Judge rules law stripping Scottsdale vote on Axon HQ is constitutional

A state law barring Scottsdale residents from voting to stop law enforcement technology company Axon’s planned massive headquarters and housing project doesn’t violate the state constitution’s ban on “special legislation,” a Maricopa County Superior Court judge ruled. 

The law says that any city with between 200,000 and 500,000 residents — Scottsdale had 241,000 residents in the 2020 census — must “allow hotel use and multifamily residential housing” for land zoned like the Axon parcel “without requiring any type of application that will require a public hearing” if certain criteria is met.

Axon lobbied state lawmakers to strip away the constitutional right of Scottsdale voters to challenge the police weapons manufacturer’s headquarters project near Hayden Road and the Loop 101. The effort to change the law was in direct response to a referendum campaign that successfully put the initial development plan on the ballot.

In addition to the firm’s international headquarters, the project is set to include a luxury hotel and apartments, many of which — but not all — will be reserved for the company’s employees. 

The group behind the effort to stop Axon, Taxpayers Against Awful Apartment Zoning Exemptions, claims that the law violates the state constitution. 

After the bill was signed into law last year, the Scottsdale City Council approved a memorandum of understanding with Axon to revise the project and fast-track its development. Among the changes, Axon agreed to decrease the number of apartments from 1,900 to 600, along with 600 condominium units. 

The council also voted to repeal the original zoning decision, made by a lame-duck city council in 2024, that approved Axon’s HQ project and was the catalyst for TAAAZE, backed by a signature-gathering effort linked to a California labor union, to gather more than 25,000 signatures for a voter referendum. Repealing that zoning action means the referendum cannot happen.

Even without the council’s decision to repeal the rezoning decision, the new law protects the project. 

TAAAZE’s lawsuit aimed to overturn the law, but Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Herrod concluded the law was constitutional. 

TAAAZE argued that the law failed one part of a three-part test that is meant to determine if legislation is “special” or not. The part they claimed the bill failed related to if the law is “encompassing all members that are similarly situated.” 

“Plaintiffs argue that (the Axon bill) fails the second prong because the classification is not legitimate, encompassing all similarly situated members. In other words, Plaintiffs claim the law is underinclusive,” the judge wrote in his ruling. “Plaintiffs argue that since the law only applies to a few mid-size cities and towns, and not all cities and towns, the law is of special application and not general application.” 

However, Herrod said that he found that to not be the case. 

Since the law is addressing a specific problem of “attracting international headquarters,” then the populations chosen for the bill are likely prime candidates for that, Herrod reasoned. But he did not go without addressing the elephant in the room. 

“Of course, the brightly blinking sign in this case is that the Axon bill was clearly triggered by the zoning situation for Axon and intended to allow Axon to build its international headquarters in Scottsdale,” Herrod said. 

But despite that, he continued, the law isn’t written so narrowly that it can only ever apply to Axon and Scottsdale.

“Because the statute can apply in other cities, it is not a special law,” Herrod wrote. “One may argue that, in the lay sense, this is a special law because it clearly applies to Axon only at this time, but its provisions are not limited solely to the City of Scottsdale and Axon.”

TAAZE said it is likely to appeal the ruling. 

“Neighborhoods and voting rights are at stake and that’s why we are looking at all our options including an appeal,” former Scottsdale City Councilman and TAAAZE Chairman Bob Littlefield said in a statement. 

The group has another lawsuit against the MOU that will be heard in June. 

“Plenty of issues over the years have been approved in Superior Court only to have them overturned later at the Court of Appeals and the Arizona Supreme Court,” Littlefield said. 

Axon declined to comment on this story.