This piece originally appeared in the Yuma Sun on September 23, 2025.
The shocking assassination of Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and the attempted murder of State Senator John Hoffman tragically demonstrated the danger of political violence in our increasingly divided climate. These disturbing events underscore the wisdom of Arizona’s recent decision to shield elected officials and their families from similar threats.
In 2023, the state enacted Senate Bill 1061, permitting public officials to request removal of their personal information—including home addresses, phone numbers, and photographs—from public records and preventing their online publication when such disclosure creates safety risks. This measure recognizes that individuals shouldn’t face a choice between public service and protecting their families’ well-being.
Yet the state should also tackle a weakness that endangers tens of thousands of ordinary Arizonans: the mandated public disclosure of political contributors’ addresses.
Accessing that information has become remarkably simple. Federal Election Commission (FEC) Commissioner Dara Lindenbaum, a Democrat, observed that obtaining contributor information in the 1970s meant visiting the FEC’s office and rifling through paper records in filing cabinets. Today, she noted, “armed with only an individual’s name, it takes less than a half dozen clicks on the Commission’s website” to uncover that person’s home address.
A technological revolution has made campaign finance laws perilously outdated, creating fresh vulnerabilities for Americans at a time when political discourse increasingly turns hostile.
The ability to access personal information more easily helps create this problem, but Arizona’s disclosure mandates magnify the risk.
Currently, Arizona requires public reporting for candidate contributions exceeding just $100 in an election cycle—less than $5 monthly. No legitimate government purpose exists for publicly reporting the addresses—which stay online indefinitely—of such minor contributors. There is no meaningful risk of corruption, and the public gains no meaningful information to help them evaluate a candidate’s message or sources of major support, from contributions of that size. Yet existing law exposes such small modest donors to harassment—or worse.
The Minnesota attacker’s approach illustrates the potential danger created by such rules. Federal investigators discovered that the gunman used data brokers to pinpoint his victims’ home addresses, compiling a target list of nearly 70 individuals. Identical techniques could easily target ordinary citizens whose sole “mistake” was backing a candidate or cause that the criminal found objectionable.
A handful of states have tackled this dangerous flaw. California, Texas, and Wyoming now have measures safeguarding privacy by excluding street addresses of contributors from online disclosure systems.
Additionally, the bipartisan FEC unanimously encouraged Congress to modify federal law in the wake of Commissioner Lindenbaum’s advocacy. The recommendation called on lawmakers to ensure that the agency “shall not include the street name and street number of individual contributors in the information it makes available for inspection by the public … and accessible to the public on the Internet.”
This approach preserves transparency while protecting personal safety. Contributors’ names, cities, ZIP codes, and donation amounts would remain accessible, supplying sufficient information for oversight and research, while removing details that could provide a road map for harassment or violence.
Yet, there’s still the issue of Arizona’s tiny reporting threshold, which expands the number of donors whose information must be reported to an absurd degree.
Instead, for statewide races, disclosure should only apply to those who contribute, say, $2,500 or more. An increase for legislative races, perhaps to $500, would make sense. This reform would end the unjustified privacy violations affecting modest contributors while simultaneously reducing reporting burdens for campaigns, many of which rely on volunteers who struggle to monitor numerous small donations. Such a change would also help citizens better identify genuinely substantial donors.
Minnesota’s recent tragedy offers a stark reminder that political violence constitutes a real threat—one we can reduce by refusing to make private citizens easy targets through obsolete disclosure requirements.
All Arizonans deserve the ability to engage in democracy without worrying that their civic participation will jeopardize their family’s safety. State lawmakers showed this understanding when they enacted protections for public officials’ personal information through SB 1061.
Having shielded public officials from these potential dangers, Arizona legislators should ensure that their constituents receive the same consideration.
