CAMPAIGN FINANCE UPDATES: Schweikert, O'Halleran Show Dramatic Increases In Campaign Warchests

9:00pm: Schweikert, O'Halleran Show Dramatic Increases In Campaign Warchests

Our 5:10pm report below set out how much each of our Arizona delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives raised in the 4th quarter. That metric is good to show how hard they are fundraising and how successful all of those oft-annoying pitches have been. But, different candidates can spend far different amounts raising that money and running their early campaigns. So, perhaps more important at this point is how much each person has in the bank and how that warchest has grown or shrunk. With that in mind, here are the cash on hand numbers for our 9 Representatives.

O'Halleran, CD1: $574k to $919k
Kirkpatrick, CD2: $500k to $621k
Grijalva, CD3: $180k to $211k
Gosar, CD4: $202k to $223k
Biggs, CD5: $471k to $482k
Schweikert, CD6: ($43k)* to $82K*   (*COH less Debts Outstanding; explained in 2:35pm post)
Gallego, CD7: $680k to $755k
Lesko, CD8: $317k to $379k
Stanton, CD9: $460k to $616k

All incumbents saw an increase in their bank accounts. Obviously, Rep. Schweikert's is the most dramatic, but for the remaining eight not carrying substantial debts, Rep. O'Halleran's 60% increase is the most dramatic.

5:10pm: Challenger Tipirneni Outraises ALL 9 AZ Incumbents, Poses Threat In #AZ06
Hiral Tipirneni raised more money in the 4th quarter than any of Arizona's nine incumbent Representatives, and has 11x more money to spend than Rep. David Schweikert (R-CD6).

For the first time in Arizona's Politics' memory, all of Arizona's elected officials running for re-election filed their quarterly campaign finance reports more than 5 1/2 hours before the deadline. Rep. Tom O'Halleran (D-CD1) led all House members with $450,000 raised; he is in a perenially competitive district covering much of eastern Arizona.

Bunched tightly for the 2nd-through-5th highest incumbent campaign receipts were Greg Stanton (D-CD9, $286k), Ann Kirkpatrick (D-CD2, $265k), David Schweikert (R-CD6, $256k), and Ruben Gallego (D-CD7, $253k).

Trailing the pack were two Reps in "safe" districts, which reduces the urgency to raise big bucks. Paul Gosar (R-CD4, $73k) and Raul Grijalva (D-CD3, $96k). In between those groups are Debbie Lesko (R-CD8, $142k) and Andy Biggs (R-CD5, $110k).

Incumbents typically have a tremendous advantage in raising funds. Which makes Tipirneni's haul of $459k in the 4th quarter all the more remarkable. She increased her bank balance from $600k to more than $900k in that three-month period.

As noted in the updates below, Rep. Schweikert led his campaign out of red ink in the last quarter of the year, but he only had $82,000 in his war chest on January 1. Legal fees have eaten almost $900,000 in his campaign funds.

It should be noted that Tipirneni does face Anita Malik in the Democratic primary. Both of them have run for Congress during the past few years, and have built up name ID. Malik has $46k in the bank.

3:05pm: Back In Black: Schweikert Campaign Bounces Back In Q4; More Legal Fees In Ethics Investigation
Arizona Congressman David Schweikert promised that his campaign would bounce back in 4th quarter fundraising, and he followed through. His campaign is back in the black after raising $256,000.

On the downside, his campaign continues to rack up legal fees in his ongoing ethics investigation. The committee reported more than $46,000 in new fees - incurred in representing not just him and his campaign, but also six staff members. This brings the total legal fees in less than two years to just under $900,000. ($898,520, to be exact.*)

The veteran Congressman's campaign bobbed underwater twice in 2019 - after the 1st and 3rd quarters - largely because of ongoing legal bills related to the ongoing ethics investigation. The debts owed by the campaign increased from $186,000 to $197,000 during the last three months of the year, but the checking account balance on December 31 shows $278,457. (In summary, he went from approximately $43,000 underwater on October 1 to $82,000 above water on December 31.

His $256,000 in receipts for the 4th quarter was the 2nd most in Arizona's Congressional delegation. (Tom O'Halleran raised $450,000.)
*In October, we reported that the campaign had incurred $869,000 in legal fees. We subsequently re-audited and determined that it was $852,000; the new total reflects that change.

2:35pm: Back In Black: Schweikert Campaign Bounces Back In Q4
Arizona Congressman David Schweikert promised that his campaign would bounce back in 4th quarter fundraising, and he followed through. His campaign is back in the black after raising $256,000.

