Dirty Laundry: RNC Treasurer Randy Pullen launders nearly $300,000 through AZ GOP to influence 2009 City of Tucson elections – gets most cash from Jim Click
RNC Treasurer and AZ GOP Chairman Randy Pullen has done it again. Pullen’s official Arizona Republican Laundromat is open for business.
Pullen’s newest scheme to break campaign finance laws took place in the last few months of the 2009 City of Tucson elections. And it’s a nasty one.
Sonoran Weekly Review has discovered a new Exhibit A in the long list of formal and informal indictments against so-called “clean elections”.
“Clean elections” provide state or municipal funds (up to a pre-set maximum) to a participating candidate, who (allegedly) couldn’t raise money and get elected on his or her own. In contested races, participating candidates are given “matching funds” when a non-participating candidate spends money – the dreaded “trigger” funds. This type of campaign reform is supposed to equalize the playing field – keeping big money from having an undue influence over an election.
It hasn’t worked out that way in Arizona. Randy Pullen has seen to that.
Tucson’s 2009 campaign finance records show a $300,000 GOP money laundering trail that originates from longtime Tucson auto dealer Jim Click.
The money trail curls around Click’s bottomless bank accounts and makes stops at the Compass Bank – a bank he used to have a controlling interest in. He still sits on the Compass Bank board of directors. Compass Bank was the depository of choice for Jim Click’s favored City Council candidate and many of the official committees supporting Proposition 200.
Major Funding Jim Click Automotive
The money trail then snakes its way through Jim Click’s hand-picked Ward 5 candidate Shaun McClusky’s campaign committee, the Pima County Republican Committee and various committees that supported Tucson’s “public safety” Proposition 200.
Ironically, Randy Pullen was the founding father of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s 2008 GOP money laundering scam Arizonans for Public Safety. Now, he’s washing, pressing and folding “clothes” as a favor to the “Wildcats for Public Safety”.
Photo via :The Feathered Bastard : aka Stephen Lemons
The money trail doesn’t turn cold until it makes a stop at the Arizona Republican Party before finding “safety” in the hands of former AZ GOP Executive Director, Nathan Sproul, and his political consulting firm, Lincoln Strategy Group.
To the untrained eye, almost $300,000 ended up in the coffers of the Arizona Republican Party from our conservative friends down in the Old Pueblo. An absolute windfall for the AZ GOP. Well, not quite.
In reality, Randy Pullen allowed Jim Click to pull a train on the AZ GOP.
During the City of Tucson 2009 election season, Click had a series of one-night-stands with the Arizona Republican Party. He also had a “ringer” City Council candidate to elect and a “public safety” proposition to fund. Jim Click was a very busy man.
Click was a major player in the front to pass Tucson’s Proposition 200. Prop 200 would have significantly increased the number of police and firefighters hired within the city limits but there was no funding for the improved public safety – Prop 200 was an unfunded mandate (and failed at the polls).
Via the official Proposition 200 committee, the Tucson Association of Realtors, Southern Arizona Home Builders Association and public safety unions spent $235,000 trying to pass the ballot measure. Most of that money was spent BEFORE the primary election. By the time Proposition 200 neared the general election, the industry funds supporting it, had all but dried up.
Jim Click made sure that a little somethin’-somethin’ was there to spend in case of an emergency.
After the primary election, Click donated $100,000 to the committee supporting Prop.200. Click also created a made-man, a new Tucson City Council candidate who had never dabbled in politics or voted much. Enter Shaun McClusky, a thirty-something former veteran who even sold cars for Click Auto Group.
The Tucson Republican machine looked to McClusky to be the unofficial spokesperson for Proposition 200. The script was this: a GOP candidate for Tucson City Council who doesn’t have much to say about himself or GOP platform issues but just LOVES Proposition 200. All of this for roughly $45,000 in private donations and $45,822 in gratis taxpayer funds. What a bargain.
But, the scheme wasn’t that easy to carry out.
To pass Proposition 200, Click knew that he’d need to really move some cash to McClusky. However, the City of Tucson campaign finance laws prohibited that.
Enter RNC Treasurer and Arizona Republican Party Chairman, Randy Pullen.
Pullen opened the AZ GOP books to Jim Click. Click took the bait and sprung into action. He rallied ‘round the GOP family and a quick-fire succession of big dollar donations and expenses began.
