The Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission greenlit further investigation into three candidates based on evidence they didn’t actually qualify for millions in public funding awarded to their campaigns.
The commission provides public dollars to candidates for office who agree to abide by rules passed by voters in 1998, including foregoing large private donations and contributions from PACS and corporations.
Earlier this week, Clean Elections Executive Director Thomas Collins sent letters to Green Party candidates Risa Lombardo and Duwayne Collier and Republican Scott Neely informing them that he planned to ask commissioners to seek repayment of money awarded to their campaigns over concerns they didn’t actually qualify for the funding.
At issue are each campaigns’ $5 qualifying contributions, donations the candidates must collect to qualify for Clean Elections funding.
Gubernatorial candidates Lombardo and Neely were required to gather at least 4,000 qualifying contributions. Collier, who is running for secretary of state, had to gather 2,500.
Earlier this year, the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office and county recorders confirmed that all three candidates turned in enough qualifying contributions to receive funding.
That unlocked a total of $2.8 million in primary and general election funding for Lombardo and nearly $740,000 for Collier. Neely, who unsuccessfully sought the GOP gubernatorial nomination, received $1.1 million in funding for the primary election.
The allegations
At an open meeting on Thursday, Collins told the commissioners that a preliminary review revealed the three candidates did not actually gather enough qualifying contributions to receive funding.
Much of Collins’ analysis relied on suspicious patterns shared amongst the campaigns, including a significant number of shared donors, some of whom have no prior history donating to political campaigns.
“That preliminary analysis shows something around 5,000 unique donor names, and about 74% of those are associated with more than one of these three candidates, and almost half of them are associated with all three candidates,” Collins said.
Collins also referenced reporting by the Arizona Mirror that included testimony from six of those donors, saying they never gave political contributions to Lombardo, Neely or Collier.
“We do have our own field work, and that field work is consistent with what the Mirror has reported,” Collins said.
Collins cited other behavior deemed unusual, including that all three campaigns reported little or no fundraising early in their campaigns before they received Clean Elections dollars. He said candidates typically raise some money during that time to pay for campaign expenses, like bank fees.
He also said Lombardo, Collier and Neely each deposited the alleged $5 contributions in a single, lump-sum deposit shortly before applying for Clean Elections funding rather than in multiple deposits over the course of the campaign.
“So this is more than an unusual banking practice,” Collins said. “It's a positive break in the financial evidence connecting the purported contributors to the money deposited by the campaigns.
The candidates’ response
Timothy La Sota, an attorney for Lombardo and Collier, rejected the allegations and accused Collins of targeting candidates he doesn’t like.
“The bottom line here is black helicopter material. I mean, this is a really far-fetched conspiracy theory that doesn't really make a lot of sense at any level,” said La Sota, a Republican election attorney who is also representing Corporation Commission candidate Ralph Heap in a separate Clean Elections funding dispute.
La Sota argued there is nothing strange about the way Lombardo or Collier collected their donations or when they chose to deposit them in the bank.
“You are legally entitled to keep that money in a safe to deposit it in the bank, no difference,” he said.
In a brief statement to the commission, Neely denied wrongdoing.
“I only found out about this the day that the news article came out a couple of days ago,” Neely said, referencing the Arizona Mirror report. “I haven't been given sufficient time to obtain counsel, and I really don't have any comment on the matter. I haven't engaged in any fraud, and I'm confident I will be exonerated soon.”
La Sota said the candidates qualified for funding when the secretary of state and county recorders certified they turned in enough $5 contributions and pointed out the commission already released that money to the campaigns.
But, according to the Secretary of State’s Office, the process for validating $5 contributions may not flag the issues detailed by Collins or the Arizona Mirror.
“The SOS office only ensures the total $5 QC slips match the totals on the candidate's Application for Funding,” Calli Jones, a spokesperson for the Secretary of State, said. “The County Recorders verify the QCs and provide the results to our office. The recorders verify if the individual donors are registered and they also notify SOS when the signature differs, too.”
So, election officials may flag contributions if they spot a problem, such as a signature that doesn’t match the voter on file.
But, according to the Arizona Mirror, the signatures on the $5 contribution forms from the six people who denied donating to the campaigns appeared authentic. And each said they remembered signing unrelated political petitions over the previous year.
Jones, with the Secretary of State’s Office, indicated the initial review may not catch a situation like that.
“Like with petition signatures, an aggrieved party would have to challenge the underlying validity of the form in the courts or possibly through the (Citizens Clean Elections Commission),” Jones said.
La Sota said the evidence Collins presented doesn’t justify reversing that decision with early voting in the general election fast approaching.
“And what do we have as the evidence?” La Sota said. “We have a media story where the reporter talks about six people who say they didn't give a contribution. This is out of what must be tens of thousands of total contributions.”
But Collins said candidates shouldn’t be let off the hook for potential issues just because those problems weren’t discovered until now.
“There's not a get away with it clause in the Clean Elections Act,” Collins said.
Dollars and cents
The Clean Elections Commission voted unanimously to direct Collins to complete his investigations into the campaigns and, if necessary, make a recommendation about whether the commission should order the candidates to repay the funding awarded to their campaigns.
They directed Collins to prepare that report by one of the commission’s next two open meetings, which are scheduled for Sept. 24 and Oct. 29.
That could pose real problems for Lombardo and Collier, because they will not have certainty about whether or not they may have to repay the millions of dollars in public cash they are relying on to run their campaigns.
“Complete the investigation by Oct. 29? Five days before the election. What a coincidence!” La Sota said in a text message.
The decision comes as both Collier and Lombardo are also facing open opposition from the Arizona Green Party itself. Both candidates face allegations they don’t support the party platform and are Republican plants, inserted into the race to siphon votes away from Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes.
“The names of Lombardo and Collier (which were fraudulently advanced as Green Party nominees) need to be replaced immediately with the names of the rightful winners of the Green Party's primary, Melendez and Ralston,” Arizona Green Party Secretary Mike Cease said in an email. “This emergency action needs to take place as soon as possible due to the urgent timetable of General Election ballots going to print in all 15 counties in Arizona.”
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