One of the first election challenges of the season might be one of the messiest in recent memory, as it has nothing to do with signatures.
Democratic Rep. Alma Hernandez is facing two separate lawsuits trying to knock her off the ballot as she runs for the state Senate in Legislative District 20, which covers downtown, the University of Arizona and South Tucson.
Her Democratic rival for the seat, former Tucson City Councilman Rocque Perez, argues that Hernandez is not eligible to run because she has an estimated $20,355 in unpaid campaign finance fines from an old campaign committee.
State law bars candidates who have more than $1,000 in unpaid campaign fines from running for office.
Alma Hernandez, Rocque Perez
At the heart of the challenge are three campaign committees used by Hernandez over the years. And it doesn’t help that two of her campaign committees share the same name, but stick with us.
Her first committee, “Alma for Arizona” operated from her first election in 2018 through her 2022 reelection bid.
Then, she replaced the “Alma for Arizona” committee with an all caps “ALMA HERNANDEZ for State Representative” committee in September 2023. Hernandez closed that account this January.
Last August, she filed to run for the LD20 Senate seat, using a new committee that was also named “Alma for Arizona.” Perhaps she was feeling a little nostalgic.
But the problem is really with the oldest account, the original “Alma for Arizona.”
She was hundreds of days late on several campaign finance disclosures, and she racked up massive fines that are still unpaid.
She also never closed that account, which means she continued accruing new fines for not filing reports, even though she started using a different committee in future election cycles.
The late campaign finance reports in question, and the fines.
Is this a technicality?
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this type of challenge this year. Republican Rep. Walt Blackman was recently challenged for $168,925 in unpaid fines. But the case was tossed out because the plaintiff screwed up the paperwork.
Blackman’s case hinged on unpaid fines from a committee that he was no longer using when the fines started accruing. Basically, it seems like he forgot to close the account. It happens more often than you’d expect.1
But that doesn’t appear to be the case with Hernandez.
Her fines stem back to late reports on a campaign that she was still using at the time.
Hernandez also didn’t file several reports for the first “Alma for Arizona” committee after she started her second committee. But that’s kind of a technicality, since she was filing the required reports on her new committee at the time. And those late reports don’t show up in the campaign finance system as accruing fines.
Here’s the reports that don’t have fines and were filed under another committee.
Further complicating the issue, state law says that the Secretary of State’s Office “shall not accept the nomination paper of a candidate for state or local office if the person is liable for an aggregation of $1,000 or more in fines.”
In his filing, Perez blamed Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, writing that “‘shall not accept’ is mandatory, not discretionary,” under the law.
But Fontes says his office does not actually have the authority to enforce penalties for those fines.
In campaign finance guidance, the Secretary of State’s Office says that those fines must be reflected in an order issued by an enforcement or judicial officer.
Perez argues that’s not what the law says. And anyway, records show that the Secretary of State’s Office included Hernandez in a “Reasonable Cause Notice” for failure to file the campaign finance reports in question back in 2022.
“Despite the public record of substantial unpaid campaign finance liabilities ... and despite the 2022 formal enforcement action described above, the Secretary of State accepted Defendant Hernandez’s nomination papers,” Perez wrote in his lawsuit.
The Secretary of State’s Office pointed us to a bill from Democratic Sen. Analise Ortiz, SB1617, that would have given the office more teeth on state campaign finance violations, including by requiring committees to satisfy or dispute penalties within 30 days after the reporting period.
But the bill is stalled in the Senate.
Fontes’ Director of Communications Calli Jones said the Legislature is well aware of the issue that there is little teeth in the current campaign finance rules for candidates.
But even if Fontes thinks he has to accept nomination paperwork from candidates who have fines, that doesn’t mean the court will agree.
See you in court
In a statement, Perez said Hernandez has had several terms to clean up her records.
“These filings are not technicalities,” he said. “Campaign finance disclosure is one of the only tools the public has to understand who is shaping elected officials’ priorities, who they are accountable to, and whose interests are closest to power.”
Hernandez told us the challenge was without merit.
“The challenges filed against my candidacy are baseless attempts to disqualify me from this race, and I am confident that the court will reject them. As always, I am committed to respecting Arizona’s laws and election procedures and dedicated to serving my constituents,” Hernandez said.
A Pima County Superior Court judge will decide the merits of the case on April 13.
Crowd control: After an ICE agent pepper-sprayed a man at a South Tucson Walgreens on Monday, the agency released a statement calling the move a “crowd-control measure” used “for their own safety” during a removal operation, KGUN’s Jacqueline Aguilar reports. The guy who was pepper-sprayed has a much different story. Steven Davis, a volunteer observer for a network monitoring immigration enforcement, said he was recording a plain-clothed, masked agent when the agent walked by him and sprayed him without warning.
