The so-called “kingmaker” provision in a controversial campaign finance law that takes effect later this year may have to be downgraded to “princemaker” status, thanks to a proposed change being considered by lawmakers.

Legislators discussed amending a provision in SB1516 that reverses a 30-year-old ban on candidates contributing directly to other candidates from their campaign funds. Under a proposal that’s gaining momentum at the Capitol, the new, recently passed law wouldn’t be rescinded entirely, but would be drastically truncated.

Rather than allow candidates to contribute to any other candidates under any circumstances, the proposal would impose a number of restrictions intended to alleviate concerns that the kingmaker provision would allow lawmakers and other elected officials to essentially buy influence at the Legislature, according to Rep. J.D. Mesnard, who is spearheading the talks over the trailer bill to SB1516.

Mesnard, R-Chandler, said the new ability to give directly to other candidates from your own campaign war chest would be limited to people who aren’t running for re-election or for another office. Even when those criteria are met, contributions could only be made after sine die of a lawmaker’s final legislative session and after the filing deadline for candidates to get on the ballot.

The changes, Mesnard said, would allow elected officials to dispose of surplus campaign funds, but would scale back the kingmaker provision “to where you couldn’t really accuse it of being used for kingmaking purposes.”

“No kingmaking happening in that scenario,” Mesnard said.

Voters prohibited candidate-to-candidate contributions in 1986 when they passed a campaign finance reform law. Prior to that vote, such contributions were commonplace and widely associated with legendary House Majority Leader Burton Barr, to whom lobbyists and other powerbrokers would give funds so he could redistribute the money to other House Republicans.

For some critics of the provision, the proposed changes are at least good enough, if not the total repeal they had sought.

Rep. Kelly Townsend, who expressed misgivings about SB1516 after helping it pass by a single vote, said she would have preferred to eliminate the provision entirely. But the changes addressed the concerns that she had, the Mesa Republican said.

“It’s a good compromise. I can live with it,” Townsend said.

Rep. Debbie McCune Davis, D-Phoenix, who served in the House with Barr, said the limitations being proposed would improve the bill and are worth considering, though she still wasn’t enamored with the changes.

“I believe that people should raise money and be accountable as to the origin of the money,” McCune Davis said. “I like that direct line where the people who are giving the money and the people who receive the money have a direct connection.”

Rep. Ken Clark, D-Phoenix, said he believes that the public, which enacted the ban on candidate-to-candidate contributions 30 years ago, would still find the compromise distasteful.

“It’s kind of a light workaround,” Clark said.

But in Clark’s view, the kingmaker provision was only one of many problems in SB1516. Democratic lawmakers were especially opposed to a provision that they said would pump more of the anonymous campaign spending known as dark money into Arizona by eliminating the state’s ability to crack down on the federally designated nonprofit organizations that are often its biggest source.

Under SB1516, any group that spends more than half of its money to influence elections would be deemed a political committee that is subject to disclosure laws. But the law exempts any group that has valid nonprofit status from the Internal Revenue Service, regardless of how much of its money goes toward electioneering.

Even if the kingmaker provision is removed or scaled back, Clark said he still plans to help lead a citizen referendum on SB1516 that would refer the law to the November ballot.

“The kingmaker provision was only one of many, many problems. There was a problem with every other page of that 55-page document,” he said.

Mesnard’s proposed amendment would make other changes to SB1516 as well. Most notably, it would reinstitute several criminal penalties for campaign finance violations that were excluded from the bill.

Secretary of State Michele Reagan, whose office drafted and lobbied for the bill, had said she planned to run a separate bill in 2017 that would put the criminal penalties in a more appropriate section of Arizona Revised Statutes.

“That was removed because of organizational reasons,” Mesnard said. “And I said whether we’re going to move it elsewhere later or not, we need to put it back in so people know we’re not letting people off the criminal hook now. Nobody was talking about taking away criminal penalties when this whole campaign finance bill discussion began.”