In a late night session, Democrats blocked a bill that would stop the practice of turning Clean Elections money into dark money. The bill, HB 2403, failed in the Arizona House of Representatives on a party line vote.
H2403 would have prohibited Clean Elections candidates from contributing public funds to political parties.
While a majority of House members supported HB 2403, it failed to achieve support from three-fourths of the body, which is required to amend statutes created through the initiative process.
Republicans overwhelmingly supported the measure, but Democrats opposed it.
Clean Elections money is frequently funneled from candidates to their political party. Currently nothing prevents parties from running candidates to run without an intent to win, but with an intent to get Clean Elections money to funnel into serious candidates’ coffers.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Doug Coleman, lamented as the bill was going down that he “rarely runs partisan bills,” and was surprised the opposition by Democrats.
Rep. Bob Thorpe told Democrats, “I want to thank you for voting against this bill and proving that you do not really want to get rid of dark money.”
Coleman called the current practice of funneling money to parties an “abusive manipulation of the Clean Elections system.”
Coleman stated that this type of money laundering “violates the trust of Arizona voters, yet Democrats would apparently rather protect the interests of their political party than taxpayers.”