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October 2, 2002

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
A report on both sides of some key issues and concerns about Arizona's Clean Elections System; an upcoming mission to Mars that will feature the work of an Arizona researcher
In-Studio Guests:
Election attorney Tim Casey, who represents Republican candidates under review by the Clean Elections Commission,
Election attorney and former state lawmaker Chuck Blanchard who represents a Democratic candidate under review by the Clean Elections Commission.

>> Michael: Tonight on "Horizon," clean elections issues, how should candidates account for their money and what should they face when out of compliance with the law.

>> Michael: Plus, a look at an upcoming mission to Mars that will feature the work of an Arizona researcher.

>> Michael: In 1998, Arizona voters passed a system for publicly funding political campaigns. The Citizens' Clean Elections Act. But recently, concerns have surfaced about how candidates should account for their money, what penalties candidates should face when not in compliance with the law and other issues. Reported today by the "Associated Press," just yesterday a senior staff member of the Clean Elections Commission was fired. Matt Shaffer let go for deliberately failing to identify campaign finance reporting violations by gubernatorial candidate Matt Salmon. We'll talk about some of those issues. First, Merry Lucero looks at how the law affected some candidates in the recent primary election.

>> Reporter: There are 200 candidates running in the state general election listed on the Secretary of State's Web site. Of those, 89 are participating in Arizona's public campaign finance system known as "clean elections." The Arizona Clean Elections Institute says more and more candidates are choosing that system. But Steve May who has openly opposed public finance before it 2 became law opted not to in his campaign for state representative in District 11.

>> Steve May: I chose to run traditionally because I think it's wrong for an individual to take money from the government to express their viewpoint. I think we have a long tradition in America that if you want to express your viewpoint, you do so with your own money or the money from those who support you and not compelled funds taken from people who don't know who you are or oppose your ideas.

>> Reporter: May lost to Steve Tully, a participating candidate and deb gullet, a nonparticipation candidate. Both are also incumbents. Tully spent approximately $49,000 to Steve May's $118,000. May attributes some of his loss to the time and money he spent complying with the Clean Elections Act.

>> Steve May: Every week we had a campaign meeting and spent half of our time talking about compliance, making sure we had done paperwork correctly, making sure we hadn't spent money inappropriately or received money inappropriately. I hired someone to work full time for me and paid her $1500 a month to make sure we were in complete compliance with Clean Elections. And of course, my opponent was matched on the money I spent to comply with the Clean Elections Act.

>> Reporter: May said participating and nonparticipating candidates should have the same reporting candidates and should be treated the same when appearing before the Clean Elections Commission. But other candidates have had positive experiences with clean elections funding.

>> Meg Burton Cahill: I would not have chosen to run without publicly financed campaigns. There were two very strong incumbents in my district, and it's very hard as a political outsider to gather the finances necessary. So the clean elections process, what it does is puts you on a -- not an even playing field because an incumbent is going to have the advantage, but what the Clean Elections funding did for me was allow me to have pretty much the same financial base from which to run my campaign.

>> Reporter: Burton-Cahill won her primary last month against other participating candidates. Clean Election supporters say that is one of the main goals of the system, to bring more candidates into the electoral process.

>> Michael: Here to talk about Clean Elections, election attorney Tim Casey who represents Republican candidates under review by the Clean Elections Commission, and election attorney and former state lawmaker Chuck Blanchard who represents a Democratic candidate under review. Gentlemen, good to see both of you. That reminded me of Al Gore, the little dance there. Sort of a flashback.

>> Michael: Tim, today's news item and let's disclose that you have advised Matt Salmon in relation to the campaign reporting violations. 4 Shaffer got fired for deliberately not reporting campaign finance violations. Do you think he got fired fairly?

>> Tim Casey: I have to start off by saying, you know, these are violations that have been alleged and quite frankly, there have not been any violations. The law is gray. As a private-practicing attorney, I wish I had Mr. Shaffer's case because he's got a case as a whistle blower for wrongfully being terminated for his employment. I'm not surprised they have done it. There has to be, I think, at the commission, a sacrificial lamb to protect face. They have selected Mr. Shaffer to try to save face.

