UPDATE: Bill to eviscerate Citizens Clean Elections voted out of Senate Judiciary Committee

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Tucson's wannabe tin horn dictator, Sen. Jonathan Paton, not satisfied with telling the residents of Tucson how they must conduct their local elections, and still not satisfied with telling the parents of Tucson Unified School District what curriculum TUSD must teach their children, yesterday told the voters of Arizona that we were all wrong to adopt Arizona's Citizens Clean Elections Commission back in 1998, and that we should now eviscerate the program by eliminating its public funding source. "Tin Horn" is flexing his dictatorial muscles and getting a swelled head.

Maybe the Republicans who are so hell-bent on eviscerating the Citizens Clean Elections Commission should first be required to return every dime of their ill-gotten Citizens Clean Elections money that they benefitted from in past elections before voting. (This is the equitable remedy of disgorgement.)

As Jim Nintzel at the Tucson Weekly has correctly pointed out frequently, the candidates who have benefitted the most from Citizens Clean Elections – those fringe "extremists" that the Judiciary Committee was so concerned about – have been the Christian Taliban social conservatives who have successfully purged the "fiscal responsibility" moderates from the Republican Party ranks in GOP primaries since Citizens Clean Elections began. You would think that "Tin Horn" would be getting some pushback from the GOP Taliban within his party.

Howard Fischer reports Lawmakers look to remove clean election funding:

On a 4-3 party-line vote, the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee approved SCR 1025 which would prohibit any "taxpayer money'' from being used to fund any political campaign. That would end the surcharge on all civil, criminal and traffic fines as well as the dollar-for-dollar tax credits available for donations.

Those two amount to more than $16.5 million of the agency's $17 million annual budget.

The net result, according to Todd Lang, director of the Citizens Clean Elections Commission, would be to technically leave his agency in place along with its responsibility to sponsor candidate debates. But it would effectively kill the essence of the program, which is to provide funds to candidates who agree not to seek private donations.

Sen. Jonathan Paton, R-Tucson, admitted he did that on purpose: He wants the ballot measure worded in the way most likely to convince voters to see it his way.

Paton said he does not want to have a measure on the 2010 ballot that asks voters to repeal the Citizens Clean Elections Act.

"With the term that they have 'Clean Elections' I think people will be confused as to what the bill actually does,'' Paton said.

"We're trying to stop the state from giving money to candidates,'' he said.

After U.S. District Court Judge Roslyn Silver gets done with eliminating the "matching funds" provisions of Citizens Clean Elections later this year, I suppose it is all just academic anyway.

SCR 1025 now goes to the full Senate.