“It’s terrifying. He had no insignia. He had nothing on, not even a vest that said ICE. It was just a dude in a plaid shirt and a face mask. He never identified himself to me, never spoke to me,” Davis said.
What would Jesus say?: Anthony Dunham, a GOP candidate for state Senate in Legislative District 17, is having a really bad week. First, there was the revelation that his second ex-wife punished his kids in bizarre ways. Then, he tried to explain what happened, but he forgot to turn on the mic for his Zoom call. Now, the Republic’s Ray Stern is reporting that Dunham has been a scofflaw motorist. And Dunham is claiming his Twitter account was hacked and he wasn’t the one who said “yea” to an account that asked, “would a p***y pic in your dms make your day?” (We wrote about those spicy posts, as Stern noted, last month.) But that “someone hacked my account” excuse is hard to believe, considering those posts were interspersed among his usual ones about football, politics and Christianity long before Dunham claimed his account was hacked in 2024.
Turning up the heat: Tucson City Council called a Nov. 3 special election for voters to weigh in on a new 25-year franchise agreement with Tucson Electric Power, per KGUN’s JJ McKinney. Some environmentalists support the deal for its climate funding, while others continue to push for a publicly owned utility instead. Meanwhile, as Attorney General Kris Mayes battles with TEP over its proposed 14% rate increase, she came to Tucson on Tuesday for a town hall, Arizona Public Media’s Katya Mendoza reports. And it looks like air conditioning was one of the hot topics. Soleste Lupu, the owner of a dance studio, said, “you just can’t dance without air conditioning, especially in the summer months.” Mike Humphrey, a member of the Pima County Board of Health, also pointed to the risk that mobile home residents who can’t afford their electric bills can get evicted, which sometimes happens because of unfair metering by the owners of mobile home parks.
What’s in a name?: Tucson City Council members are seeking more community input on what to permanently rename Cesar Chavez Day after temporarily designating it as “Dolores Huerta Day” this year to honor the labor leader, who is among several women who have accused Chavez of sexual abuse, KVOA’s Jacob Owens reports. The city has already removed Chavez’s name and likeness from public art and street names, but Mayor Regina Romero said she wants any new holiday name to “not erase the movement, the farmworker struggle and the Chicano movement from the name.”
Missing meeting: The board overseeing the Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and the Blind voted to cap teacher salaries and freeze raises, but has yet to post minutes or a recording of the meeting where that decision was made — a likely violation of state open meeting law, the Luminaria’s Shannon Conner reports. ASDB is relocating its Tucson campus to Oro Valley and laid off 60 staff members amid its ongoing financial issues, but many Tucson-based employees couldn’t attend the special board meeting in Phoenix, and still can’t watch it online.
Yesterday, we asked you all to submit questions for your future lawmakers during this year’s debate series for the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission.
And a bunch of you did!
We got loads of great questions. (And a few that definitely won’t make the cut. Remember, no personal attacks!)
Among our favorites came from reader Sophie, who wants to know:
“What is something that you have done in the past year that you regret? And what would you do differently now that you know better?”
That’s a perfect example of the kinds of questions that aren’t about policy, but tell you a lot about a candidate. (We also love policy questions, so keep them coming.) We all make mistakes — even political candidates — but owning them and learning from them is what shows you’re ready to hold office and lead.
Clean Elections is Arizona’s official, nonpartisan debate sponsor, and those debates help voters understand choices on their ballot and give voters direct access to candidate viewpoints.
And this is your chance to help shape those debates.
So take advantage of that opportunity!
Speaking of surveys, last month, about 2,000 Pima County employees filled out a survey about how satisfied they are at their jobs.
Most of them are pretty happy — more than half put their overall satisfaction at an eight or higher on a 10-point scale.
But the cracks started to show in responses to the open-ended question of “I wish Pima County would…”
Here are a few of our favorite answers:
“Give us a race.” (We assume they meant “raise,” which was a very common response. But how much funnier is it if not?)
“Be conservative.” (Assuming that means politically, it’s a big ask.)
“Get rid of silly surveys.” (Love the screw your mandatory survey energy.)
“Consider ensuring a safe water supply at 32 N. Stone and that floors and air ducts be cleaned more often.” (The meekness with which this very serious request was made tells us a lot.)
“Make it easier for family members to get hired.” (Followed by…)
“Relatives not work in same divisions under a relative as Supervisor. And not allowed to sleep all day. Or go out eat at restaurants Peter piper for 4 hrs day.” (There is an extremely specific situation being described here and we will never know the full story, which almost makes it better.)
“Continue being a great place to work.” (Clearly the response from the teacher’s pet.)
1 Back when she was secretary of state, Katie Hobbs offered very lenient settlements to candidates who racked up massive fees for filing campaign finance reports late, as the Republic reported at the time. (Ironically, that 2022 report from the Republic notes that Hernandez had already accrued $1,890 in fines, and that she didn’t return a text asking about those fines at the time.)