“We should have caught this.”

The not-so-clean elections crowd hoisted on their own petard

In an understatement of epic proportions, Todd Lang, executive director of the Citizens Clean Election Commission, responded to the disclosure of $2 million in unreported spending of his agency—the one charged with responsibility of overseeing the campaign finances of state and legislative candidates.  “We should have caught this,” said Lang.

As reported in an Arizona Capitol Times article by Christian Palmer, Lang and his deputy director, Colleen McGee, attribute the multiple discrepancies to “human error.”  That’s a good refuge, since computers appear far more reliable than this dynamic duo.

It was the Clean Elections folks, you might recall, who removed a duly elected state legislator from office, absent impeachment, criminal charges or recall, due to financial disclosure errors—which he, in fact, called to their attention. His $6000 error was certainly nowhere in the neighborhood of two million dollars.

State Rep. David Burnell Smith, a Republican who represented Dist. 7, has the distinction of being the only U. S. office holder so removed by a panel of unelected bureaucrats and an unelected administrative law judge.