Candidates got away with ignoring big-dollar disclosure requirement

Regional News

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Statewide and legislative candidates widely ignored a requirement to disclose big-dollar contributions during the final days of their campaign, and election officials are in no mood to go after them.

When lawmakers voted in 2013 to increase by up to five-fold the amount of money candidates can accept from a single campaign donor, they attempted to assuage critics by also requiring candidates to disclose any large, last-minute campaign contribution in real-time – or face steep fines.

But candidates, many of whom voted for the bill as lawmakers and benefited from the increased campaign contribution limits, have widely ignored that disclosure requirement, and nobody has pursued any enforcement action against them.

An analysis of all campaign finance reports filed by legislative and statewide candidates in 2016 shows at least $115,000 in contributions of $1,000 or more that were disclosed late, or not at all, violating the law and opening up candidates to possible collective civil fines of nearly $350,000.

This year, at the request of the Secretary of State’s Office, lawmakers voted to repeal the disclosure requirement altogether as part of an overhaul of Arizona’s election laws. That repeal took effect only after this year’s election, and for all of the 2016 election cycle, that disclosure requirement was still in place.

Secretary of State Michele Reagan said lawmakers and her office decided to remove the requirement this year because, in part, it was pretty small potatoes.