The veteran Congressman's campaign bobbed underwater twice in 2019 - after the 1st and 3rd quarters - largely because of ongoing legal bills related to the ongoing ethics investigation. The debts owed by the campaign increased from $186,000 to $197,000 during the last three months of the year, but the checking account balance on December 31 shows $278,457. (In summary, he went from approximately $43,000 underwater on October 1 to $82,000 above water on December 31.

His $256,000 in receipts for the 4th quarter was the 2nd most in Arizona's Congressional delegation. (Tom O'Halleran raised $450,000.)

Here is a link to his filing; we will post it here shortly.

1:40pm: McSally Adds $2.0M To Campaign Warchest, $7.7M On January 1
The campaign committee for Senator Martha McSally added $2.0M to her warchest in the 4th

quarter, and brings $7.7M in cash into the election year. While spending $2.1M, she raised just over $4.0M for the 3-month period.  The comparable numbers for Democratic challenger Mark Kelly are below.

Because the report is nearly 5,000 pages long, we are only posting the summary pages. Here's the link for the rest. (Let us know if you spot anything noteworthy!)

1:10pm: Mark Kelly Campaign Takes a $13.6M Bank Balance Into 2020
The Mark Kelly campaign ushered in 2020 with $13.6M in its bank account(s) after a haul of $6.3M

in the final quarter of 2019. The former Space Shuttle Commander's campaign continues to be the best-funded Senate campaign in the nation, and is nearly twice that of incumbent Martha McSally's $7.6M cash on hand. (Kelly had $9.5M on hand going into the 4th quarter.)

Because the report is more than 14,000 pages long, we are only posting the summary pages. Here's the link for the rest. (Let us know if you spot anything noteworthy!)

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12:50pm: Pro-McSally SuperPAC Gets $258K Rebate From 2018 Campaign, Ready for 2020
The DefendArizona SuperPAC that spent $22.6M supporting Martha McSally in her 2018 Senatorial campaign received a nice boost last month, when it received more than $258,000 back from the media placement firm. 

DefendArizona received most of its 2018 money from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's Senate Leadership Fund. James Davis, the Chairman of New Balance, also made a $50,000 contribution to DefendArizona in August - in addition to maxing out to the McSally campaign itself.

DefendArizona kept its Arizona fundraising and media consultants (Lovas and Marson, respectively) on retainer during the off year. It goes into the 2020 contest against Mark Kelly with $337,499 cash on hand.


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BREAKING/WATCH: Sen. McSally (& Co.) Question: Did House Do Anything During the (Holiday) Month That Articles Were In Limbo

Here is the 2nd question of the day in which Arizona Senator Martha McSally (R-AZ) participated in during the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.

Led by Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, and joined by Republicans John Boozeman (AR), Marsha Blackburn (TN), Pat Toomey (PA) and John Kennedy (LA), the group asked the President's counsel whether the House Managers had done anything to try to litigate executive privilege issues or to obtain testimony during the interim period between the House's impeachment vote in December and transmitting the Articles to the Senate in January.

Of course, that softball question was welcomed by President Trump's attorney Patrick Philbin.

We separately posted the first question that McSally was a participant in.

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BREAKING, WATCH: Sen. McSally (& Co.) Question For President's Attorneys - Do House and Senate Have Same Impeachment Standard

Arizona Senator Martha McSally - along with four other Republican Senators - asked one of the first questions in the ongoing impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.

The question was handed up to Chief Justice Roberts by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (TN), on behalf of her, McSally, Mike Lee (UT), Kevin Cramer (ND) and new Senator Kelly Loeffler (GA).

Roberts read the question: "Is the standard for impeachment in the House a lower threshold to meet than the standard for conviction in the Senate? And, have the House Managers met their evidentiary burden to support a vote of removal?"

Patrick Philbin answered on behalf of the President, beginning by pointing out that the House simply makes the accusation and that the Senate should have to find the proof to be "beyond a reasonable doubt."

Here's the video:

Here is the 2nd question in which Sen. McSally participated in.


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9th Circuit Throws Out Arizona's "Ballot Harvesting" Ban; Says Law's Intent Was To Discriminate Against Minorities

The 9th Circuit today found that Arizona's so-called ballot harvesting ban, and its policy of "wholly discarding" ballots cast outside the voter's precinct, discriminates against American Indian, Hispanic and African-American voters.

By a 7-4 vote, the en banc panel threw out both, which could significantly impact this year's elections.

For the rest of this article, and to read the 9th Circuit's Opinion, please head over to our sister site (and, program), "AZ Law".

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WATCH: McSally Moves To Cash In On "Hack", But Doesn't Allow Fox Host To Commit Her To No Witnesses

Senator Martha McSally (R-AZ) moved aggressively to cash in on her news cycle in the spotlight today, even missing a flight home for a primetime Fox News slot. However, she refused to allow Fox host Laura Ingraham to corner her into saying that she would not vote for any witnesses in the impeachment trial.

