Prop. 211 pass could decrease “dark money”

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After many years, former AZ Attorney General Terry Goddard finally got his win over so-called “dark money.”

Proposition 211 passed which would curtail anonymous spending on campaign attack ads. It requires anyone who gives more than $5,000 to a group sponsoring the ad to disclose they gave the money.

What changed in getting it passed?

“Well persistence pays I guess is the bottom line here. We had four different efforts, this was the fourth, got to talk to literally hundreds of thousands of Arizonans getting their signatures in order to get on the ballot. When it finally made it to the ballot it was overwhelming, almost three-quarters of the voters said, ‘Yes, we want to know who it is that’s trying to persuade us,” said Goddard.

“We learned a lot, we had a couple of bad breaks, and this one all the pieces came together here in 2022,” said Goddard.

Why was there hardly any opposition?

“It’s a hard argument to make, especially out on the street where you are getting signatures. We saw people coming to us saying, ‘Yes, I want to see this,’ so we did have opposition in the election. They bought advertisements against us, or there was a major party that came out and said that people should vote no,” said Goddard.

“It’s a very good bipartisan effort that Arizonans want this,” said Goddard.

What is the law of the land?

“The law of the land that is if you’re part of an organization, the burden falls upon the organizations that buy political ads, put these messages on the screen. Before this law came into effect in Arizona, you could hide the original donor,” said Goddard.

This statute says that whoever buys the ad must inform the Secretary of State, who the original source of the money was.

Terry Goddard, former AZ Attorney General

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