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Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne ordered to pay $120,000 in legal fees

Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne has been ordered to pay more than $120,000 in legal fees over his unsuccessful bid to quash dual-language instruction in Arizona schools.

The new order comes two months after the same Maricopa County Superior Court judge ruled Horne had no authority to force state schools to only use English immersion classes.

The judge also said nothing in Arizona law allowed Horne to bring the case to court. The suit alleged school districts are violating a voter approved measure from 2000 that said all students should be placed in English language classrooms. 

Horne says he plans to appeal the ruling.

Horne has engineered a separate lawsuit dealing with much of the same issue. That was filed by his wife but has yet to be assigned to a judge.

Greg Hahne started as a news intern at KJZZ in 2020 and returned as a field correspondent in 2021. He learned his love for radio by joining Arizona State University's Blaze Radio, where he worked on the production team.