Blog For Arizona

Rep. J.D. Hayworth Votes Himself into the 2006 Governor's Race

J.D. Hayworth, Congressman for AZ CD 5, has voted himself a windfall in the Gubernatorial race of 2006. Hayworth voted in favor the omnibus spending package earlier this month which contained a provision allowing the transfer of funds in a Federal Campaign Committee to another Committee for a different office. This means that Haworth will be able to use over a quarter of a million from his Federal funds that he did not use this year to his Gubernatorial race in 2006.

The Congressman claims that he did not know the effect this change in the law would have on his own electoral position. His spokesperson ingenuously claims that he assumed that he presumed that such transfers were prohibited by state law by default. But a survey of state laws shows that only 11 states have any sort of restriction on such transfers. Only Alaska, Arizona, California (special elections only), Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, South Carolina and Washington restrict such transfers in any way. So the excuse that he assumed there was a restriction by default is clearly a smokescreen.

Arizona does have restrictions under ARS§16-905 (H)(2), but they are toothless in regards to intra-candidate transfers for future elections:

"H. A candidate's campaign committee or an individual's exploratory committee shall not make a loan and shall not transfer or contribute money to any other campaign or exploratory committee that is designated pursuant to this chapter or 2 United States Code section 431 except as follows:

1. An exploratory committee may transfer monies to a subsequent candidate's campaign committee of the individual designating the exploratory committee, subject to the limits of subsection B of this section.

2. A candidate's campaign committee may transfer or contribute monies to another campaign committee designated by the same candidate as follows:

(a) Subject to the contribution limits of this section, transfer or contribute monies from one committee to another if both committees have been designated for an election in the same year.

(b) Without application of the contribution limits of this section, transfer or contribute monies from one committee to another designated for an election in a subsequent year"

Under AZ law, there is no restriction on dollar amounts transfered between campaigns for the same candidate for a future election. A quick phone call to any attorney would have told Hayworth that, and it is an insult to voters' intelligence to claim that he did not know the ramifications of the change to Federal law upon his own situation. J.D. Hayworth used his office to vote himself a quarter million dollar exploratory committee for the Governorship in 2006.

Anyone who thinks the campaign finance system is irreparably broken and needs to be fixed certainly shouldn't be looking at Hayworth as the next Governor. Hayworth was involved in the attempt to dismantle or subvert Clean Elections, and his self-serving vote, and transparently false explanation of that vote, are proof that Hayworth is already irretreivably compromised.

posted by Michael Bryan @ 12/20/2004 09:10:00 PM