The big question for courts: What’s the extent of cities’ right to make their own laws?

Regional News

Audio By Carbonatix

During nearly an hour of arguments Tuesday, the justices peppered attorneys with questions ranging from whether they should even intercede in the dispute between Attorney General Mark Brnovich and the City of Tucson over its gun-destruction ordinance to the constitutionality of a 2016 law that Brnovich says gives him the power to withhold money from cities that enact local laws that he concludes run afoul of state statutes.

But Rick Rollman, representing the city, told the justices the issue is simpler than all that.

He pointed out the Arizona Constitution allows cities to establish their own charters. Nineteen, including Tucson, have gone that route.

Rollman said the constitutional crafters wanted to give city councils the right to write their own ordinances on matters of purely local concern. And he said that the 2005 Tucson ordinance on handguns seized or forfeited to Tucson police fits squarely in that area.

Assistant Attorney General Paul Watkins disagreed, contending that the ordinance is trumped by state laws, one of which specifically bars cities from regulating firearms and another which mandates that weapons that come into the city’s hands have to be sold off. And since the Tucson council has refused to rescind its ordinance, Watkins told the justices they should uphold the 2016 law conditioning state aid on compliance with state laws and allow Brnovich to direct the state treasurer to withhold that funding.

Rollman said such a finding would undermine the reason why crafters of the Arizona Constitution allowed cities to adopt their own charters in the first place.