Ousted lawmakers seek return to office

In this January 2006 file photo, Doug Quelland (right) consoles David Burnell Smith after Smith was ordered to vacate his seat in the state House of Representatives. Earlier this year, Quelland also was removed from the state House for similar violations of campaign finance laws.

It’s tough to find a politician as brazen as Doug Quelland.

After the Citizens Clean Elections Commission and two judges found 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.

Quelland, the mustachioed Republican from Legislative District 10, said he likes his chances for election this fall, partly because, as he put it, very few people in his district read the newspapers and they don’t care about what happens with Clean Elections anyway.

But there’s a growing movement to ban candidates like Quelland from using public campaign money after they’ve been found guilty of violating campaign finance rules. Even if it’s too late to stop Quelland, Democratic and Republican lawmakers said the state needs to close a loophole in the law that allows those who have been convicted of gaming the Clean Elections system to use it again.

“I think it’s probably safe to expect that there will be legislation in some form or another on this issue next year,” said Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. “If someone misused public funds in the past, we shouldn’t entrust them with public funds in the future.”

Rep. Steve Montenegro, a West Valley Republican, said such a measure would have bipartisan support in the Legislature, although Republicans have made it clear that eliminating the Clean Elections system is their top priority.

Quelland said he decided to rely on public campaign money again because he would have been considerably outmatched by his opponents had he raised money the traditional way by soliciting donations from private donors.

“I’m not running Clean Elections because it’s a free ride and I’ll, by gosh, use them and abuse them and stuff like that,” Quelland said. “I’m running because it would be stupid otherwise.”

Quelland isn’t the first Arizona lawmaker to be removed from office for violating Clean Elections rules; David Burnell Smith was ousted in 2005 after appealing a conviction for campaign finance violations all the way to the state Supreme Court.

Smith, too, is running for office again this year, but he’s running a traditional campaign and is not relying on money from the Clean Elections Commission. He also ran traditional in 2006 and finished third in the GOP primary.

“I’m not ever going to do Clean Elections again,” said Smith, who this year dropped “Burnell” from his name on the literature he’s distributed in Legislative District 7.

Smith’s case made headlines years ago when he became the first state lawmaker in the nation to be removed from office for overspending by 17 percent more than permitted by law. Smith has contended all along that he had committed an accounting error and that his punishment was too severe.

Removal from office is the harshest sanction included in the 1998 Clean Elections Act and is reserved for candidates who spend more than 10 percent of campaign funding allotments.

Politicians who are ordered to vacate their office, though, may continue to serve for months or longer while they appeal the decision. And nothing stops them from seeking office again, or from using public money to run their campaigns.

“Now is the time for people involved in Clean Elections to re-think that problem,” said Paul Bender, a professor at ASU College of Law who teaches U.S and Arizona constitutional law.

Todd Lang, executive director of the Clean Elections Commission, said he’s heard from several lawmakers who want to ban Clean Elections violators from using the system. He said the commission would be receptive to the idea.

Clean Elections Commissioner Lori Daniels said she believes the measure would be an easy sell in the Legislature.

“Once you violate a system, it’s kind of hard to say, yeah, OK, do it again,” Daniels said.

Yet that’s exactly what Quelland is doing.

Ten days after the 2008 general election, a complaint was filed against Quelland alleging that he had broken campaign finance laws and demanding that he be removed from office. The complaint was later verified by the Clean Elections Commission, an administrative law judge and then a Superior Court judge, yet the appeals process dragged on so long that Quelland was able to serve another two years in the state House.

Quelland finally stepped down May 28 and was replaced by Kimberly Yee. He called off his appeal July 27, ending a scrum that lasted almost two years and included nearly a dozen hearings.

During that time, however, Quelland voted on hundreds of legislative measures including those that prescribed changes to Arizona’s laws on immigration, charter schools, gun rights and abortion, to name a few. And Quelland continued to introduce legislation after he had been found guilty and told to vacate his office, though none of the measures advanced through either chamber. Among them were five bills that would have regulated the Clean Elections Commission.

Quelland’s case took 15 months to resolve after the commission ordered him from office in May 2009 — Smith’s took nine months — and both of them continued to serve while their appeals moved forward.

Clean Elections Commissioner Louis Hoffman, who helped draft the Clean Elections Act, said he is most troubled by the fact that Quelland got to cast nearly every vote he likely would have cast during his term despite the commission’s removal order.

“I think that is the more serious irony than the fact he might choose to run again,” Hoffman said. “If the voters of his district turn out not to care that he committed an impropriety, then I certainly have nothing to say about it.”

Clean Elections Commissioner Royann Parker said she supports a ban on public money for those who violated Clean Elections laws, but she said harsher removal penalties infringe on the rights of voters.

“I don’t think it is up to a body like ours to say who can and can’t run,” said Parker, who voted against removing Quelland from office.

Likewise, some lawmakers hesitate to expand the powers of the Clean Elections Commission.

House Speaker Kirk Adams, a Mesa Republican, said he doesn’t think the Legislature will pass a measure such as the one suggested by Sinema because it probably falls under the Voter Protection Act, which requires a three-fourths vote to amend or supersede a voter-approved law and requires the legislation to “further the purpose” of the law.

“I personally would support limiting all public financing for all politicians regardless of if they were ejected from office or not,” Adams said.

But even Quelland said he would even support a bill that bans public money to Clean Elections violators.

“Only if they have been granted due process and acceptable by all sides,” Quelland said. “Yeah, I could go along with that.”