A state commission on April 4 voted to permanently set aside complaints that Gov. Janet Napolitano and eight other candidates committed campaign finance violations in their 2002 races.

The Citizens Clean Elections Commission approved a motion to take no action on the complaints, and Chairwoman Marcia Busching later said that meant the commission considered the matters closed.

Ms. Busching said the commission now has different rules than it had during the 2002 campaigns.

However, the commission was not adopting a statute of limitations or other policy that will control how it handles other complaints, she said. “We are looking at each complaint individually.”

Other commission members did not explain their decision April 4, but several had said previously they considered the complaints unfair because they covered matters that were old and in some cases had already had been considered by the commission.

The complaints were filed by Patrick J. Meyers, a Republican from Anthem who said 2002 campaign expenditures by Ms. Napolitano and other candidates failed to provide enough detail on campaign expenditures.

Mr. Meyers said he was not surprised by the commission’s action. “I kind of thought they were kind of making it up as they went along and grinding a partisan ax,” he said.

Mr. Meyers said previously the commission should consider the complaints because it was investigating some Republican legislators’ 2004 campaigns on similar grounds.

Commission Executive Director Colleen Connor said last month that the commission had notified candidates and their campaign treasurers after the 2002 election that the commission would require more detail on expenditures.

Besides Ms. Napolitano, other candidates named in Mr. Meyers’s complaints included Attorney General Terry Goddard; state Sen. Carolyn Allen, R-8; Mine Inspector Douglas Martin; Corporation Commission candidate and former state Rep. Roberta Voss and former state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jaime Molera. The others were unsuccessful gubernatorial candidates Alfredo Gutierrez and Betsey Bayless and former state Sen. Randall Gnant, who aborted a planned campaign for governor.

Ms. Napolitano, Goddard and Gutierrez are Democrats. The others are Republicans.

Other Action On Burnell Smith

In other action the commission voted 5-0 to designate former commissioner Gene Lemon as its representative in a required settlement hearing with Rep. David Burnell Smith, R-7, who has been directed by the commission to resign from the House for overspending his public funding limit in the 2004 election and who also faces a $10,000 CCEC fine and an order to repay the Clean Elections Fund the entire $34,625.09 in public funding he received last year. —