>> Michael: Here's the problem, I think, and I'll be reasonably close on the time line, I think. On Tuesday, Shaffer makes his recommendation to the commission, says we've gone over the books. We don't think there were any violations. The Commission votes, if memory serves, 5-0, that yes, the Salmon campaign reported appropriately. By Thursday afternoon, something has happened, Colleen Connor calls a press conference and says there is a half million dollars or so of improperly reported expenditures here. By the next morning, that number, again, if memory serves is down to $150,000, $200,000, still a considerable amount of money. You've got a complete spin by the Commission in a very compressed period of time. Is that why you're saying that they are looking for a sacrificial lamb?

>> Tim Casey: Yeah, I think it's human nature. When obviously there is one mistake, they say there is a violation of a half million dollars, that's not the case. They do the mea culpa the next day, $130,000, $140,000. What you have in this is a real difficult issue. It's for Democrats, Independents and Republicans alike. How do you treat credit card expenditures as to when you actually incur the debt or when you pay the debt? Under credit card usage, it's a good campaign tool, and that is, it guarantees that you get good services and you only pay for good services because you have the ability to stop payment. And it has been traditionally in this state when people use credit cards, they do not charge it to their campaign for reporting purposes until it has actually been paid. That is the cash basis. So, with that said, you know, I feel for Mr. Shaffer.

>> Michael: Chuck, is it clear or is it fuzzy -- I really hesitate to do this -- that you should use cash or accrual accounting?

>> Chuck Blanchard: I think the better reading is that accrual accounting is the way to go, but in the old system no one cared. Whether you had a expenditure in June or July really made no difference as long as it was ultimately reported. So I think most campaigns got in the habit of just doing the easy 6 way of accounting which is cash accounting. Under clean elections, however, there is a consequence to time, because if you're running as a traditional candidate, and you make a commitment to buy something in June, but don't pay for it until July, your opponent, who is running as a publicly financed candidate, won't get the money at the right time when they really should have gotten it. And that can affect the outcome of an election.

>> Michael: I don't necessarily disagree with that. On the other hand, though, the candidate has minions out running around with their Visa cards or if they are really good, American Express, and the candidate or the campaign officially doesn't know about it until, you know, X later date. Somebody suggested that perhaps the right answer is neither cash nor accrual, it's when you can reasonably demonstrate that the campaign knew about the expense.

>> Chuck Blanchard: Imagine a different kind of circumstance where I go to a media buyer and I say I want to buy a million dollars worth of time, and I'll pay you six months from now. That would be completely outside of the spirit of clean elections because that would deny the opponent in the primary a million dollars worth of matching funds. So, I think the candidates that are using the cash system were not nefarious people doing bad things. I think they were just doing the campaigns the way campaigns have been traditionally done, but I 7 do think that on a going-forward basis, I think even with credit cards, we should be moving towards an accrual system so when you make a commitment to buy something, that's when it's reported as an expenditure.

>> Michael: What do you think?

>> Tim Casey: Here's the problem. I agree with what Chuck is saying, everything he says is accurate for the primary, but in a general elections, we all know, now you can use credit cards. If Michael Grant gives candidate (A) a credit card donation for a hundred dollars, how do we consider that -- when do we consider that a donation actually comes into candidate (A)'s campaign coffers? Is it when you made the promise or when the money clears the credit agencies and banks? Under the accrual system that won't work. Under the cash system it's too late for matching purposes which are based on money raised in the general election. I think the solution is for republicans, Democrats, Independents, all of those folks, is for the Clean Elections Commission to come out and tell everyone how should it be done. Here is the rule, right or wrong, and this is what it's going to be, and if you don't use it, violation.

>> Chuck Blanchard: And I agree. That's one advantage of having a commission versus the old system. You now have someone who can tell you the rules before the fact as opposed to the old system where you did something, 8 and then you were fearful of a prosecution.

