Sen. John Huppenthal
The Tribune Editorial Board wrote Wednesday about how Arizona’s “resign to run” law for elected officials is easily dodged, if not downright ignored. Another example of this popped up last night over at the Arizona Guardian. The Web site devoted to political news reports Sen. John Huppenthal, R-Chandler, has not only created an exploratory committee to run for superintendent of public instruction, he’s already collecting the voter signatures that will be required to qualify for the 2010 primary ballot. (Sorry, the Guardian story is subscription-only).
The Guardian quotes Huppenthal as saying collecting signatures doesn’t make him a candidate for superintendent. No, only filing those petition signatures would require him to resign from the Senate, Huppenthal told the Guardian. Heck, according to the secretary of state’s election schedule, Huppenthal isn’t even allowed to file those signatures until next May. That’s about four months after the trigger date for elected politicians to formally reveal they are seeking higher office.
Isn’t it about time we just declared “resign to run” to be a meaningless law?
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Huppenthal is wrong but the rule is dumb nonetheless. If both of these guys are running with clean elections they won’t get any money yet and have more to back up their “case”. It’s laughable to say they aren’t running yet though which was the intent of the original law in the first place.
On the local level, imagine how the dynamic would have been different in Mesa if Rex Griswold didn’t have to resign and stayed on like Claudia Walters. Smith still would have won but it would have changed how Griswold campaigned.