The Daily Agenda: Everyone's doing it
Democrats and Republicans agree on dark money, at least ... Rusty goes full Rusty ... And Frankie shills for the news.
Reginald Bolding, a Democratic secretary of state candidate and leader of the Arizona House Democrats, founded a 501(c)4 “dark money”1 organization whose political action committee has endorsed him and is, at very least, walking right up to the line of illegal campaign coordination.
Our Voice Our Vote Arizona PAC2 sent at least one mailer and published at least one digital ad supporting Bolding in the Democratic primary for secretary of state. If Bolding himself made the decision to send those mailers, even he acknowledges that would be cut-and-dried illegal.
“For my personal campaign and Our Voice Our Vote organization, there is zero coordination there,” he said. “It’s something I clearly know what the rules are and clearly consulted with our attorneys, and I am 100% confident that there’s nothing there. But I understand the appearance.”
Bolding told us his organization employs a “firewall” agreement that bars him, as the executive director of Our Voice Our Vote and the dedicated agent of its federal PAC, from making any decisions about how the PAC allocates its political resources (and that it also covers his wife, the co-founder of Our Voice our Vote). But he didn’t provide the firewall document to us, despite pledging to do so. He also didn’t send the group’s tax filings, as he said he would, and didn’t connect us with the people at the organization who could answer more of our questions, as promised. If we hear back, we’ll let you know.
Firewalls are a common, yet inadequate, way that campaigns with ties to outside political groups comply with state and federal campaign finance law. Essentially, a firewall is a piece of paper that says a political group acknowledges that its structure or client roster creates an inherent conflict with the law, but they promise to not break the law by coordinating campaign spending.
Bolding’s unique situation as both a candidate and the leader of a dark money organization that’s spending money to elect him raises all sorts of legal red flags, multiple elections attorneys told us. And the existence of a firewall document doesn’t automatically put a candidate in the clear: While a firewall with an exhaustive list of possibly problematic situations and how to deal with them is a good starting point, candidates and political groups still have to follow and enforce those documents.
Several of the dark money organization’s employees also circulated petitions to get their boss on the ballot, records show, which would create the same kind of coordination issue if the employees did it on company time. Bolding told us that if any of his employees did circulate petitions, they did so on their own time, though a quick search through his petitions shows at least a handful of examples where his employees were circulating his petition on weekdays.
Besides the potential legal issue, Bolding’s case offers a striking example of how intertwined even Democrats who purport to oppose anonymous political spending have become with dark money organizations.
Bolding argued that calling his “civic engagement organization” a dark money operation is unfair because, in contrast to dark money political PACs that spring up around election time, it operates year-round doing things like advocating on environmental issues and hosting leadership training for African American youth. But he also offered the same talking point that Republicans have used to defend the right to anonymous political speech, dating back to at least to attempts to keep donations from opponents of gay marriage secret because they may face harassment for their views.
“Many times, you know, (donors) could become targets, they could be killed,” he said. “They may not want folks to know that they’re supporting organizations that are fighting for criminal justice reform.”
Perhaps it’s a sign of how far Democrats’ position on dark money has evolved in the dozen years since the Citizens United decision unleashed a new wave of untrackable cash in elections, but we can’t imagine a decade ago seeing a Democrat seeking to be Arizona’s highest elections official who founded and runs a dark money group whose political PAC endorses their boss and spends money to elect him. With or without a firewall.
If there’s nothing to hide, Bolding should be rushing to show people that firewall agreement and any other documents that would bolster his claim that this is all legal. We’ll let you know when and if we see them.
*Cue an obvious pitch about how our money isn’t dark money. It comes directly from subscribers like you!* Help us stick around by kicking us $100.
Waters still muddy: Despite a ruling that stopped enforcement of a vague “fetal personhood” law this week, Planned Parenthod won’t restart abortions because of the statements made by Attorney General Mark Brnovich over which state laws now govern abortion, the Associated Press’ Bob Christie reports. After the Dobbs ruling, most Arizona providers stopped doing abortions because of legal uncertainty and fears that doctors could be prosecuted.
Blake gets the Trump bump: Peter Thiel-backed candidate Blake Masters leads the pack of GOP primary contenders in the U.S. Senate race after scoring the endorsement from former President Donald Trump, a new live-call poll from HighGround Public Affairs of 400 likely GOP primary voters shows. HighGround’s poll puts Masters at about 23%, with self-funding businessman Jim Lamon next in line, but far behind, at 13.5%, followed by Attorney General Mark Brnovich at 13%. Still, about 40% of voters remain undecided on the contest.
No country for old Rusty: Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers is at his most Rusty Bowers in this interview with Deseret News’ Samuel Benson, where he asks Benson, “Have you ever been held against your will and somebody instructed somebody else to kill you?” before launching into how he’s stuck between warring political factions. (“That has never happened to me,” Benson responds.) And Bowers clarified his previous comments that he’d vote for Trump again — he now says he’d “be hard-pressed” if Trump was the GOP nominee again, but “I’m not inclined to support him.”
“It’s not a false report. I know Bob Christie. He’s my AP guy. And I did say it. But it’s just that you get used to, as a defensive mechanism, when people say, ‘Who are you gonna vote for,’ you usually say, ‘Well, you know, whoever the nominee is for my party,’ rather than saying, ‘I’m voting for X, Y or Z.’ I don’t like to be boxed. And so as kind of a sad evasion, I just said that. And it gets me out of a discussion and into a hotter fire,” Bowers said.
No one invited you: COVID-19 is back again, as the highly transmissible BA.5 subvariant of omicron takes over just as people are on their summer travels, the Arizona Mirror’s Jerod MacDonald-Evoy reports.
