Initially, Terry Goddard’s campaign tried to allege that my campaign improperly spent primary monies on the general election. When the complaint went before the Citizens Clean Elections Commission (CCEC), Goddard’s campaign, in a fit of enthusiasm not seen from Terry since, well not seen from Terry, asked the Commission to order me to repay the $73,000 in question ($30,000 for the commercial shoot/production and $43,000 for media buys) and fine me another $73,000.  

During the hearing, CCEC Staff acknowledged my campaign had been above board and 100 percent honest in addressing the allegations and that they were certain we had not been “playing games” with the rules. The Commission decided to conduct further investigation regarding the spending issues but, and importantly, the Chair of the Commission questioned whether the staff’s proposed interpretation of the primary spending rule was correct. At this point, I contacted my media consultant to get more detailed invoices on the commercial shoot and the ad buy. I received the details for the shoot but the ad buy had not been made – he was waiting to until the commercials had been produced. I couldn’t get mad about that since there is a difference in ad buys if you are using 15 second or 30 second spots and we had not picked which commercials to go forward with.  I asked if I could have the $43,000 refunded and the answer was yes. 

Given the uncertainty of whether the Commission would actually adopt the staff’s recommendation, and the ability to recover the $43,000 and proceed without impacting our general election funds, $143,325, I took the decisive action of proposing a settlement agreement and not worry about having to hold any monies back. The CCEC staff agreed that we could resolve the matter this way and we moved ahead to do so. It’s important to note that there was no fine, no penalty, and no finding that my campaign had done anything wrong. To this day, I disagree with the staff’s interpretation of the rule in question and the Commission has not adopted their proposed interpretation. Additionally, I did not have to return the money spent on the commercial shoot/production and those ads are running on the air.

One of the responsibilities of being a leader, and as a candidate I am the leader of my campaign, is to stay focused on the mission and go over, through, or around obstacles that get in the way. Terry’s Clean Elections gambit was an obstacle and I was not going to permit it to keep us from accomplishing our mission: bringing strong leadership and decisive action to the Office of Arizona’s Attorney General.