HORNE’S DELAYS WILL HAUNT HIM
Attorney General Tom Horne made a strategic mistake. He should have faced the music the first time the band warmed up. Instead, he challenged the conductor’s right to hold the baton. That only delayed the inevitable. Now, two county attorneys have concluded that Horne violated campaign-finance law by coordinating activities with an independent expenditure committee.
Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk, like Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery before her, ordered Horne to return $400,000 and file amended campaign-finance reports.
Failure to do so could lead to civil fines of triple that amount.
Polk’s order comes less than a year before a Republican primary in which Horne has a challenger.
Voters are starting to pay attention, just in time for the coming headlines that will not be complimentary to Horne.
That may be the most fitting punishment, especially since Horne invited it.
Horne could have challenged the merits of Montgomery’s case a year ago. Montgomery found that Horne coordinated with Kathleen Winn, who ran Business Leaders of Arizona, to raise money for last-minute ads targeting his Democratic opponent, Felecia Rotellini.
Instead, he challenged the secretary of state’s decision to bypass the attorney general and send a complaint directly to Montgomery.
A judge agreed, saying that even if state law doesn’t make sense, it has to be followed. He tossed Montgomery’s case.
Shortly thereafter, Secretary of State Ken Bennett resubmitted the complaint to the attorney general.
A staffer forwarded it to Polk, who spent four months investigating before coming to the same conclusion as Montgomery: There is overwhelming evidence of coordination. Refund $400,000 within 20 days, she ordered a campaign that had $70,000 in the bank at the end of 2012.
Horne and Winn’s attorneys, as they did last year, say this is all a mistake. The phone calls and e-mail the two exchanged just before the ads hit TV were about some real-estate deal. It was all innocent.
A year later, we’ll see how that defense plays out in court. But by delaying, Horne and Winn helped the attorney general’s opponents, who can now point to two Republican county attorneys coming to the same conclusion.
Horne will now be in court as voters are starting to pay attention. The arguments against Horne will resonate all the louder.
Stretching out bad news rarely makes it better. Campaign-finance law does not remove an officeholder who gets there by breaking the law. But it has other ways of punishing offenders.
Horne’s failed delaying tactics have only made them more painful.