Sen. Wendy Rogers' attack on the First Amendment is foiled. But I have questions

Score one for the First Amendment.

Sen. Wendy Rogers’ ridiculous injunction of harassment was dismissed on Wednesday by a judge who explained that it’s not harassment when a reporter knocks on the door of a senator who figured out a way to duck her questions on the Senate floor.

“Investigative reporting is a legitimate purpose. It just is,” Flagstaff Justice of the Peace Howard Grodman told Rogers, after a three-hour hearing in which the reporter challenged the court order.

“You may not like the questions that are asked you, and you achieved having her not contact you at your desk in the Senate.”

A reporter's 'crime'? She rang a doorbell

In April, Rogers scurried to court seeking protection from Arizona Capitol Times’ Camryn Sanchez, who was trying to determine whether the Flagstaff(?) senator is in violation of a state law that requires legislators to live in their districts.

Suspicions have swirled for years about where Rogers really lives, ever since she supposedly moved out of her longtime Tempe home to go live in a trailer in Flagstaff and run for the state Senate in 2020.

So when Sanchez obtained a public record showing that Rogers and her husband recently bought a $750,000 home in Chandler — and signed a property deed attesting to the fact that they were living in Tempe at the time — Sanchez launched an investigation.

As part of it, she went to Rogers’ Tempe and Chandler homes and (gasp!) rang the doorbell.

Rogers wasn’t there but armed with doorbell video evidence of this terrifying act — and apparently in fear for her very life — Rogers went running to a judge for protection, claiming she was being stalked.

And the judge, pro tem Flagstaff Justice of the Peace Amy Criddle, issued an injunction of harassment against Sanchez without ever even hearing her side of the story.

'I did not want to be questioned by her again'

Within 48 hours, Rogers was using her terror to line her pockets, outlining the harrowing experience in a fundraising plea.

On Wednesday, Sanchez finally got her day in court and Rogers had to take the stand, wherein she proceeded to look rather foolish.

It seems Sanchez in February approached her desk on the Senate floor during a recess and dared to ask a question, as credentialed Capitol reporters are allowed to do, and Rogers, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, felt somehow threatened because the reporter came within three feet of her.

In recording: Rogers pressed judge for more restrictions

“I was made uncomfortable by my space, as it were, being invaded,” she testified. “I did not feel comfortable, in terms of I felt that she was imposing herself on me and in my work area, and so I did not want to be questioned by her again and I told the staff to instruct her accordingly.”

Two months later, Sanchez rang her doorbell(s) and well, the rest is history.

This judge didn't buy what Rogers was selling

“No explanation justifies someone coming to my private residence,” Rogers told the judge on Wednesday.

Right before having to acknowledge, under questioning, that she has knocked on “tens of thousands” of doors during her six campaigns to try to get elected to something.

“Are you suggesting that a campaigner can’t knock on people’s doors?” the affronted senator asked Sanchez’ attorney.

“You’re the one suggesting that a reporter can’t knock on people’s doors,” he replied.

Fortunately, the judge wasn’t buying what Rogers was selling, noting that process servers and trick-or-treaters also knock on doors without those inside collapsing into a pile of terrified goo. (My words, not his.)

“I don’t think there is a series of acts directed at Sen. Rogers that would cause a reasonable person to be seriously alarmed, annoyed or harassed, even if she in fact was,” Grodman said, in lifting the injunction.

A reasonable person? Oh, ouch.

The only one being harassed here was Sanchez, who is now free to enjoy her First Amendment right to pursue an entirely legitimate story.

3 important questions that still aren't answered

Still, there are a couple of important questions to be asked before the case on the terrifying, door-knocking reporter is closed.

• About a senator who believes that any reporter who asks her a question is harassing her. A senator who actually (though unsuccessfully) tried to get Sanchez banned from not just from the state Capitol. What does that say, I wonder, about the elected official when she goes to such lengths to block a legitimate inquiry into whether she is breaking the law?

• About a pro tem justice of the peace who bought Rogers’ sob story hook, line and sinker, essentially declaring Sanchez a stalker without ever hearing why she came aknockin'. That injunction is now lifted, thanks to Grodman. But it’s still there in the public record where it will presumably dog Sanchez for the rest of her career. What does it say, I wonder, about a court system that imposes such a damaging judgment without even bothering to hear the other side of the story?

• And about the legislative district where Rogers (supposedly) lives and about the tens of thousands of taxpayer-funded per diem payments that she collects as a result. This former military pilot testified under oath that she lives in a mobile home in Flagstaff.

Not in her longtime home in Tempe, where a neighbor told Sanchez that Rogers has lived for a decade.

Not in her newly purchased home in Chandler, the one next to an airport and equipped with a hangar where she can park a plane.

Nope.

“Flagstaff,” Rogers testified, “is my family residence.”

Anybody buying that?

Reach Roberts at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Sen. Wendy Rogers loses bid to block reporter but questions remain