>> Michael: But on that point, and we'll talk about several other issues in just a minute, but let me get to sort of I think global view that was left through a series of these things over mostly the month of August. The impression was left that the Commission was kind of making up the rules as it went along. Was it?

>> Chuck Blanchard: I think that there were some issues that were raised and certainly in the case of one of my clients, I thought that the rules were changed in the middle -- or midstream. I know the Commission would disagree. I think -- if you look at -- most of the allegations were resolved very simply and quickly. A lot of the allegations were very clear. They were not based on any misinterpretation. There were only a handful of campaign finance complaints that really did go in this gray area where I think the Commission could be criticized for changing the rules in midstream.

>> Michael: What's your view on it? Did they have rules and not follow them? Did they not have adequate rules? Were they kind of making them up?

>> Tim Casey: All of the above, Michael. The sad comment is, they have rules that they haven't followed. They received in January of this year, the Arizona auditor's report that says you need to do 9 a number of these things, including have policies and procedures how your employees are to learn how to properly read finance reports. None of those things, to my knowledge have ever been implemented, and they are making up the rules as they go. There is some anecdotal evidence. Out of Commission Staff initiated investigations, 100% of those have been Republican candidates. 87 of the Commission Staff investigations have been Republican candidates who have chosen to run on a traditional format, that is, they have raised private funds and not used tax dollars. And an argument could be made quite easily that there is selective enforcement and selective targeting of Republican candidates who choose not to run with public money.

>> Chuck Blanchard: I think there are other factors. If you look at the hotly contested primaries, by and large they were Republican primaries. For A.G., Governor, treasurer, Superintendent of Public Instruction and a lot of legislative races. So when the vast majority of the contested races are in the Republican side, you are going to result in more controversy and more complaint. Second of all, when you run as a clean candidate, you know, the rules are a lot more simple than they are when you make the decision to raise money. You have -- there is more reporting obligations. So I think it's also inevitable that there'll be more scrutiny on the person who has got the more complex job. Again, I represent a Democrat in a hotly contested primary, and there was a staff investigation there as well.

>> Michael: Let me take the possible partisan bias out of the issue, though, and I think the second question, is there a bias by the Clean Elections Commission just generally about people who don't play by that set of rules, if you're not a publicly financed campaign, maybe we'll send you a message?

>> Chuck Blanchard: I don't think so. Again, if you're a clean candidate, the rules are pretty simple. You get a check and you can't spend any more than that money in the check. You have reporting requirements that are easy to follow. If you decide to run the traditional system, you've got to report contributions. You've got to report expenditures, and your expenditures have consequences because after a certain level, your expenditures in the primary will result in the match, so I think it really resolves around the fact that it's a lot more difficult from a regulatory point of view to run as a traditional candidate, and that's largely the choice you make, but if you choose to do that, you're going to have a lot more complicated accounting because the consequences are more serious.

>> Michael: Tim, let me shift to another issue that came up, and it came up in the context of the John Greene violations and that was the so-called death sentence, that if there were violations, that the death sentence was being removed from the ballot. The clean elections --

>> Tim Casey: Or removed if you won by the voters will being removed from that office.

>> Michael: That's right. The Clean Elections Commission avoided that result. I think because of constitutional concerns about whether or not the death sentence is valid. Are there constitutional concerns about that?

>> Tim Casey: There are. It's probably not valid. You probably cannot throw out the voters' choice or a nominee. But you also have in that case that goes back to one of the issues you asked, are they following their rules? The executive director in the John Greene case made a pronouncement that she was going to recommend to the Commission that the death sentence be invoked, when there's a specific regulation that the Commission propounded that said thou shall not make public announcements until the Commission has decided. That's another example of do you have the Constitutional ability to do that, probably not, and two, they are not following their own rules.

>> Michael: In other words, she went public prematurely under the Commission's own rules.

