The Citizens Clean Elections Commission on Oct. 30 awarded $132,000 of extra public funding to Republican gubernatorial candidate Len Munsil to match spending by the state Democratic Party on fliers that promoted Governor Napolitano and other Democratic candidates.
So-called “slate” mailers are permitted under law but, depending on their content, the Clean Elections law still can count them as independent expenditures that trigger awards of matching funds in a race involving a publicly funded candidate.
A lawyer for Ms. Napolitano’s re-election campaign said the commission shouldn’t have awarded matching funds to Mr. Munsil because the commission hadn’t done that previously in other election years for mailers that don’t criticize opponents.
The commission authorized the extra funding for Mr. Munsil three days after it awarded $290,000 of matching funds to Ms. Napolitano because of critical television advertising on illegal immigration by a group called Secure Arizona.
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