Roberts: Drive to stop dark money expansion dies

I imagine Gov. Doug Ducey, Secretary of State Michele Reagan and the forces of darkness that increasingly are buying Arizona’s elections are high fiving it today.

Organizers of the referendum drive to block Senate Bill 1516 from becoming law called it quits on Thursday. Stop Corruption Now couldn’t get the signatures needed to put it on the November ballot.

And so the floodgates are officially open – allowing far more dark money to flow into Arizona’s elections and far less disclosure to flow out, about who is bankrolling the campaigns.

Effort was destined to fail

It’s not a surprise that the referendum fell short. It’s difficult to overturn our elected leaders, as it should be, and this was an all-volunteer effort. In other words, a recipe for failure.

The group needed 75,321 signatures by Aug. 8. As of this week, they had 20,000 – 16,000 of which were likely valid, according to Rep. Ken Clark, D-Phoenix, who led the referendum drive.

Though polls show that voters oppose dark money, the people who run this state like it just fine.

During the 2014 elections, dark money sources spent more than $15 million in Arizona to get certain people elected and to ensure that certain others weren’t – money that was spent in such a way to ensure that you would never know who was behind the campaigns.

Who got the cash

Gov. Doug Ducey alone enjoyed $3.5 million in dark money help -- money that was largely used to attack any candidate who posed a challenge. Meanwhile, Corporation Commissioners Tom Forese and Doug Little coasted onto the panel that sets your utility rates with $3.2 million in dark money support widely believed to have come from Arizona Public Service.

Which is now asking for a rate increase.

Look for dark money spending to explode now SB 1516 is law.

So congrats to Michele Reagan, whose office wrote and lobbied for the bill. And to the Republican-controlled Legislature, which approved it, and, of course, to Ducey, who signed it.

On Friday, I’ll be posting a list of the legislators who voted for SB 1516..

Something for voters to think about, as they consider who to back in next month’s primary election.