A conservative special interest group in Arizona is considering legal action against a sitting Republican official who accused it of offering to help him skirt campaign finance laws four years ago.
Arizona Corporation Commissioner Nick Myers, who lost his re-election bid in the Republican primary this year, accused the Arizona Free Enterprise Club of offering to help him work around Arizona Citizens Clean Election Commission rules during his successful campaign in 2022.
Candidates like Myers, who run with Clean Elections funding, agree to forgo large donations and PAC money in exchange for public funding from the commission. But the first tranche of that money does not typically come through until late in the primary election season.
Myers told KJZZ last week that he rejected an offer from the Free Enterprise Club to front him money for campaign signs in 2022 until his public campaign funding came in — a scheme that would violate state campaign finance laws governing Clean Elections candidates.
In a cease and desist letter sent on Tuesday, an attorney for the Arizona Free Enterprise Club accused Myers of making “false and defamatory statements.”
“The conversation that you describe did not occur. No representative of the Club made the statement discussed above, and no one acting on the Club’s behalf proposed to you (or anyone else) any arrangement of the kind described, in 2022 or at any other time,” attorney Brennan A.R. Bowen wrote. “The Club does not coordinate with candidate campaigns, which would include expenditures for campaign signs.”
Myers first alluded to the allegations in a Clean Elections Commission open meeting on Aug. 7 concerning state Rep. Ralph Heap, a Republican who defeated Myers in the Corporation Commission primary.
Heap, who is running as a Clean Elections candidate, faces allegations that he did not disclose who paid for campaign signs and signature gatherers who helped him qualify for the ballot, which would violate Clean Election rules and state campaign finance laws.
“It's widely believed that the individuals who advised this scheme are the same individuals who approached me four years ago with a substantially similar, if not identical, proposal,” Myers told commissioners.
Heap’s attorney denied allegations of wrongdoing.
In the cease and desist letter, Bowen asked Myers to make public statements on social media stating he did not have any conversations with representatives from the Arizona Free Enterprise Club in 2022 regarding campaign expenditures and “cease and desist from making these false allegations in the future or lending credibility to others who do.”
“The Club reserves its rights and, should you fail to take the above corrective action, intends to explore all available legal means to prevent further harm to the Club from these false statements,” Bowen wrote.
Myers previously stated he has no knowledge of any coordination between Heap’s campaign and the Free Enterprise Club “but I think this is a good time for some transparency.”
But Myers has not retracted his overall allegation against the group.
“I stand by what I said,” Myers told KJZZ in a text message.
Myers also accused Republican state Sen. Jake Hoffman, who is a campaign consultant who recruited Heap to run for office, of making a similar offer to him in 2022. Hoffman denied those allegations.
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Find everything you need to know about elections in Arizona and Maricopa County from KJZZ's politics team. -
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