Former state lawmaker Lori Daniels has been appointed by Secretary of State Jan Brewer to serve on the Citizens Clean Elections Commission.
Daniels’ involvement with a federal lawsuit filed in 2004 challenging the constitutionality of the Clean Elections Act makes her an “interesting” appointee to the commission, said Eric Ehst, executive director of the Clean Elections Institute, a non-profit advocate of publicly funded campaigns.
“If I’d be making the choice, I don’t think I’d choose somebody that filed a lawsuit against the system,” said Ehst, adding he hopes Daniels will carry out her duties fairly, which was promised in Brewer’s press release announcing the appointment.
Daniels, along with former gubernatorial candidate Matt Salmon, current state Treasurer Dean Martin and a Tucson-based physicians’ group, was a plaintiff in American Association of Physicians v. Brewer.
The lawsuit challenged the constitutionality of providing matching funds to publicly funded candidates and argued that the Clean Elections Act unfairly coerces candidates to accept public campaign funds.
Daniels abandoned her challenge to the state campaign finance law after a federal judge refused to issue an injunction in 2005. The case is pending at the federal level again, although with Martin serving as the only remaining plaintiff.
Todd Lang, executive director of the Citizens Clean Elections Commission, said he was not at all concerned about the prospect of Daniels, a former adversary of publicly funded campaigns, serving on the commission.
Instead, he labeled her an “asset” due to her extensive legislative and campaigning experience. “Sometimes our critics are the best folks to turn to for advice because they look at the act with a more critical eye,” Lang said.
Daniels, a Republican former House majority leader, is unabashed about her general objections to using public funds to pay for campaigns for public office.
“I’ve never been for Clean Elections, but it is the law,” Daniels said. “I’m not a fan of taxpayer dollars being used to subsidize elections. I’ve always had an issue with that.”
But she will hold candidates using public campaign funds “completely accountable” for their spending, which is something she said the Citizens Clean Elections Commission has been reluctant to do.
Evidence of this, she said, is the commission’s failure to abide by legal requirements calling for the imposition of fines on violators of contribution and expenditure limits of up to10 times the amount of the of the infraction.
Daniels is not the first commissioner appointed to the Citizens Clean Elections Commission to oppose the idea of applying public monies to pay for political campaigns.
In October, Carl Kunasek, who was appointed in January 2006 to replace Commissioner Tracy Bardorf, told the
Arizona Capitol Times after he stepped down that granting public funds to candidates’ campaigns forces taxpayers to promote politics they might not support.
“I do not agree with taxpayer-funded campaigns,” he said. “I've always had that position. Why should a taxpayer have to pay for a candidate that is 180 degrees away from their positions≠”
Supporters of Arizona’s publicly funded campaign system typically reject the notion that the campaigns are paid for by “taxpayers” because funding comes from a 10 percent surcharge to criminal and civil fines, tax write-offs and contributions.
Daniels, a Maricopa County Republican, will join CCEC Chairman Gary Scaramazzo, an independent from Coconino County; Donald Lindholm, an independent from Maricopa County; Royann Parker, a Republican from Pima County; and Jeffrey Fairman, a Pinal County Democrat.
Daniels replaces former commission chairwoman Marcia Busching, a Maricopa County Democrat whose term is set to expire Jan. 31.
State law dictates that no more than two members of the commission may be from the same party or county. Commissioners also must not have sought, been appointed to or elected to public office, or served as an officer for a political party within the past five years prior to being appointed.
Commissioners are also forbidden from serving as political officers, elected officials or lobbyists for 3 years after their 5-year terms expire.
The Citizens Clean Elections Commission distributes public campaign funds to statewide and legislative candidates who qualify by collecting a number of $5 contributions.
The agency also has been charged with enforcing compliance of candidates’ expenditure limits, and distributing matching funds to publicly funded candidates to equalize spending made by or on behalf of privately funded candidates.
Candidates running for the Legislature in 2008 must collect 220 individual contributions to qualify for public funds, while candidates for the Arizona Corporation Commission must collect 1,650 contributions to receive public campaign funds.