Corporation Commissioner Kris Mayes says recent criticisms of her appointment and her actions when she was a reporter at The Arizona Republic won’t discourage her from considering an election campaign for the commission.

“I’m looking very closely at running,” she said.

Meanwhile, a GOP official says the party is shopping for another candidate.

Ms. Mayes, a Republican appointed last month by Democratic Governor Napolitano to replace Jim Irvin, said allegations in a former lawmaker’s opinion piece in a newspaper that she violated ethics policies as a reporter at The Republic are unfounded.

Whether she serves the remainder of Mr. Irvin’s term, which runs through 2006, depends on whether she runs for and is elected to the post next year. Her appointment runs through 2004, and state law requires that if the appointee wants to serve the rest of the term he or she must run for the office in the next general election.

Mr. Irvin, a Republican, resigned last month to avoid possible impeachment proceedings for his involvement in a merger of Oneok and Southwest Gas Co.

Ms. Mayes, who was Ms. Napolitano’s press secretary before her appointment, was asked if she accepted the commission post to be a “caretaker,” with no plans to seek election.

“Don’t count on it,” she answered.

GOP Looks For Candidate

State Republican Chairman Bob Fannin says the party is making a concerted effort to find a qualified candidate for the Corporation Commission post held by Ms. Mayes.

“I was one of the first ones to say there were active Republicans who would be far better qualified” than Ms. Mayes, Mr. Fannin said.

Mr. Fannin said he did not know if the details in an opinion column by former state Rep. Laura Knaperek of Tempe in the Oct. 13 East Valley Tribune were true, but added: “The rumors concern me. If there is something to the rumors, the governor did a very poor job of vetting her background.”

In her newspaper column, Ms. Knaperek discussed rumors about Ms. Mayes’s departure from The Republic, where she was a legislative and political reporter.

“While nothing has been confirmed in public, it is widely whispered in political circles that in 2000, Ms. Mayes resigned as a reporter… rather than face disciplinary action for breach of the newspaper’s ethics policies.”

Ms. Knaperek continued: “These are not partisan or even political questions. They go to the heart of what must exist between elected officials, the media and the public trust. For if Mayes used her position as a reporter to make personal profit, how can Arizonans be sure she would not do the same as a commissioner?”

Officials at the Arizona Republic were concerned in 2000 that rumors of a possible sale of the paper’s parent, Central Newspapers Inc., to Gannett Co. Inc. had led some employees to buy Central Newspapers stock, in the hopes that the price would rise if a sale were announced.

Pam Johnson, then-editor of The Republic, wrote a letter to readers saying the stock purchases were not insider trading, but some employees were disciplined because of an appearance of a conflict of interest, according to the newspaper. Ms. Mayes says she was not one of the reporters who were disciplined for purchasing Central Newspapers Inc. stock through their 401(k) retirement plans on rumors that Gannett was going to buy CNI. Ms. Mayes said she made about $5,000 on the sale of her Central Newspapers Inc. stock.

Gannett announced on June 28, 2000, that it was going to buy Central Newspapers Inc.

Ms. Mayes resigned from The Republic in June of 2000 to attend law school.

“I did nothing wrong,” Ms. Mayes said, when asked about the transaction. She said she did not recall any written policy against employees buying and selling Central Newspapers stock.

Governor Napolitano said on Oct. 15, “I think trading in rumors is a little beneath former representative Knaperek,” adding that Ms. Mayes volunteered the information about the stock purchase to her before she was hired on the governor’s staff.

“Nothing rose to the level of anything remotely illegal,” the governor said. “All of this is simply an effort to try to dirty up someone who happened to be appointed by a Democrat. It is very seemingly striking that they would take this position on someone who’s been a life-long Republican.”

Ms. Mayes said criticism from within the party could be the result of stories she wrote as a reporter and because she has worked for a Democrat. She called on her critics to “please give me a chance…”

“Hold your fire for a little while,” Ms. Mayes said. —