Huppenthal petitions challenged: I *love* being able to say "I told you so"

Yes, I'm a bad man, but I really enjoy it when something I more or less predicted (more than a year ago!) starts looking like it will come to pass.

From my post a from a year ago -

Hi. Your snarky (but oh-so-friendly and helpful) neighborhood liberal blogger and Democratic activist here. I don't normally write for you folks, but this one is for you.

Some of you have signed nominating petitions for one John Huppenthal for next year's race for State Superintendent of Public Instruction.

{snip}

Under the laws of Arizona and the rules from the Arizona Secretary of State, a candidate must form a committee (file paperwork with the state formally declaring the candidate's interest in a particular office).

From the Secretary of State's candidate handbook (page 29 of the .pdf) (emphasis mine) -

4. Statement of Organization OR $500 Threshold Exemption Statement.
A Statement of Organization registering the candidate’s campaign committee OR a $500 Threshold Exemption Statement must be filed before making any expenditures, accepting any contributions, distributing any campaign literature or circulating any petitions. If the candidate has an exploratory committee open at the time of filing, then the candidate, chairman and treasurer must file an amended Statement of Organization to change the committee to a candidate’s campaign committee.

So far, Huppenthal has only formed an "exploratory" committee - filer ID 201000065, formed and last amended on March 16, 2009. As such, any signatures he has collected to date are invalid.

So check out this AZ Republic story today -

John Huppenthal, a Republican state senator vying for his party's nomination as state superintendent of public instruction, is being challenged by the state Democratic Party on the basis that many of his 11,000 petition signatures were gathered before he had formally entered the race.

His case is scheduled for a June 18 hearing in Maricopa County Superior Court.

Yessss!

Now, there is no guarantee that the challenge will be successful - we *are* in Maricopa County, Arizona, where somedays it seems as if the principle of "the rule of law" has been replaced by the principle of "IOKIYAR*".

However, the law seems clear - he had to change his exploratory committee to a candidate campaign committee *before* collecting sigs. He amended his campaign paperwork on January 14; he submitted his petitions on January 20.

I'm guessing that he didn't collect 11K sigs in 6 days.

Anyway, the complete list of challenges received by the Secretary of State's office is here; the current list of withdrawn candidates is here.

*IOKIYAR = "It's OK If You're A Republican

Later...