An attorney for a Prescott Democrat said there may be a basis for asking for reconsideration in a challenge to the candidacy of Senate President Ken Bennett.

Dawn Knight, a Democrat from Prescott, had been considering an appeal to the state Supreme Court over the ruling of a Superior Court judge who said Mr. Bennett wouldn’t be removed from the ballot.

But the deadline for filing an appeal to the Supreme Court passed on July 13. Paul Weich, attorney for Ms. Knight, said that Superior Court Judge Mark Armstrong’s original July 6 decision “is a tough ruling to appeal.”

Nevertheless, Mr. Weich said on July 13 that he received a letter from Mr. Bennett’s attorney, Don Peters of Phoenix, that “corrects an error” in Mr. Bennett’s testimony July 6.

Mr. Weich declined to release a copy of the letter but said it acknowledged that Mr. Bennett had spoken with Senate majority counsel Greg Jernigan in May about a potential problem in using the 2002 campaign committee, when Mr. Bennett had testified that he never spoke to Mr. Jernigan about the issue until after filing his nominating petitions in June.

Mr. Weich said the correction may be substantial enough to warrant reconsideration of the matter before Judge Armstrong.

“I’d be real surprised” if Mr. Weich tried to use the letter as a basis for an appeal, Mr. Peters said. “It was not something that unfairly prejudiced the case for Dawn Knight. The plaintiff is in no position to complain.”

Ms. Knight had contended that Mr. Bennett shouldn’t be allowed to appear on the ballot for re-election because instead of filing a new campaign committee with the state for 2004, the District 1 Republican is running his current campaign with a committee organized for the 2002 election.

Judge Armstrong ruled on July 6 that Mr. Bennett was in “substantial compliance” with state election law and therefore wouldn’t be prohibited from appearing on the ballot nor would he suffer any other sanction.

Ms. Knight, who was Mr. Bennett’s fifth-grade teacher, ran unsuccessfully against her former student for the Senate seat in 1998, 2000 and 2002. This year she decided to challenge Mr. Bennett in court instead of at the polls. —