Rachel’s power went out twice yesterday: The Salt River Project sued to try to bring back its effort to expand a gas plant in Coolidge, which was previously shot down by the Arizona Corporation Commission, ABC15’s Courtney Holmes reports. Tens of thousands of Arizona Public Service could get rebate checks from SRP because of century-old development that put customers onto APS in SRP territory, the Republic’s Ryan Randazzo writes. It’s so hot and there’s so many of us now that SRP broke its record for power usage on Monday (and by the way, here’s how you can help people who are living outside during these intensely hot months. And the Republic’s Arlyssa Becenti writes about how Navajo Nation communities want a “just and equitable” transition away from coal after the closure of the Navajo Generating Station.
Give Stacey a raise: If you didn’t learn enough about the gubernatorial candidates from that incredible debate, the Republic’s Stacey Barchenger wrote profiles of every candidate: On the GOP side, Kari Lake, Karrin Taylor Robson, Scott Neely and Paola Tulliani-Zen; for Dems, Katie Hobbs and Marco Lopez. (And speaking of Lake, there’s a new attack ad from American Focus PAC that features a drag queen dragging her for being fake.)
Vote: Some Arizona counties are required to provide voting materials in Indigenous languages if they meet certain criteria, and those requirements can change based on Census results, the Arizona Mirror’s Shondiin Silversmith reports. Seven Arizona counties have at least one required Indigenous language for their ballots, though some counties provide them based on longstanding relationships and practices.
Read into the tea leaves you want to see: The latest voter registration numbers show Arizona Republicans have the strongest registration advantage over Democrats that they’ve had since August 2018, ABC15’s Garrett Archer notes, though what that data point means isn’t exactly clear, considering 2018 was a banner year for Arizona Democrats.
Same story, different PD: Flagstaff police, while allegedly investigating potential human trafficking at a massage parlor that doubled as a prostitution den, got naked and, uhhh, well, you can guess the rest. That’s clearly illegal, ABC15’s Zach Crenshaw writes, but cops do it all. the. time. Flagstaff Police Chief Dan Musselman went so far as to say his officers not only didn’t break the law in receiving the repeated rub-and-tugs, but that they were the victims of sexual abuse. They found no instances of human trafficking.
CC Department of Justice: Phoenix Police shot a 64-year-old man experiencing a mental health crisis 10 times and killed him after he called police for help and pointed what attorneys for the family described as a “plainly visible, large, red, water gun,” at them. The family of the victim, Stanley Howard, is suing Phoenix PD, alleging officers used excessive force and violated his civil rights, Phoenix New Times’ Katya Schwenk writes.
You win some, you lose some: Former President Donald Trump’s looming visit to Arizona this weekend underscores the proxy war between him and Gov. Doug Ducey, who is backing and fundraising for Karrin Taylor Robson in Arizona’s gubernatorial race, Politico’s Alex Isenstadt writes. While Trump’s endorsees in House and Senate primaries have been largely successful, his record is not great in gubernatorial primaries. His hand-picked candidates in Georgia, Idaho and Nebraska have all failed to secure their party’s nomination, Isenstadt notes.
Legislative District 7, the neighboring district to yesterday’s LD6, splits through Flagstaff in the center, reaches Williams in the west to Strawberry/Pine in the east, and comes south into Apache Junction and other areas of Pinal County. This rural district has a strong Republican advantage and moves several incumbents previously in separate districts into one.
The Senate matchup pits two of the state’s most fringe lawmakers — Sens. Wendy Rogers and Kelly Townsend — against one another. Rogers, fresh off of her first term marked by multiple ethics investigations and a censure from her colleagues, has raised unprecedented amounts of money for a legislative candidate because of her high-profile, national stature in election-denying circles. Townsend, a Navy veteran and retired doula who is largely ideologically identical to Rogers, has spent a decade in legislative office representing the previous LD16, which covers Mesa and Apache Junction, two areas she has called home, but will now be running in an area she’s never represented — Northern Arizona.
The House race also pits two incumbents from different districts against each other in one race. Republican Rep. John Fillmore teamed up with newcomer David Marshall, a pastor, rather than his fellow Republican lawmaker, David Cook. Cook is a rancher from Globe who was first elected in 2016. Fillmore is a fire artist known for his verbal gaffes and admiration of “1958-style voting.” He has served since 2019, though previously served one term in the early 2010s and also once ran for Congress in 1988 as a Democrat. Marshall lives in Snowflake and has earned the support of Snowflake Republicans who have come before him, Sylvia Allen and Walt Blackman.
Former child actor and current Arizona man whose cat flooded his home Frankie Muniz appears in ads promoting the Republic. An Instagram ad shows Muniz touting Republic subscriptions after first telling viewers that they may know him from “Malcolm in the Middle.”
The Republic likely purchased a video of Muniz promoting the paper from the app Cameo, where people pay for celebrities to make lil videos for them. You can book a video from Muniz for $119.99, and we have half a mind to pay to have him cut a video for us now just for shits and giggles.
As KJZZ digital editor Tim Agne pointed out, the ad means the Republic now has to note that Muniz is paid to promote the paper if he’s mentioned in stories, like he was this week for selling his nearly $5 million house in Scottsdale.
Dark money, it should be clarified, refers to political spending from which the source is not disclosed.
To make things even more complicated, it’s not clear if the federal or state PAC paid for the ads, since the two PACs have the exact same name (not to mention the same treasurer and address). That difference matters, considering state PACs have additional real-time reporting requirements for that kind of spending called “trigger reports” that the PAC has not filed.
Thank you for the link in the AZ Republic about how to help unsheltered people. I printed out the suggestions about what to keep in the car and calling 211 to get a Lyft to the nearest cooling station.