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The Citizens Clean Elections Commission voted unanimously to follow its executive director’s recommendation that it move forward with an investigation into a group that ran ads against former Mesa Mayor Scott Smith during his gubernatorial campaign.

The amount of campaign cash that’s been spent by third party groups that don’t have to disclose their donors and have no spending limits — so called “dark money” — has reached an all-time high in 2014.

Gov. Jan Brewer signed a bill intended to prevent the Citizens Clean Elections Commission from regulating traditionally funded candidates, potentially sparking a lawsuit against it.

Two years ago, the Republican-controlled Legislature sought to get voters to kill the Citizens Clean Elections Act, claiming it is wrong for politicians to use public money for campaigns. Now, some of those same GOP lawmakers want to belly up to the bar and get handouts of public dollars for everything from sending out communications to constituents to buying tickets for special events.

An Arizona Senate panel advanced a bill that would bar the Citizen Clean Elections Commission from enforcing the state’s campaign contribution limits. That would leave the task of investigating and enforcing complaints involving traditionally-funded candidates to the Secretary of State and Attorney General.

After a 2½-hour hearing Tuesday, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge has two days to decide whether he’ll let new campaign contribution limits go into effect, potentially transforming Arizona politics in a major way.

The Citizens Clean Elections Commission voted to continue its fight against new campaign contribution limits in lower court after the Arizona Supreme Court rejected the case. The commission on Thursday voted 3-2 to re-file the lawsuit in Maricopa County Superior Court and seek an injunction against HB2593. Without a court order blocking the law from going into effect, the dramatically higher contribution limits will go into effect on Sept. 13.

The Arizona Supreme Court declined to accept a case challenging the state’s new campaign contribution limits.

In a Tuesday afternoon order, Justice Robert Brutinel wrote that the court would not accept a petition for special action filed by opponents of HB2593, who hoped to bypass the lower courts and go straight to the Supreme Court. Brutinel did not elaborate on the high court’s reason for declining jurisdiction in the case.

The Citizens Clean Elections Commission has selected four finalists for its vacant executive director position and will likely conduct interviews later this month.

A provision in the 1998 ballot measure that created Arizona’s Clean Elections system may hold the key to whether the state’s new campaign contribution limits will go into effect for 2014.