During her 2014 campaign for Arizona Secretary of State, Republican Michele Reagan ran on a platform to limit the influence of dark money in elections. It would’ve been helpful if we had those limits during the 2012 race, when GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Ducey took gobs of cash from the Koch network. He’s still at it.
So it’s somewhat of a head-scratcher that Reagan would endorse a bill that loosens the limits on how much dark money groups can contribute. In fact, SB 1516, sponsored by Republican Senator Adam Driggs, doubles the amount that dark money groups can give to candidates, while remaining anonymous of course. The bill also allows them to spend unlimited amounts on ballot measures.
To no one’s surprise, the Arizona chapter of Americans for Prosperity, the Koch-funded group that’s very active in the state, was among the organizations clamoring for the change. But Secretary Reagan also helped craft the bill, and she spoke in favor of SB 1516 during testimony, characterizing it as little more than a “housecleaning measure,” when in fact it includes broad policy changes, something that neither she nor her spokesperson even mentioned when the bill was introduced this week.
Critics cite it as a back-door attempt to quietly sneak the dark money provisions through the Legislature by attaching the changes to a broader campaign finance bill.
“That was really disingenuous to market this as a technical fix, cleanup bill,” said Sen. Martin Quezada, D-Phoenix. “There are major policy-level changes being proposed in this bill.”
The new dark money limits are buried in a 54-page proposal that Sen. Driggs and Secretary Reagan described as little more than a paperwork fix. The policy changes were not mentioned during the bill’s introduction, during testimony, or during senate committee discussions. This is also the administration that pledged transparency in government.