The state Republican Party filed a complaint Aug. 9 against nine Democrat legislative candidates, including one incumbent running for re-election, alleging they violated state election law by not including who paid for their campaign Web sites.
In a letter to Secretary of State Jan Brewer, Republican Party Executive Director Glenn Hamer said the investigation of the Democrat candidates was a direct result of a July complaint against GOP gubernatorial candidate Len Munsil filed by the state Democrat Party.
“It’s somewhat ironic that, while the Democrats have filed a complaint against one of our gubernatorial candidates, that at the time they filed their complaint they had candidates in 30 percent of the legislative districts who were out of compliance,” Mr. Hamer said in a press release.
The complaint identifies the Democrats as: District 1 House candidate Wes Edmonds; District 4 House candidate Debra Boehlke; District 5 Senate candidate Phillip Cobb; District 8 House candidate Stephanie Rimmer; District 11 Senate candidate Ann Wallack; District 15 Rep. Kyrsten Sinema; District 16 House candidate Betty Doss Ware; District 23 House candidate Krista Pacion; and District 28 House candidate Matt Heinz.
Later that day, Democratic Party spokeswoman Alice McKeon said in a statement that most of the candidates had corrected the oversight long ago and the party would ensure the others comply with the law.
When the Republican Party announced it had filed the complaint, the Web sites for Ms. Ware and Ms. Pacion were the only ones that did denote who paid for them.
Political ammunition?
Ms. McKeon said the Republican complaint was timed to divert attention away from the Citizens Clean Elections Commission hearing about Mr. Munsil’s alleged violations of campaign finance law. She said the Republicans should have brought the complaint forward when they learned of the discretions instead of sitting on it.
“If the Republicans saw many of these violations months ago, they should have brought them to the attention of the secretary of state at the time of the violation instead of holding them for political ammunition,” she said in a press release. “That they waited several months to file, after the vast majority of the candidates had realized and rectified the situation, exposes this complaint for the political game that it is.”
Mr. Hamer says the candidates still must be held accountable, even though many of them have already rectified the problem.
“Irrespective of whether the aforementioned candidates have since remedied their failure to include ‘paid for’ on their Web site, it is clear that the violations did take place and the conduct is still subject to enforcement,” he wrote in the letter of complaint.
Ms. Sinema says her Web site has always had “paid for by” at the bottom of every page and called the complaint against her “preposterous,” saying her name was included because she is one of the more outspoken Democrats in the Legislature.
“I think this is just a another political ploy to play with the minds of voters and discredit the Democrats,” she said. “They really hate me and I can’t blame them, because I’m me.”