>> Tim Casey: Yeah, she violated; that's right. >> Chuck Blanchard: To be fair to Colleen, the statute is written in a very unforgiving manner. It doesn't say the Commission may impose a sanction. It says the Commission shall impose the sanction. And the negotiation that went on between John Greene's campaign, you know, that resulted in this not being imposed was done by staff. So the staff and the Commission wisely pulled back from a potential constitutional problem that is there. I don't know which way the courts will resolve it. I tend to think it is a serious constitutional problem, but I think the Commission wisely did not, you know, cause a crisis in the middle of the primary campaign.

>> Michael: What about the other problem, though, the -- and this happened two or three times, going public with a conclusion before the Commission has decided. I mean, you know, that can be a serious taint and impact on a campaign.

>> Chuck Blanchard: It can, but the problem is, the way the system works, there is -- the Commission meets. The staff then makes a recommendation to the Commission. It's a public setting. So I think inevitably there is going to be a problem. One possible change might be to have an initial executive session where the staff recommendation is made in executive session. The difficulty is, we're trying to balance the public's right to know about how a public body is acting versus a very real concern about unfairly charging candidates who are ultimately vindicated.

>> Tim Casey: The problem is, and I don't disagree with what Chuck is saying, but once a staffer comes out and makes the pronouncement that someone is guilty and we're going to try to kick him or her off the ballot, the damage is almost already irreparable. It's already done. And I think that what Chuck is proposing is a good idea. But in politics so often, whether it's right or wrong, perception is reality. And as soon as a commissioner says "investigation, we're going to kick him off," poor Mr. Greene didn't have a chance. While there were negotiations that were probably reasonable and fair, the leverage he had was nonexistent because he was under a cloud of suspicion.

>> Michael: Another issue, a candidate doesn't show up for the clean elections debate. >> Tim Casey: He's out of there.

>> Michael: Well, that seemed to be a rather mandatory sort of standard, but not followed.

>> Tim Casey: It is. Personally, I think if you accept public tax dollars to run your campaign, you ought to attend the public debate. It doesn't seem like an unreasonable request. Was it followed? On some occasions it was, on some occasions it was not.

>> Michael: Another problem I think perceived was there was no uniformity in sentence here. I mean, there was some violations that seem to just bring down a ton of bricks.

>> Chuck Blanchard: Well, again, in the end, if you look at how the Commission acted and the death sentence wasn't imposed and by and large a lot of these were negotiated settlements. So I mean --

>> Michael: But kind of in a range.

>> Chuck Blanchard: In a range, but then you have a range of different feelings about what may have caused the violation and what may not have. This was not a perfect, you know, year for the Commission. On other hand, my view, it's far better to have the Commission and far better to have the Commission you can ask up front and this is the first election where we had statewide candidates running.

>> Michael: Chuck Blanchard, good discussion. Tim Casey, good to see you. >> Tim Casey: Thank you very much.

>> Michael: Next spring, two rovers will explore the Mars surface. It is called the Mars Exploration Rover or "MER" mission. Vehicles are acting as remotely operated geologists. Many scientists are working on that project, including a U of A researcher who is more familiar than most with the red planet.

>> Peter Smith: Every two years, the earth and Mars line up. So that you can launch a spacecraft across the gap that separates us, the 50 million miles that separates our orbits.

>> Reporter: Next may, a rover will be launched from Cape Canaveral Florida to Mars. In June, another rover will follow. The mission, NASA's Mars exploration rover or "MER" mission.

>> Peter Smith: They added 20 new scientists this summer and for all different kinds of science capabilities.

>> Reporter: A few years ago, U of A scientist Peter Smith designed a camera for the Pathfinder Mission. Now he is working on this project.

>> Peter Smith: People thought for a long time that to make important discoveries on Mars, you have to be able to move on the surface, mobility.

>> Reporter: The first rover should reach Mars in January of 2004. In taking a page from the Pathfinder Mission, the landing will be similar.

