Not since Superior Court Judge Stephen Abbey was ousted in 1924 from the Pinal County bench for arming himself with a pistol in the courtroom has any elected official above the level of city councilman been successfully recalled in Arizona.

“It’s a hard thing to do, says Rep. David Burnell Smith, R-7, who was the target of recall rumors last month when he refused to resign after the Clean Elections Commission voted 5-0 to remove him for campaign finance violations.

“It never got off the ground,” Mr. Smith said of district Democrat threats to recall him. “I don’t think they’re going to try it.”

An East Valley group did try to gather enough signatures to recall Sen. John Huppenthal, R-20, but abandoned the effort this month because, organizers say, the drive itself caused the senator to modify his politics.

Additionally, bills they didn’t like that the senator pushed were negated by Governor Napolitano’s veto stamp, said Steve Muratore, speaking for the now defunct Recall Huppenthal organization.

Group Says It Collected 5,000 Signatures

“We believe that took the steam out of those who wanted to sign” petitions, he said. The group said it collected about 5,000 of the 16,422 signatures it needed for a recall election.

Mr. Huppenthal says that even though the group has dropped its campaign, it is required to file the signatures it has collected with the Secretary of State’s Office.

“It’s important because they have falsely claimed they collected 5,000, he said. “I’ll get the names and go out and clean up the mess . . . talk to those people and give them the true facts.

“They’re a nasty little group of people,” Mr. Huppenthal said of the recall organization.

The group attacked Mr. Huppenthal for his support of the so-called guns in bars bill and his opposition to funding for full-day kindergarten, then for changing his position on all-day K.

Mr. Huppenthal told Arizona Capitol Times on May 26 he has always been willing to negotiate full-day K, and his proposals that tied the issue to school vouchers and corporate tuition tax credits were a “win-win” situation for education. Ms. Napolitano, nevertheless, vetoed that measure, and Mr. Huppenthal voted for the second education bill with full-day K funding, which the governor signed.

The governor signed 17 of Mr. Huppenthal’s 50 bills, but his bill (S1118) dealing with voter ID requirements and provisional ballots was vetoed.

Mr. Muratore said his group knew the odds were against a successful recall.

“We knew that nobody had ever succeeded in doing something like this,” he said. “It was a long shot.”

Mr. Muratore said there is broad support in District 20 for a more moderate candidate than Mr. Huppenthal, who unseated moderate Republican Slade Mead in last year’s primary election.

The Clean Elections Commission cited Mr. Smith for overspending his publicly funded campaign by more than $6,000. He has appealed the case, which will be heard by an administrative law judge June 22. —