By Howard Fischer
Mail | X: @azcapmedia

PHOENIX — Ruben Gallego is asking the state Court of Appeals to keep a legal lid on his 2016 divorce papers from ex-wife, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego.

Documents filed with the court show when the then congressman and now candidate for U.S. Senate filed for divorce while Kate was pregnant he took the case to Yavapai County even though the address he provided to election officials was in Phoenix. He also sought — and was granted permission — to seal the entire proceedings, not just the filings but even the fact that there was a case on the docket.

The divorce itself became public later as Gallego married lobbyist Sydney Barron, who was working for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and now is employed by the National Association of Realtors.

But what remains sealed according to legal filings by The Washington Free Beacon is why he filed for divorce while Kate was pregnant “as well as the court’s findings regarding the reasons for granting the request to dissolve the public act of the appellants’ marriage.” It also wants details of the custody arrangements for the child.

The privately owned, for-profit online newspaper behind the fight to unseal the records was founded in 2012 and describes itself as “dedicated to uncovering the stories that the powers that be hope will never see the light of day.” It is credited with publishing several national stories ranging from a complaint against the former president of Harvard University about accusations of serial plagiarism to releasing documents in 2014, while Hillary Clinton was running for president, about the recollections she shared with a friend about Bill Clinton’s time in the White House.

In this case, attorneys for the publication turned this year to Yavapai County Superior Court Judge John Napper, who did not handle the original case, seeking to open up the records.

Ruben and Kate, represented by the same Phoenix law firm, responded by proposing to release redacted versions of what was in the file. That, however, did not satisfy the publication.

“Without even yet having access to what was being redacted, The Free Beacon could see that the proposed redactions led to a docket that looked like a Central Intelligence Agency classified file, with page and pages of black ink designed to make sure no one was going on,” attorneys for the publication wrote.

Napper, according to the court filings, did not accept what Ruben and Kate sought to keep secret, instead ordering release with specific redactions. And the judge, the attorneys for the publication said, ruled that “the original order sealing the entire file was improper” under court rules.

Now the issue is before the Court of Appeals. And the publication wants an order unsealing the record before early voting starts Oct. 9.

“At stake here is the right of the press to inform the public and voters’ rights to be informed about a candidate prior to the election, with time to digest and process the information,” the lawyers for the Beacon told the court.

It’s not just Ruben’s bid for the open Senate seat being vacated by Kyrsten Sinema that is before voters. The Democrat is facing off against Republican Kari Lake. Kate is facing a reelection challenge in the nonpartisan race for Phoenix mayor against Matt Evans.

Meeting that deadline sought by the Beacon is not going to happen.

While the appellate judges agreed to the request by the publication’s attorney to expedite the case, they have scheduled the issue for conference for Oct. 10. And whoever loses that argument is virtually certain to seek Arizona Supreme Court review, further delaying a resolution.

What’s in those records, the publication argues, is a public record — and not just because that’s the presumption with all court records.

“The Free Beacon seeks the release of court documents that reflect the character and behavior of a public figure holding and running for federal office, and one official who currently holds executive authority over one of the nation’s largest cities,” the attorneys are telling the appellate court.

Attorneys for the couple, represented by the same law firm, did not respond to a request for comment. Instead, they have filed their own legal arguments with the appellate court against disclosure.

What those arguments are, however, remains unknown: Their lawyers have sought and obtained permission from the appellate court to keep those sealed.

Hannah Goss, the campaign press aide for Ruben, declined to make him available. Instead, she issued a prepared statement by Ruben and Kate blaming the whole situation on Lake and “her allies and those who amplify her cruelty (who) refuse to respect two people who are just trying to raise a beautiful baby boy together.”

It is true that Lake, in a series of social media posts, already is making an issue of all this.

“What’s in those divorce papers that he is fighting tooth and nail to keep from voters ahead of the election even though a judge ordered them unsealed?” she posted.

Goss, however, cited no evidence the Beacon lawsuit was instigated or influenced by Lake. And the GOP candidate, in her own prepared statement, said she has “nothing to do with this lawsuit,” saying the litigation to keep the records sealed is just his demand for “special treatment.”

“But Ruben’s reaction to it means that whatever is about to come out about his behavior during the divorce is very bad,” she said.

What those records at issue are likely to include is Ruben’s self-admitted efforts to deal with post traumatic stress syndrome after he returned from Iraq after serving in the Marines from 2002 to 2006.

“I was drinking a lot,” he wrote in this memoir “They Called Us ‘Lucky.’”

“I couldn’t stay in the same place for very long — a chair, the house,” Ruben wrote. “When I went out to a restaurant, I could only spend a small amount of time there. Stay too long in one place, and you’re likely to get mortared.”

Ruben details how he proposed to Kate Widland at the 2008 Democratic Convention where both were volunteers for the Obama campaign. They wed two years later, the same year he was first elected to the state House.

Four years later he won his bid for Congress.

He also wrote about the breakup, fueled not only by his PTSD but the anticipated arrival of a son.

“Eventually we both came to the point where we realized we had grown apart from each other in many ways,” Ruben said. “We separated when she was still a few months from giving birth.”

In seeking to open up more of the records, the lawyers for the Beacon say there’s no reason to shield them — and what is in them — from public view. Instead, they referenced what appears to be a claim in the still-sealed filings by the couple that it would somehow affect their safety or that of their child.

“The Gallegos fail to make any particularlized showing about what information should have been redacted from the case file to protect their ‘safety’ or documenting any existing and serious threat to their safety,” the attorneys for the Beacon told the appellate judges.

What’s in the divorce file, they said, is “historical conduct” and how that might bear on the custody of the yet-to-be-born child.

“Waving the red flag of ‘safety’ without any details as to how this information might affect it falls well short of justifying a seal for any part of the docket, much less all of it,” the lawyers told the appellate court. “It is more likely that appellants are using secrecy and sealing to protect their (ITALICS) job safety (ROMAN) in the positions of public trust as mayor, congressman, and aspiring U.S. senator.”

Kate, who has been Phoenix mayor since 2019, is more than his partner in the legal bid to keep the records sealed. She also is a political supporter.

“I know first-hand his commitment to building a brighter future for Arizona,” she said in a statement last December released by Ruben’s campaign.

“We have real challenges facing our state that require a leader who is dedicated to fighting for working families and the most vulnerable,” she said. “He’ll do an excellent job working for all of us as our next senator.”

Ruben’s ability to avoid talking about the divorce publicly may not last. He is scheduled to face off against Lake in a debate Oct. 9 sponsored by the Citizens Clean Elections Commission.