By Howard Fischer
Mail | X: @azcapmedia

PHOENIX — Kari Lake supporters apparently have a backup plan if Maricopa County Superior Court Judge John Hannah rejects her claim she’s entitled to view images of ballot envelopes and the signatures on them.

And it all turns on whether a judge, handling a parallel demand, determines whether We the People AZ Alliance and those involved in the group qualify as reporters.

That group has made its own request for the images.

As in the case of Lake, the county rejected it, saying state law makes them confidential. And, like Lake, they have filed suit against County Recorder Stephen Richer.

Much of that claim made to Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Joan Sinclair is similar to — and in some cases, identical — to the one that Lake filed in Hannah’s court.

That is no surprise: Lake’s attorney, Bryan Blehm, also is the attorney for We the People. In fact, Blehm filed the cases within 35 minutes of each other.

But there’s a crucial difference between the two legal actions.

Unlike Lake, a former TV news anchor, We the People claims to be “a reportorial agency.” And what makes that important is that the section of the state Election Code the county says makes the images off limits contains a specific exemption allowing their release “for news gathering purposes by a person engaged in newspaper, radio, television or reportorial work, or connected with or employed by a newspaper, radio or television station.”

The county, for its part, isn’t buying it.

In a legal filing in Sinclair’s court, Deputy County Attorney Joseph La Rue said the counties “denies that plaintiff is a reportorial organization” within the meaning of the law.

Yet so confident was Blehm in his claim on behalf of We the People he actually asked Sinclair to issue a judgment in its favor even before she heard a shred of evidence.

The judge, however, wasn’t buying it, saying in an order this past week that the county had raised “legally viable defenses” to its decision not to release the records. Sinclair said the question of whether We the People qualifies for an exception to the law making the records confidential requires more than her simply reading the pleadings.

But, if nothing else, having that second case available gives Lake and her supporters a fall-back position if Hannah doesn’t buy her arguments that the records are not confidential and can be released to anyone who requests them.

If it gets that far, it would send Sinclair down the path of having to decide whether We the People fits within the definition of what constitutes “reportorial work.”

The organization, in responding to online questions, insists it is “reportorial agency in the matter.”

“We report relevant info to the public for transparency, education and information,” said the representative who handles the feeds for We the People on X, formerly Twitter.

Blehm does not explain in his legal filings why he believes We the People fits the definition of a reporter.

The organization describes itself on its web site as “a citizen driven movement designed to hold our elected accountable and bring government transparency to the people.”

It also clearly has a viewpoint.

“We have stood by and allowed out of control representatives in comfortable offices to slowly strip away what is rightfully ours,” the group’s site says. “We were sleeping.”

It goes on to declare “no more!” and says “together we can take our country back!”

There is, however, at least one key difference between a traditional news outlet and We the People: The latter is registered with the Secretary of State’s Office as a political action committee. And since the 2020 election it has reported more than $200,000 in donations, including $15,000 from Trump ally Mike Lindell who has promoted the idea that the 2020 election was stolen.

Its report also says that the cash on hand as of June 30, the most recent filing, was $63,442.

So does that status undermine its “reportorial” claim?

“I don’t believe it should or does but I guess the courts will ultimately decide that,” said the representative in an online response.

There clearly is a link between Lake and We the People.

Blehm sought to call Shelby Busch, the organization’s co-founder and president, as an “expert witness” in Lake’s case. And he said it was Lake’s intent, if she got the signatures, to turn them over to We the People for analysis.

In seeking to call Busch to testify in Lake’s case, Blehm argued that her testimony was relevant because she had “a lot of work under her belt as someone who does investigations into elections.”

“With the Ninjas?” asked Hannah, referring to the “audit” of the 2020 election ordered by then-Senate President Karen Fann. Blehm acknowledged that was the case.

And Lake, in her ongoing challenge to the 2022 election results, has cited the work done by Bush and We the People in that audit of the 2020 election. The group claimed tens of thousands of mismatched signatures on ballot envelopes they got to see, a conclusion disputed by Maricopa County.

Hannah was not impressed and refused to let Blehm put Busch on the stand.

“She’s so obviously a medical office manager,” the judge said.

“She’s so obviously unqualified,” he continued. “She’s not even in the ballpark.”

Busch also has a record as an activist.

She attended an election forum last month sponsored Lindell. According to the Arizona Mirror, Busch told those in attendance that she and others “will take the Republican Party back.”

The word “reporter,” as it relates to news gathering, is not defined in state law.

And there is little case law in Arizona on who qualifies for that definition under various laws designed to provide certain privileges. These include the ability to refuse to divulge confidential sources and special protections against subpoenas.

A 1992 case involves the latter, dealing with an effort by then state Sen. Carolyn Walker, indicted in the AzScam sting operation, to subpoena the notes of Dory Matera. He was an author working on a book about Joseph Stedino, the primary undercover in the sting where lawmakers were promised bribes to vote for legalized gambling.

Matera challenged the subpoena, citing the state law that governs what has to be done to subpoena anyone “engaged in gathering, reporting, writing, editing, publishing or broadcasting news to the public.”

He said the subpoena didn’t comply with the special requirements and should be quashed.

But the state Court of Appeals refused, saying that is applied only to members of the “news media” as commonly understood.

That ruling, however, may not set any precedent should there be a legal fight about the status of We the People.

That’s because the appellate ruling, upheld without comment by the Arizona Supreme Court, turned on whether what Matera was doing fits the definition of news, which the judges described as “a report of recent events, material reported in a newspaper or new periodical or on a newscast, matter that is newsworthy.” And unlike someone writing a book, We the People could argue that it reports on “recent events” and events that are “newsworthy.”

More recently there was a legal fight when Maricopa County decided that Jordan Conradson could not attend press conferences during the 2022 election cycle saying space was limited and Conradson, who writes for The Gateway Pundit, was not an objective reporter.

After TGP sued, the case was settled out of court with Conradson allowed to attend press conference and the county paying $175,000 to the company.