PHOENIX — An attorney for a former Attorney General’s Office staff member filed a formal complaint Monday alleging Tom Horne and top staffers repeatedly violated campaign finance laws.
In an affidavit given to the Secretary of State’s Office, Sarah Beattie said she was told, beginning last year, to work on getting Horne re-elected. Attorney Tom Ryan acknowledged his client did such work initially — and in fact worked the majority of her time on Horne’s campaign matters — but subsequently quit.
Beattie, hired last year, also attached 146 pages of supporting materials, including campaign documents on which Beattie said she worked and emails from Horne and others. Beattie also said she witnessed others in Horne’s executive team — all state employees — who worked on campaign materials, often for hours at a time.
An identical complaint by Beattie, who was in the constituent services office, was filed with the Citizens Clean Elections Commission, which enforces campaign finance laws.
Horne would not respond to questions, but in a prepared response, said some staffers do campaign work “on their own time, as is their First Amendment right.”
He said all “significant campaign work,” including meetings, were done off-site, at lunch or after work.
He accused Beattie of being bitter about having to work eight hours a day on legitimate state business, and called the charges “desperation, opportunism and political games.”
Ryan, however, said Beattie has become the focus of a smear campaign by Horne and allies.
The complaint comes just as Horne was hoping to put legal issues involving his 2010 race behind him.
An administrative law judge concluded there was insufficient evidence to support a charge he had illegally coordinated that campaign with what was supposed to be an independent committee headed by Kathleen Winn. Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk must decide this week whether to accept those findings or ignore them and demand Horne cough up more than $400,000 in campaign donations.
If Secretary of State Ken Bennett finds evidence of new violations, some of which involve Winn, who now works in Horne’s office, Horne could face a new round of hearings.
Ryan produced several exhibits he said prove the complaint.
One was a document produced by Brett Mecum, Horne’s lobbyist at the Legislature, promoting a Sept. 18 fundraiser for Horne. A copy went to Beattie.
The “metadata” attached to the file — essentially electronic tags attached to word-processing programs — shows it was worked on over more than 20 hours, including what would otherwise be normal office hours.
Ryan acknowledged that senior staffers have no set hours and can take time off during the day to do non-state business. But he said the amount of time spent on this paints a different picture.
Beattie also produced emails between Horne and another AG’s Office employee during normal business hours last December coordinating the script for a “robocall” to push for his re-election and undermine attacks from “a liberal group.”
Horne also sent an email this past January, during normal business hours, about “negatives on (Felecia) Rotellini,” the Democrat he narrowly defeated in 2010, and who is the presumptive Democrat nominee this year. The memo went to various staffers at the Attorney General’s Office.
Beattie, in her affidavit, also said she witnessed Horne trying to raise money from his state office, and that Horne would bring senior staffers into meetings where they would discuss campaign matters.
Beattie’s allegations that staffers did work on taxpayer time got a boost when Horne press aide Stephanie Grisham admitted Monday that Winn had used a state vehicle to attend a campaign event.
Grisham said Winn, who drove it from an official meeting to “an off-site campaign meeting,” was formally reprimanded by her supervisor and asked to pay $10 to cover the mileage put on the vehicle.
If Bennett or the Clean Elections Commission find evidence of a campaign law violation, Ryan said the penalties are all civil and involve reimbursement of improperly spent state resources and possible fines equal to three times the misspent amounts.