The post-primary days of September 2009 were filled with lots of journal entries.
In an unusual move at an unusual time, the Gila River Indian Community laid out $40,000 for Randy Pullen’s AZ GOP on September 10, 2009. Jim Click one-upped his neighbors to the north and left a lot of money on the AZ GOP’s table before sneaking back to Tucson.
A total of $183,000.00, to be exact.
Tucson’s favorite auto dealer even brought some friends along to watch: the members of the Pima County Republican Party.
Click deposited his first lot of dirty money with the Pima County GOP just after the primary election. During the week of September 11, 2009, Click and three of his rich buddies donated $75,000 to the Pima County GOP (Click = $25,000). All of the high roller funds were earmarked for a Get Out the Vote drive.
Tucson Republicans must be inept at getting out their own vote.
By mid –September, the Pima County GOP began a series of expenses to the Arizona Republican Party, earmarked for a Get Out the Vote drive. After jumpstarting the Tucson GOTV drive with a $9,000 expense to Public Opinion Strategies of Alexandria, VA, the Pima County Republicans switched gears and funneled $71,000 to Randy Pullen’s AZ GOP.
Almost as quickly as the donations came in to Pullen, they flew right back out – to Nathan Sproul’s Lincoln Strategies Group in located in Tempe.
Talk about dirty money. SWR has never heard a good word about Sproul. Anyone? All of that Tucson money feeding the beast and the local economy in Tempe is downright sacrilege to proud Tucson residents. FUASU some would say, but not Jim Click.
Click and Pullen almost got away with this con game:
- Between September 22, 2009 and November 02, 2009, the Pima County Republicans and Jim Click made eight donations totaling $254,000 to Randy Pullen’s Arizona Republican Party. All of the Pima County GOP money was earmarked for GOTV. All of Click’s funds were “Dealer’s Choice”.
- Between September 23, 2009 and October 30, 2009, Randy Pullen made five payments to Nathan Sproul’s Lincoln Strategies Group; an expense that cost a staggering $230,766.90. Pullen earmarked almost $49,000 for Tucson GOTV. He also earmarked $45,000 for the Tucson City Council and $45,000 for the Tucson City elections. Pullen spent the final $92,000 of Sproul’s designated AZ GOP money on (drum roll please): Professional Services – consulting.
- Between October 23, 2009 and October 30, 2009, Jim Click’s pocket Tucson City Council candidate, Shaun McClusky, made four wire transfer payments to Nathan Sproul’s Lincoln Strategies Group. In just one week, McClusky spent $69,737.66 of the entire $90,000 in his campaign kitty at one devil of a place.(BTW – McClusky got spanked at the general election by Richard Fimbres, a Democrat – 67% to 32%. There were only 5719 votes cast in the Ward 5 election. McClusky walked away with only 1855 of them. )
Here’s a taste of just how nefarious the 2009 Randy Pullen & Jim Click AZ GOP money laundering scheme was. Big money in. Big money out.
The dirty money trail has been uncovered, but it is just the tip of the iceberg.
The State of Arizona and City of Tucson campaign finance laws govern what campaign, committee and ballot proposition expenses are legal and illegal.
As this scheme unfolds, readers of SWR will be watching to see what, if any, corrective action the State of Arizona and/or the City of Tucson takes regarding Randy Pullen’s inability to avoid a good financial scandal or character assassination.
Until then, a few parting words sung by Don Henley
Dirty little secrets, dirty little lies
We got our dirty little fingers in everybody’s pie
Love to cut you down to size
We love dirty laundry
Additional Resources
City of Tucson campaign finance: Public Safety First for 2009 (committee FOR Prop. 200) final termination report(look at total funds raised $381,700.00!)
2009 AZ GOP Pre-General campaign finance report
2009 AZ GOP Post-General campaign finance report
McClusky commercial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyW7WrwqUqE
Proposition 200 commercial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EDV1_rJAXc
Dan Saban commercial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCkHpu_tyVo
Lincoln Strategy http://www.lincoln-strategy.com/
Pull a train http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pull%20a%20train
SWR Article: GOP Fundraiser Christine Toretti quits donating to RNC but drops $5,000 to Randy Pullen’s Arizona Republican HQ
SWR Article: So Who’s Pullen for Mecum? AZ GOP Executive Director accused of using Voter Vault to stalk young woman
I’m more interested in following the foreign credit card donations to the obama campaign and the activities of the obama phone bank in Gaza. I’m also interested in the money laundering schemes of George Soros and MoveOn.org. Got any info on those?
