2022, Arizona voters approved Proposition 211, which required public disclosure of political donations of at least $5,000 if the money is given to an entity spending at least $50,000 on campaign media for a statewide campaign. It also applies to an entity spending at least $25,000 on campaign media for a local campaign. This is different from Kavanagh’s bill because the focus was on donations for spending for campaign media, which includes political ads.
The measure, which was also known as the Voters Right to Know Act, passed with support of 72% of voters.
However, it faced a legal challenge just one month later when the several plaintiffs sued the state, alleging the law infringed on free speech and privacy. The case was dismissed in June 2023 by Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix, the state’s capital.
But in October 2023, Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, and House Speaker Ben Toma, R-Peoria, filed their lawsuit alleging that the proposition is unconstitutional. In December 2023, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge ruled there wasn’t sufficient evidence to support the plaintiffs’ lawyers’ argument that the law has no guardrails and lacks oversight from the Legislature.
Toma and Petersen appealed. Since then, Toma has left the Legislature, and current House Speaker Steve Montenegro, a Republican, replaced him as a plaintiff.
The case resumed after the Arizona Supreme Court in September overturned a trial court’s ruling that the Republican lawmakers hadn’t been harmed and lacked standing to sue. The case has gone back to a trial court judge for review.