>> Peter Smith: Well, you come into the atmosphere of Mars, at something like 20,000 miles an hour. You're really moving. You don't go into orbit first or anything like that. You go straight into the planet. You have to be able to slow down rapidly. The first line of breaking is the aeroshell. So as you hit the upper atmosphere, the heat caused by that interaction is taken away by the aeroshell. When you slow down a bit, you drop that and deploy a parachute, and then you drop down to the surface by parachute. That doesn't slow you down enough, you're still going 100 miles an hour which is a little too fast even for airbags. So then they have retro rockets that they fire to slow down the decent.

>> Reporter: And just like Pathfinder, airbags will inflate to soften the landing.

>> Peter Smith: And it was wonderfully successful. You didn't have to worry about large rocks or slopes or anything else, because you could bounce and you were protected. Unlike a powered landing where if you hit a rock as you hit the surface, you could break a leg off or smash the bottom of the instrument package and you would be finished.

>> Reporter: But compared to the Sojourner Rover we saw with Pathfinder, Smith says these vehicles are much more sophisticated.

>> Peter Smith: Much larger. It's at least twice as big in all of its dimensions. It's about the size of a baby carriage and, you know, it's going to give it a lot more mobility than the Sojourner Rover which made a little circle around the lander and went 100 yards. We expect to go as far as half a mile on this one, and that means we'll be able to go over the next hill. We'll be able to go and look into a crater. We'll do a lot of things that could be exciting to see in the future, go up to it and explore it.

>> Reporter: And they'll get around using solar energy.

>> Peter Smith: It really could go forever. We plan for it to go for three months, but there's nothing that's going to stop it.

>> Reporter: Using images taken each day from the rovers, scientists will command them where to go. They'll be equipped with several scientific instruments to analyze soil and rocks.

>> Peter Smith: They are built to be geologists on the surface of Mars, remotely operated geologists. They can identify rocks that look interesting, then go up to the rocks. They have a robotic arm with different instruments on the end. They can put a microscope up against the rock or they can scrape a surface layer off, for instance, if there is dust or some sort of coating. And then they have a couple of instruments that tell you the composition of the rock. Rocks are like history books. And they contain all of the information of what it used to be like.

>> Reporter: They'll also be looking for signs of liquid water.

>> Peter Smith: The goals of NASA as an organization in regards to Mars are to follow the water. That's the motto, and by following the water, you can find life, among other things. You can find life. You can understand the climate. And you can understand the geology, which is shaped by water.

>> Michael: Smith's role on MER will be far different than his one with Pathfinder. This time, he'll be examining all of the dust on Mars, as well as something we commonly see in the southwest, dust devils.

>> Peter Smith: Earth dust devils might be, you know, 10 or 20 yards across. On Mars, they might be 200 yards across, about as big as a football stadium. So, they are large. They go very high in the atmosphere and they pump lots of dust up, and it should be kind of exciting to watch. We plan to take movies of dust devils moving around in the terrain around the rover.

>> Reporter: The two rovers will be identical, except for where they land.

>> Peter Smith: Nobody wants them to land right next to each other, everybody wants to explore two very distant and dissimilar places on Mars so we get the maximum information. The places that are being looked at are ancient lake beds. Other places are inside of large craters, and some of the strange lava flow features that are seen in ancient water flow features. There is really a lot of possibilities.

>> Reporter: And Smith says those possibilities will be discussed by NASA this January to decide the rovers' destinations.

>> Michael: To see what's on "Horizon" or if you're looking for election information, the "Horizon" Web site, a great place to start, go to www.kaet.asu.edu., click on "Horizon." On our election page we have summaries of ballot propositions you will be deciding in November. Tomorrow, Governor Hull will join us to talk about the projected $500 million budget shortfall.

>> Michael: Plus do state lawmakers deserve a raise? Proposition 304 would give them one. We'll talk about that. Friday, of course, the journalists' roundtable edition of "Horizon." Thanks for being here on a Wednesday evening. I'm Michael Grant. Good night.