June 17 marked the end of Colleen Connor’s tenure as executive director of the Citizens Clean Elections Commission.

The commission was organized after voter adoption of a ballot initiative in 1998 to create a public funding mechanism for political campaigns for state offices. To qualify for funding, participating candidates must adhere to spending and contribution limits and gather $5 qualifying contributions from district constituents who are registered voters. Participating candidates also agree to attend required debates.

Arizona is one of only a few states that has public campaign funding, and it has been controversial, so far surviving several legal challenges.

Ms. Connor, an attorney, announced recently she is leaving her post after more than six years as the only executive director the commission has ever had. The five commissioners will choose Ms. Connor’s successor.

Arizona Capitol Times interviewed Ms. Connor on June 2 about her time with the commission and what she will be doing next.

Is there anything you can tell us about what your plans might be? Do you have a job lined up, or is it a matter of taking some time to decide what you might be doing?

I have a lot of vacation time saved up, so I’m going to take a couple of weeks, spend time with my family and then actually start my own business doing election work, preferably advising other states or jurisdictions that are interested in establishing clean elections. I will help them with drafting the law, rules, implementing the act, impart my experience and advise them in administering the law. I would work with local governments, or even the commission, who need outside counsel on election matters.

Would this new business also involve acting as an attorney for clients who are candidates appearing before the commission?

I don’t see myself taking that direction. I think there are a number of lawyers that have established themselves in representing candidates before the commission. I think the need is more in the area of representing the commission or even political committees — especially political committees that are going to make independent expenditures — 527 committees. That appears to me, at least, to be area where the campaign money more and more is being spent.

Where’s the next hot spot for possible passage of public campaign funding? California, perhaps?

California is exploring Clean Elections. West Virginia is. At the last COGEL [Council on Governmental Ethics Laws] meeting, Washington state was very interested in drafting a Clean Elections law. New Jersey now has a pilot program for two of its legislative districts. North Carolina has Clean Elections but just for its judicial races. So there are very serious attempts in several different states to establish clean elections.

Let’s get back to your present job. Thinking back over it, you might not have anticipated every controversy that came down the pike, but did you see the Clean Elections Act being as controversial as it’s turned out to be? Or maybe you don’t think it is.

I definitely think it’s high profile. With my experience at the Attorney General’s Office doing election work, I knew that election matters are always of great interest to many people. That’s one reason I love doing election work because, day to day, things are different, always something new. So, I did anticipate in this job the same kind of tempo, the fast moving various issues that arise, the lawsuits, and the controversies. Those all just go with the territory.

You were living in Arizona at the time the Clean Elections initiative was passed in 1998?

Yes, I moved to Arizona in’94 and I was at the Attorney General’s Office, so I was involved in that lawsuit about the title of the initiative.

Gene Lemon, before he became a Clean Elections commissioner, voted against the initiative. Did you vote for it?

I really don’t remember at the time if I did or did not. My most vivid memory from the ’98 election and the Clean Elections Act was for the publicity pamphlet. At the time I was working for the AG’s Office representing the Secretary of State’s Office. The secretary of state has to draft the yes-no language for the voter pamphlet and the ballot. So, in 50 words or less, if you vote “yes,” this is what happens and if you vote “no,” this is what happens. When I was reviewing that and I saw the [complete text of the] Clean Elections Act and it was about 20 pages, I was shocked.

How you boil it down to 50 words is the challenge.

Right. That was my most vivid memory, but as far as voting, I don’t even remember.

So you had the job of reviewing what the Secretary of State’s Office said was the effect of voting “yes” or “no,” but you didn’t actually have the job of writing that?

That’s correct. Jessica Funkhouser was the state elections director at the time and she had the harder job of actually drafting that language.

What’s been the most rewarding aspect of serving as executive director of this agency?

The most rewarding aspect has been creating an agency from nothing when there was strong sentiment against establishing the commission, and many people working to knock it down through legal challenges. I know this transition between my departure and the new executive director is going to be very smooth because everyone here is very capable and very dedicated to Clean Elections. That is definitely the most rewarding thing. And just seeing the system work.

You’ve had some turnover within the agency, but it seems there hasn’t been a lot. You have quite a few people who have been here pretty much from the beginning and now have several years’ experience.

Right. We have had a really good staff, and I’m fortunate there wasn’t a tremendous amount of turnover. And the morale has thankfully been very good under trying circumstances. Even under the ballot measure challenge, the morale was very good, and the staff was going to stick it out, regardless of whether the initiative was on the ballot or not.

The critics of the system have been very vocal. When people come into the office, particularly those people who are critics of the Clean Elections system or have some issues with it, or those who are under review for enforcement action, do they give the staff a lot of grief?

There have been one or two instances of candidates crossing the line, telling staff members they better start looking for another job because that particular candidate was going to do everything he or she could to get rid of Clean Elections.

Even as they were running with public funds?

Right, receiving a check at the same time. Those kinds of comments are unnecessary. The staff has always tried to do a good job. As far as the political views — I don’t know that we’re the right people to receive those comments or to have those directed at us, but we do get that. But by and large, the candidates, whether they like Clean Elections or not, are usually very cordial and try to work with the staff.

You came into some criticism personally from a number of candidates on a number of issues. Sometimes candidates thought you were singling out members of one party over another, that you might have had some personal feelings about a candidate, and were reading the letter of the law more stringently than for other candidates. How tough is it to come in every day and hear that criticism?

