State election officials are being asked to penalize some Republican district committees for illegally giving money to help elect school board candidates, including three in Pima County.
And Jim Barton also wants penalties against the recipients.
But Mona Gibson, running for one of two open seats on the Amphitheater school board, told Capitol Media Services she has a letter from the committee saying it is βauthorizedβ to make the $499 donation.
And the secretary of stateβs office says that the complaints β and the question of the scope of the law β will have to be investigated. And that could take weeks.
At the center of the issue is money given by the Republican Legislative District 11 committee to Gibson and Jeffrey Utsch, also running in Amphi, and Mikail Roberts, a candidate in the Marana school district. All three received a $499 donation.
In his complaints, Attorney Jim Barton, representing the Arizona Democratic Party, cites a section of state law that forbids political parties from donating to candidates other than party nominees. He contends the donations to the nonpartisan school board candidates violate that law.
Barton acknowledged that the committee registered as a βpolitical action committeeβ and that PACs are not subject to the same prohibition on nonpartisan races.
He said, however, what the committee calls itself is legally irrelevant. Barton said it still falls within the definition of a βpolitical party.β
βIt appears that GOP Legislative District 11 β¦ may be attempting to evade these requirements by identifying as a political action committee,β Barton wrote to Kori Lorick, the state elections director. A copy also was sent to Constance Hargrove who is elections director for Pima County, whose office is in charge of getting campaign finance reports from school board candidates.
A finding that the law has been violated would mean more than the candidates having to refund the money.
There also is a separate civil penalty on both the contributor and recipient equal to the amount of money involved. And under βspecial circumstances,β election officials can triple that penalty βbased on the severity, extent or willful nature of the alleged violation.β
Barton contends that is appropriate here, at least for the district committee.
βYou should each recommend to the enforcement officer a finding of special circumstances based on the political partyβs plainly willful violation on the prohibition on contributing to candidates other than the nominee, and investigate if the political partyβs misidentifying as a political action committee in its registration was an effort to evade the law,β he wrote.
Multiple efforts to receive a response from anyone from the committee were unsuccessful.
