‘See the Money’ website reveals donor details on big-spending campaigns

The public can now see information about the donors behind big-spending campaigns. However, some information was absent from the Arizona Secretary of State’s “See the Money” website.

Until this campaign cycle, these groups could keep their funding sources private. But because voters in 2022 approved Proposition 211, a law that requires disclosure from these so-called “dark money” groups, they now must state names.

The disclosure applies to any donor who gives $5,000 or more to any campaign that has spent at least $50,000 on a legislative or statewide campaign, including ballot measures.

For local elections, those amounts are cut in half. The Secretary of State Adrian Fontes’s office told “The Arizona Republic” that heavy turnover of technology staffers, outdated programs and insufficient funding hamstrung his office’s ability to post the reports. His office said improvements to the site will be added in the coming weeks.

Mary Jo Pitzl, Senior Reporter at “The Arizona Republic” and azcentral.com, joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss the website and its details.

“That is a website where campaign finance information is posted. You can go there and look up the lawmaker or the candidate who’s running for legislature and find out who they’re getting money from. You can do that for political action committees and now, because of voter approval of Proposition 211 two years ago, you can now find out what is coming from some of these independent expenditure committees,” said Pitzl. 

The process can be a little complicated, but the main idea is to learn who is financing the specific campaigns. 

“If an individual donor gives $5,000 or more to an independent expenditure committee that’s already spent $50,000, then you must name the principal donors that are over $5,000. The idea is to let the public know who’s funding these campaigns,” said Pitzl.