By Julia Shumway | Arizona Capitol Times
Candidates running with public funding through the Clean Elections program say a new voter-approved state law that prohibits them from paying political parties for services impedes their constitutional right to associate with whoever they choose.
This is the first election cycle since voters approved 2018’s Proposition 306, which outright banned candidates who participate in Clean Elections from directly or indirectly paying campaign funds to political parties or political action committees. Leading up to the candidate filing period, the Arizona Democratic Party actively urged candidates to eschew Clean Elections for traditional financing so they could still buy voter registration information from the party.
That led some incumbent Democrats who previously ran with Clean Elections funds to drop it, but overall numbers for participating candidates haven’t decreased, said Tom Collins, director of the Clean Elections Commission. In 2018, 32 primary candidates qualified for public financing. So far this year, 37 have.
