Naturally enough for a candidate who'd been a registered Republican just days before filing to run, Margarite Dale seemed more interested in helping her GOP rivals than winning one for Ralph Nader. Dale got initial contributions from the families of her supposed Republican opponents, Jim Weiers and Doug Quelland. Records show that she then hired a Republican strategist, Shane Wikfors. (Yes, he's the same guy who runs one of the Valley's most popular conservative blogs, www.sonoranalliance.com.)
Was Margarite Dale's candidacy a Republican dirty trick, designed to strip away votes from incumbent Democrat Jackie Thrasher? Duh!
Performance Photographx
Michael "Boo" Booher with a young partygoer. For some reason, no one at City Hall found this photo disturbing.
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But the Dale matter is a mere sideshow to the real scandal in District 10.
Dale, Thrasher, and Republican candidate Doug Quelland all opted to run under Arizona's Clean Elections system. That means they got tens of thousands of dollars in public funds for their campaigns in exchange for agreeing to certain rules. They couldn't raise money on their own after an initial startup period. And they couldn't exceed spending limits by spending extra money on the side.
It's increasingly clear that Doug Quelland did just that.
Todd Lang, executive director of the Clean Elections Commission, wrote an excellent 16-page report on just this subject. Lang found probable cause that Quelland had violated several state laws, recommending fines as high as $46,000. If the commission agrees that Quelland violated the laws in question, it could also vote to remove him from office.
According to Lang's report, in March 2007, Quelland hired Larry Davis and his company, Intermedia Public Relations, as campaign consultants. Quelland agreed to pay the company $15,000 in monthly installments.
That $15,000 never showed up on Quelland's campaign finance report.
Davis blew the whistle after Quelland's victory, saying that Quelland exceeded spending limits by paying him under the table. But Quelland's lawyer denied that Davis had been hired for political work. He also told the commission that Davis ought to have to produce checks.
"Mr. Quelland has to be free from having to prove a negative," attorney Lee Miller argued.
Davis didn't have documentation. But when the Clean Elections Commission subpoenaed Quelland's bank records, go figure, they found evidence of the payments that Davis had described. Davis was paid $7,000 through January 2008. (After that, Quelland allowed him free rent in a strip mall he owned, in exchange for another six months of services.)
None of that — either the $7,000 in checks or the $6,000 rent giveaway — showed up in Quelland's campaign finance reports.
The commission heard Todd Lang's recommendations last Thursday. In almost every instance of disciplinary action I've examined, the commission has followed Lang's recommendations on the spot.
But this time, they failed to act.
They said they couldn't tell who's telling the truth. They'll have to revisit the matter at a future meeting.
I couldn't attend the meeting. (I was over at City Hall, watching the city of Phoenix drop the ball on the Marr warehouse. So many scandals, so little time.) But sources in attendance tell me that Quelland basically filibustered the commission, rambling on for at least an hour without effectively refuting any of Lang's findings.
Who needs evidence when you have blather?
My sources urged me to be kind to the Clean Elections Commission. They say that Quelland took up so much time that everyone's heads were spinning. I can only hope that they're right — that fatigue, not confusion, kept the commission from following through.
Because, trust me, ...you don't need a lie detector to figure this one out. You just need common sense.
It's a cliché, but an absolutely accurate one: The truthful story is always the simple one. Doug Quelland hired Larry Davis to be his campaign consultant, then paid him for the work under the table. Davis blew the whistle. End of the story.
Contrast that with Doug Quelland's version of the story, according to his deposition. Two days after Quelland hired Larry Davis to run his campaign, Quelland claims, he fired him. Supposedly, Davis wanted to trash Quelland's opponent, Jackie Thrasher, and Quelland just didn't like that.
Now, the contract between Quelland and Davis had called for Davis to get certain payments if he was terminated. Quelland never made those payments.
So how to explain the lack of a termination payment — and the ongoing monthly checks?
This one is a doozy. According to Quelland, just after he fired Davis as a campaign worker, he hired him to promote his Phoenix coffee shop, Q's Coffee Bar. And he just happened to pay him exactly the same price they'd previously agreed upon for the political work. What a coincidence!
Naturally, hearing a story that implausible, Clean Elections staffers investigated a little bit more. According to Lang's report, staff learned that, after he was supposedly "fired" by Quelland's campaign, Larry Davis ordered campaign T-shirts that said "VOTE QUELLAND" and paid for them with campaign money.
Also, after its supposed termination, Davis' company created Quelland's campaign Web site.
And went to campaign meetings with state GOP officials.
And organized fundraising "community breakfasts."
Of course Quelland had an explanation, right? Hold your breath . . .
The guy that Quelland fired had chosen to return to the campaign as a volunteer.