"Your comment must be approved by the site admins before it will appear publicly."
Whats the matter, only progressive asslickers allowed to comment here?
Actually with very rare exception we print any and all comments. We of course have to check them to make sure they are not spam (can't always trust the technology it misses many) and to make sure no one is being overly harassed or threatened. Also, it helps us see when someone is uninformed, ignorant or just a plain jack-ass like yourself.
Oh and by the way JA you damned well should be concerned about this….but we aren't surprised that you're not.
Great Job of researching this Sonoran Weekly Review! This should be the final “nail on the coffin” of the corrupt Randy Pullen & his hatchmen. Saturday’s Mandatory State GOP Meeting should be very interesting!
Tucson Marksman commented on Dirty Laundry: RNC Treasurer Randy Pullen launders nearly $300,000 through AZ GOP to influence 2009 – Sonoran Weekly Review:
The article says "(BTW – McClusky got spanked at the general election by Richard Fimbres, a Democrat – 67% to 32%. There were only 5719 votes cast in the Ward 5 election. McClusky walked away with only 1855 of them. )"
Incorrect. The correct spread was approxmately 53% Fimbres and 46% McClusky. There were more than 71,000 votes cast in the Ward 5 general election. More than 33,000 went to McClusky. You can see the results here: http://www.pima.gov/elections/results.htm.
Email: jamesw@kaucher.com
Well Mr. Marksman we understand the possible confusion….let us explain
This is from the City of Tucson 2009 election results site. Here's the link. Go to Ward 5.
http://www.ci.tucson.az.us/clerks/CanvassByWard.p...
Election Summary Report
110309 Pima Consolidated
Summary for WARD 05 All Counters, City of Tucson
FINAL OFFICIAL CANVASS
Date: 11/10/09
Time: 12:42:25
Page: 1 of 2
Registered Voters 27478
Cards Cast 5853 21.30%
Num. Report Precinct 11 – Num. Reporting 11 100.00%
COUNCIL MEMBER – COT WARD 5
Polling Early PROV Total
Number of Precincts 11 0 0 11
Precincts Reporting 11 0 0 11 100.00%
Times Counted (Reg. Voters 27478) 2184 3558 111 5853 21.30%
Total Votes 2127 3484 108 5719
Times Blank Voted 57 72 3 132
Times Over Voted 0 2 0 2
FIMBRES, RICHARD DEM 1374 2406 72 3852 67.36%
McCLUSKY, SHAUN REP 745 1074 36 1855 32.44%
Write-in Votes 8 4 0 12 0.20%
So as you can see if you look at Ward 5 our numbers and content are in fact correct.
Your Ward V numbers might be correct, but they are irrelevant to the general outcome. Tucson city council elections were city-wide, not ward-only. If you look at Ward VI, you'll see that Steve K lost his ward (almost 60-40), but won the general election and now sits on the council.
The strategy was to get so many votes in the eastern part of the city (Wards 2 & 4) to overwhelm the expected losses in wards 1, 3, 5, and 6. It worked for Steve K. It almost worked for Ben Beuhler-Garcia, who lost Ward 3 by a substantial margin, but lost the general election by less than 200 votes.
Of course, this strategy is useless in the next council election if the courts uphold the new non-partisan, ward-only election state law.
There is no "might be" , they are correct. Irrelevant in what way? He lost no? Significantly both in the ward and in general yes? Yes.
The strategy was to elect someone in the area that the people absolutely did NOT want representing them in a VERY questionable and corrupt manner.
Jim Click doesn't live anywhere near here. Hell, he doesn't really sell any cars in this area either – unless you count the cash only transactions that occur in chop-shops fronting as La Carneceria y La Llantera along South 12th Ave and/or South 6th Ave.
I agree such a strategy as you outlined above will be useless in the future for a combination of reasons, The courts upholding the non-partisan ward-only election law, redistricting, census etc etc.
For this article, the information provided the numbers etc were important over-all given the content and context.
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