Republicans on the Arizona Corporation Commission voted Tuesday to censure outgoing Democratic Commissioner Anna Tovar and refer a complaint to the Maricopa County Attorney’s office, saying she violated open meeting laws and the commission’s code of ethics.

At an open staff meeting, three Republicans on the commission said an investigation into Tovar’s office found a letter sent by Tovar on Nov. 6 disclosed information discussed in executive session and constituted harassment of a commission staff member. The commissioners also voted to refer violations of Arizona open meeting law to the Maricopa County Attorney’s office.

The Commission discussed the issue during an executive session that lasted over two hours. Republican Commissioner Lea Marquez Peterson was absent due to a family emergency and did not vote on the resolution. 

Tovar was not present at the meeting, and Commissioners Nick Myers and Kevin Thompson remained mostly quiet during the vote and were not available for comment after the meeting. Chairman Jim O’Connor was the only commissioner to offer any sort of comment during the vote. 

“It’s with a, personally, a very heavy heart, that I make this motion,” O’Connor said.

The issue began on Nov. 15 when Tovar wrote a letter to her fellow commissioners explaining why she voted against a pay bonus for commission Executive Director Doug Clark. 

The commission went into executive session on Nov. 6 to discuss Clark’s performance and compensation before ending the session to vote publicly on the pay bonus.

Republican commissioners said Tovar’s letter violated executive session confidentiality and several points of the commission’s code of ethics by discussing Clark’s pay. Tovar denied the allegations and told The Arizona Capitol Times that her letter only reflected the comments she made during the public portion of the Nov. 6 meeting. 

The four Republican commissioners voted to instruct the commission’s general counsel and ethics officer, Tom Van Flein, to investigate Tovar during a Nov. 22 meeting. During Tuesday’s meeting, the commissioners present did not discuss any specifics of the investigation.

The resolution passed by the commission said allegations of “unethical misconduct and harassment” of Clark were substantiated. In addition to the censure, commissioners voted to strike Tovar’s letters on the issue from the public record and “reserve its right” to modify the censure if warranted. 

Her attorney, Jim Barton, called the hearing “an absolutely disgusting display of partisanship” and maintained that Tovar did not discuss any information that was not already publicly available. 

“Their censure is so trivial and so toothless that I’m not sure if it’s worth a lawsuit, but what they did is wrong and it’s disgusting … and I would hope that the Arizona voters would remember this kind of garbage,” Barton said.

He said the move to refer the alleged violations of Arizona statutes to the Maricopa County Attorney’s office, rather than the Attorney General’s office, was partisan given that the current Maricopa County Attorney is a Republican. According to the commission’s code of ethics, commissioners can refer violations of Arizona law to either the Attorney General’s office or the county attorney’s office in the county where the violations occurred. 

“What is most profoundly transparent about their partisanship is that they actually referred this to the Republican county attorney instead of the Attorney General’s Office, where the Open Meeting Law Enforcement Team is,” Barton said. “This is kangaroo court at its top.”

Tovar did not run for reelection to her seat and will leave the commission when her term is up in January. Barton said he is not sure if she will file a lawsuit or take another avenue to fight the censure. 

“She has to weigh risk versus gain,” Barton said. “Sometimes when you get down in the mud with a pig, everybody ends up dirty.”