McSally found the spotlight this morning when she refused to answer a CNN reporter's (legitimate) question about evidence in next week's impeachment trial. Instead of pretending she did not hear the question, she said she would not answer because Manu Raju is a "liberal hack".

After Raju broadcast the video, McSally posted her own version of the video, sent out a fundraising email with the video, designed a t-shirt with the comment and registered the internet domain with it. (Opponents quickly responded.)

The capper was a primetime interview slot on Fox News's "Ingraham Angle". At the end of the interview, the host divulged that McSally actually missed her flight out of Washington to appear in studio.

After not apologizing for the brush-off, accusing most CNN reporters of being "so biased", agreeing with the host that they make up sources, and (unironically) saying that CNN "should be filing FEC reports with the DNC", McSally declined to let Ingraham nail her down on Raju's question ("You can call me a conservative hack", said Ingraham.)

"I'm not going to tell everybody what my votes are going to be," McSally said with a laugh. She did say that she thinks that there has to be a sort of witness parity - if the prosecutors can call one, so could the defense.

Ingraham tried several times to paint McSally into a corner. The Senator did not lash out, but she left Ingraham feeling Raju-like, as well.
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BAD CHARITY TELEMARKETING ALERT: "Childhood Leukemia Foundation" Robo-Calling In Phoenix - Rude and FAILS Charity Navigator Financial Scoring

Received a telemarketing call from "Childhood Leukemia Foundation" this morning. Was not sure if it was robocall or not, so I started asking some questions. The telemarketer/computer hung up on me after I asked where the Foundation is based.* Not good.

I looked them up on Guidestar and reviewed their most recent publicly-available IRS filing. Not impressive and did not make much sense. Besides showing that most of the money goes to the telemarketing fundraisers, the program expenses lines did not add up. Their "wish baskets" include "pajama bottoms" only? Weird. But, $75 gift cards? Not only odd, but the numbers don't calculate - maybe they get discounted gift cards or unusable cards at strange sites.

Then, I looked at Charity Navigator. "ZERO stars" because of the poor financials that I had just

reviewed.

So, because of the poor behavior by the telemarketing company and that it then sucks up most of the money, PLEASE find a better place to donate your money than "Childhood Leukemia Foundation"! Do NOT give the telemarketers money!


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BREAKING: Audit Raps NAU President's Knuckles For Inappropriate Travel Reimbursements As Instruction Cut 3.5%

NAU President Rita Cheng received more than $40,000 in "inappropriate" travel expense reimbursements from the university in the last fiscal year, according to the state's Auditor General. Much of it involved  extra costs for visas, valet parking and room service for a conference in Russia, and travel with her husband.*

In a report released today, the Auditor General notes that most of the inappropriately reimbursed monies were returned to the university by the NAU Foundation after the AG's routine investigation uncovered the issues. President Cheng did reimburse NAU "for a $179 duplicate hotel reimbursement."

The University responded yesterday with what it called additional "context" to the findings. President Cheng encountered airline-caused delays during the important Russia trip, which forced her to purchase replacement "two additional one-way business class tickets" "to ensure that this important trip was completed." The initial tickets were a combination of business class and first class. The Chengs received university reimbursements for the airfare totaling $30,641. An additional $2,023 was reimbursed for visas, early airline check-in fees, valet parking and room service (above the per diem food allowance).

A trip to Israel was another problem area. The group sponsoring the conference offered to purchase coach airline tickets for both President Cheng and her husband. Instead, the university spent $5,862 for her husband's business-class ticket. (The sponsor purchased President Cheng's business-class ticket.) The university's context simply explains that spouses/partners for the other university leaders were part of the delegation.

The university does not contest that the Foundation's reimbursements came after it was discovered and does not explain why the President submitted these expenses in the first place. President Cheng received a 22% salary increase in 2018 and her total compensation package of nearly $700,000/year ranked 59th in the nation.

At the same time, NAU has been undergoing a major belt-tightening that has affected both students and faculty. There was a 3.5% cut in spending on instruction during the last fiscal year and a 3.1% decrease in academic and institutional support as the university scrambled to cover an $11M shortfall.

Those cuts were made despite revenue increases from tuition and fees, state support and government grants and contracts. NAU's financial net worth increased from $243M to $259.6M.

Arizona's Politics has requested comment from President Cheng and will update this article as warranted.

*President Cheng's husband is also a university employee and the Arizona Board of Regents Chair authorized him to travel with her only if non-university funds were used for those expenses. (Per Auditor General's report.)

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