***UPDATE*** The Clean Elections Commission has delayed a decision on whether Rep. Doug Quelland violated campaign finance laws. The next scheduled meeting of the commission is May 16, although commissioner Lori Daniels said she wanted to decide the matter more quickly.

The Citizens Clean Elections Commission this morning could decide to take the monumental step of beginning a process to remove north Phoenix Rep. Doug Quelland from office.

Quelland could become the second Arizona lawmaker kicked out of office for campaign finance violations if the five-person commission is persuaded that he unlawfully hired and paid a campaign consultant to operate throughout his 2008 campaign for office.

The commission's executive director, Todd Lang, will recommend that commissioners find reason to believe Quelland committed a number of serious infractions of Arizona campaign finance laws for publicly funded candidates.

Lang has determined that Quelland hired consultant Larry Davis, president of Intermedia Public Relations, in May 2007- more than one month before filing official paperwork declaring his candidacy.

Under the terms of the contract, the company was to be paid $15,000 to perform a variety of campaign services for Quelland, who did not list any payments to Davis or the company in his campaign finance reports.

Quelland has maintained that he terminated his campaign services contract with the company within days of signing the agreement.

However, that version of events has been steadfastly denied by Davis during previous testimony to the commission and under deposition by the Attorney General's Office.

Lang is also urging the commission to find that Quelland violated personal contribution limits to his campaign and unlawfully used corporate money from his personal businesses to advance his publicly funded campaign for office.

If Davis' claims that the contract was never terminated are substantiated by the commission, the $15,000 value of the agreement would place Quelland well above the 10 percent overspending threshold and leave him subject to removal from office.

In 2006, Lang presided over the commission during the ouster of Rep. David Burnell Smith, a publicly funded candidate found to have exceeded his 2004 primary election spending limit.

 On Jan. 26, 2006, Smith was ordered by the Arizona Supreme Court to vacate his office by midnight after fighting a lengthy court battle that tested the authority of the Citizens Clean Elections Commission to remove incumbent lawmakers.

Smith's departure made him the first legislator in the United States to be removed from office for a campaign finance-related offense.