I’ve learned not to take those comments personally. I know that those comments are directed at me because it’s easier to target a person rather than an entity, like a commission. I also understand that, in certain situations, the law is against the cand
idate, the facts are against the candidate, so sometimes all they have is to use the press to lash out at the commission. I think there are various motives for the attacks on me and other staff members, perhaps. But I think it’s the nature of the job; it’s part of the job.

When I talk to other campaign finance regulators, they face the exact same thing. Candidates know that if I don’t bring [a matter] to the commission, enforcement action doesn’t go anywhere. The executive director is the gatekeeper as far as what is on the [enforcement] agenda.

You’ve experienced some of the difficulty in dealing with a new law on the books and are still trying to effect some changes at the Legislature, where, at least among the majority leadership, there have been considerable efforts to block any of those changes. What’s the biggest fix yet to be done to make the act better?

One area I feel strongly about the law needing some legislative change is in the area of political committees that make independent expenditures, but either are not registered committees or do not report the expenditures. I feel that the trend, and this is on the national level, too, is more independent groups are spending more money, rather than giving the money to the candidate and allowing the candidate to spend it.

Because of the Clean Elections system putting limits on contributions, maybe in Arizona more than anywhere else, the incentive is for groups to spend their money rather than giving it directly to the candidate. So I think the area of regulating — oversight of — political organizations that make independent expenditures could use legislative changes.

Having worked with this act since the beginning, you’re seeing the way public money already has changed the way campaigns are being funded and how money is being spent on behalf of candidates and issues, whether directly or indirectly. Do you think campaign money will flow along the path of least resistance? If you regulate contributions, limiting how much money candidates receive, then won’t at least some of the people who want to spend money on getting others elected find a way, legal or not, to still have as much of an impact as they did before public campaign funding?

As far as the money issue, I agree: money, like water, will always find an outlet. That’s [U.S. Justice Sandra] O’Connor’s quote from the McConnell decision. That’s very true. The soft money avenue was closed up on the federal level, and then this new 527 area grew. It’s the nature of campaign finance. I think as far as Clean Elections goes, it’s not going to be a panacea for every loophole that arises or a solution for every problem that is perceived to exist. A tremendous benefit of Clean Elections is allowing more people to run for office, providing resources for candidates who are not incumbents and are not likely to raise as much money as an incumbent.

Most of the bills that had anything to do with Clean Elections didn’t make a lot of headway in the most recent Legislative session. There was a bill passed on the officeholder’s expense accounts that the Legislature passed, but the governor ultimately vetoed. Did the officeholder expense account exist prior to Clean Elections?

Actually, those types of accounts did not exist before Clean Elections. After they were elected to office, most candidates had surplus money in their campaign accounts. So to write thank-you notes or to send flowers when someone died or to send a birthday card, or whatever, the candidate would use the surplus money. Then after the first cycle under Clean Elections, the candidates who were participating candidates realized they didn’t have any surplus money because any surplus money had to be returned to the Clean Elections Commission. But they still represented 150,000 voters in their district and still had to interact with their constituents.

So, there was a need there to allow for some kind of officeholder expenses. Candidates for Clean Elections didn’t know for sure whether they could raise money for these kind of expenses and whether, if they did, it would eliminate them from running with Clean Elections money the next time around. So the commission, along with the help of the Clean Elections Institute, advocated creation of this kind of officeholder account.

I think the officeholders’ expense account bill really was a call to the commission on its own rule to listen to the stakeholders, the actual officeholders, who have to work under that rule. It’s prompted the [commission’s] advisory committee [on the officeholder expense account rules] to start looking at possible changes.

The proposal this year would have greatly increased the size of the officeholder expense accounts. Like others, did you see that proposal as just an end run around the contribution limits on candidates under the Clean Elections Act?

The amount for legislators tripled. It did seem to be much more money than was really needed for those kinds of expenses. It did not seem to be just an account for officeholder expenses; there were concerns that it was going to end up being for campaign purposes.

The timing of the officeholder expenditures is critical too, when they are allowed to spend it.

Right. Originally the bill allowed the spending to occur up to 60 days before the primary election. Then it was amended so that the money had to be spent by the time nomination petitions were filed. So, that’s usually the second week of June. Right now, the omission rule [on when funds have to be used up] is April 30, so there’s a clean break. The timing is very important. The closer you get to an election, the more likely it’s going to be campaign-related.

Looking ahead, do you ever see a time that the Legislature will ever pass any of the amendments to the act that the commission has sought and contends will make the act easier to use for both participating and nonparticipating candidates?

Actually, one amendment has passed, and that was to the candidate statement pamphlet, making the commission, rather than the counties, responsible for putting that together. So it is possible to get changes, if we have support from those who are affected, such as the counties in this instance. If it’s a change because it will make the law easier to administer, or if it makes the law better for candidates, I’m not optimistic about those bills.

Are you going to literally be a one-woman shop, or are you going to have some help in your new endeavor?

What I’m going to explore is working with a law firm as an independent contractor. That way, I will have an office, share the cost of liability insurance, help with trust accounts, and so forth, but I will have some control over the types of matters I handle.

Anything else you want to mention about your tenure here?

It’s been challenging. It’s been exciting. I’ve been privileged to work with a number of knowledgeable and interesting people. I appreciate the commission for giving me that opportunity. —