Rep. Clancy Jayne is the subject of the first complaint in the 2004 election from the staff of the agency that administers public campaign funding.

Mr. Jayne, R-6, is running with private campaign contributions and under the Clean Elections Act is required to file regular reports on his spending that trigger distribution of matching public funds to his GOP primary opponents.

In a complaint dated Aug. 12 and forwarded to Mr. Jayne, the staff of the Citizens Clean Elections Commission stated that Mr. Jayne failed to file nine such reports.

One of them should have been submitted by March 1 but was not filed until June 30, the complaint said.

In other cases, Mr. Jayne failed to report full spending, according to the staff analysis, which cited a Feb. 2 report of $3,211.73 that the analysis said was nearly $4,900 less than should have been reported.

According to the complaint, Mr. Jayne should have filed reports on:

• Feb. 1, showing expenditures of $8,092; instead, he filed on Feb. 2 showing $3,212 (for this story all amounts have been rounded to exclude pennies);

• March 1, showing expenditures of $17,061; on April 1, showing expenditures of an additional $1,575 and May 1 showing another $3,793; but he did not file until June 30, when he listed a cumulative total of $22,664.

• July 1, showing expenditures of $25,626, and on July 6, showing an additional $1,671; instead, his next report wasn’t filed until July 12, showing cumulative spending of $27,474;

• July 20, showing expenditures of $28,855; instead, he filed July 21 showing cumulative spending of $33,064;

• July 27, showing expenditures of $33,518; and on Aug. 3, showing expenditures of another $4,808; instead, he filed Aug. 6 showing expenditures of $38,848.

“I was shocked when we got it,” Mr. Jayne said Aug. 19 of the complaint. “Our campaign guy back at the very beginning was focused on the next campaign filing date, June 1, and wasn’t paying so much attention to the trigger report.”

Jayne: ‘Nothing To Hide’

“There’s nothing to hide, we spent the money, but we certainly didn’t mean to have any violations,” Mr. Jayne said. “I don’t think it deprived them [his opponents] of any major amount of money. We’re communicating with Clean Elections. So if they’re going to give me a fine, I truly hope it’s not anything major.”

Complaint Is 1st From Staff

The complaint against Mr. Jayne is the 11th filed in the 2004 election, but the first to come from Clean Elections Commission staff. Candidates or citizens filed the 10 other complaints. None, so far, has resulted in any sanction against a candidate.

Mr. Jayne had until Aug. 20 (after the Capitol Times deadline) to respond to the complaint, said Colleen Connor, executive director of the Citizens Clean Elections Commission. She will decide whether to recommend any enforcement action to the five-member commission, which next meets on Aug. 31.

Candidates who are the subjects of complaints over alleged violations of the Clean Elections Act sometimes admit to errors and agree to settle penalties with the commission. In other instances, the commission may make a finding that offenses have occurred and pursue fines.

The size of the penalty depends on a number of factors, including how many days the reports are delinquent, the dollar amounts involved, and whether the delinquent reports actually deprived any publicly funded opponent of matching funds.

The potential penalties are outlined in ARS 16-942:

“A. The civil penalty for a violation of any contribution or expenditure limit in section 16-941 by or on behalf of a participating candidate shall be 10 times the amount by which the expenditures or contributions exceed the applicable limit.

“B. In addition to any other penalties imposed by law, the civil penalty for a violation by or on behalf of any candidate of any reporting requirement imposed by this chapter shall be $100 per day for candidates for the Legislature and $300 per day for candidates for statewide office. The penalty imposed by this subsection shall be doubled if the amount not reported for a particular election cycle exceeds 10 per cent of the adjusted primary or general election spending limit. No penalty imposed pursuant to this subsection shall exceed twice the amount of expenditures or contributions not reported. The candidate and the candidate’s campaign account shall be jointly and severally responsible for any penalty imposed pursuant to this subsection.

“C. Any campaign finance report filed indicating a violation of section 16-941, subsections A or B or section 16-941, subsection C, paragraph 1 involving an amount in excess of 10 per cent of the sum of the adjusted primary election spending limit and the adjusted general election spending limit for a particular candidate shall result in disqualification of a candidate or forfeiture of office.

“D. Any participating candidate adjudged to have committed a knowing violation of section 16-941, subsection A or subsection C, paragraph 1 shall repay from the candidate’s personal monies to the fund all monies expended from the candidate’s campaign account and shall turn over the candidate’s campaign account to the fund.”

When the Clean Elections Commission has imposed penalties in the past, it has taken into account the degree to which the offender cooperated in addressing the problem and whether the commission believed the delinquencies were unintentional.

Ms. Connor said on Aug. 18 that even though some of Mr. Jayne’s reports were months late, matching funds were delayed to Mr. Jayne’s opponents by “only a few days.”

Rep. Ted Carpenter, R-6, began receiving matching funding the same day he received his initial public funding, on Aug. 10. Pamela Gorman, a challenger hoping to win the GOP nod in House District 6, received her first payment of matching funds on July 6, nearly a month after receiving her initial funding.

Candidates who opt to seek public campaign money must collect a certain number of $5 qualifying contributions from voters — in the case of legislative candidates, 210 contributions — in order to receive funding from the Clean Elections Commission.

Public funded candidates for the Legislature this season would normally get $16,980, but once a privately funded opponent reaches 70 per cent of that amount, he must begin filing more frequent campaign finance reports so that the commission may match the privately funded candidate’s primary spending dollar for dollar. There is a limit, though — a publicly funded candidate will never receive more than three times the primary election base amount of $16,980, or a total of $50,940 —