A state lawmaker wants Arizona voters to decide whether to eliminate public funding for political campaigns, a change that would do away with the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission.

The Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission approved a rule change Thursday that would require candidates to turn over laptops and other fixed assets exceeding $200 or purchase them at half of the original price.

Arizona’s Clean Elections system may rise from the dead just long enough to slap the people who are dancing on its grave.



Rep. Ted Vogt, a Tucson Republican, plans to introduce a bill that would drastically raise the campaign contribution limits for privately funded candidates. But the voter-approved law that created the Clean Elections system may require a three-fourths vote in the Legislature to change the contribution limits, which could slam the door on a proposal that’s certain to face stiff opposition.

The Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission on Thursday put off voting on a proposed rule change that would require publicly financed candidates to return or purchase fixed assets such as laptops, printers and cameras.

Some of the 107 candidates who received public money to run for state Legislature this year bought computers, cameras and printers that are theirs to keep and paid relatives as campaign workers and consultants.

The commission that runs Arizona’s public campaign finance system is giving $20 million to the state general fund.

Arizona will have a prominent presence in the U.S. Supreme Court term that began Oct. 1 with cases that will settle the issues of matching funds for Clean Elections candidates, tax breaks for donations for private school scholarships, and penalties for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

Gov. Jan Brewer and Attorney General Terry Goddard had few memorable lines in their first, and perhaps only, debate, but continually posed one memorable question – where’s your plan?

After the Citizens Clean Elections Commission and two judges found Doug Quelland guilty of misusing the state’s public campaign financing system, he fought for months to stay in the Legislature, maintained that he was innocent even after being removed from office and is now using government money, once again, to pay for his comeback campaign.

Yavapai County businessman Buz Mills reports spending nearly $3.2 million in his campaign for the Republican nomination for governor.