PHOENIX — The state Court of Appeals on Tuesday rebuffed a bid by former Attorney General Tom Horne to overturn findings he violated state campaign finance laws.
In a unanimous ruling, the three-judge panel said there was more than enough evidence for Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk to conclude that Horne and aide Kathleen Winn had coordinated with each other on how some money she had collected for her campaign finance committee would be spent. Polk said that was illegal because Winn’s committee, Business Leaders for Arizona, was supposed to operate independent of Horne as the candidate in 2010.
Horne said late Tuesday he intends to appeal.
He also said Polk, a trial judge and now the appellate court all got it wrong. In fact, Horne said, the only one who got it right was the original administrative law judge who found there was insufficient evidence of coordination to conclude any laws had been violated — a finding that Polk personally overruled.
At issue is $513,340 spent by Business Leaders for Arizona, run by Winn, on a last-minute television commercial attacking Felecia Rotellini, Horne’s 2010 Democrat foe. The group was registered as an independent campaign committee to help Horne get elected. As an independent committee, it could not legally coordinate its expenses with the candidate.
Undisputed evidence presented to the administrative law judge showed a series of phone calls and emails between the pair.
