A Maricopa County Superior Court judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by two Arizona Green Party candidates who were trying to stop state regulators from investigating whether their campaigns falsified donor records to collect millions in taxpayer-funded public campaign money. Judge Melissa Iyer Julian ruled that the courts cannot step in while the administrative investigation is still ongoing.
The lawsuit was brought by Risa Lombardo, the party's gubernatorial candidate, and Duwayne Collier, who is running for secretary of state, against the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission. According to KJZZ, both candidates are running as third-party contenders under the Arizona Green Party banner, and both filed suit earlier this month after the commission began scrutinizing their campaign finances. Lombardo received $2.8 million in primary and general election Clean Elections funding, while Collier received nearly $740,000, per the same account.
The Arizona Green Party has already disavowed both candidates, branding them “sham candidates.” That break with party leadership predates the lawsuit: on August 31, the party formally petitioned Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes to remove Lombardo from the November ballot and replace her with Carlos Melendez, the party's officially endorsed primary candidate, according to the Arizona Green Party. The party has also noted Lombardo's Republican political connections and her service as a precinct committeewoman, fueling claims that her candidacy was designed to siphon progressive votes from Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs.
How the Investigation Started
To qualify for Clean Elections funding, candidates must collect a specific number of $5 qualifying contributions from Arizona voters, and the Secretary of State's Office confirmed that Lombardo and Collier had met that threshold. But Clean Elections Executive Director Thomas Collins said a preliminary investigation found evidence that the two campaigns may not actually have collected those contributions. The station's report notes that at least six alleged donors told the Arizona Mirror they never gave money to either campaign.
Collins said the commission's own field work lined up with that reporting in August 2026, and he warned Lombardo and Collier that he planned to ask the commission to force them to repay the public funding. Per the same account, Collins wrote that he strongly encouraged Lombardo to seek legal counsel, stop spending Clean Elections money, and instruct her vendors to halt services funded by those dollars.
Lombardo and Collier argued that the investigation and Collins’ letters had effectively put their campaigns on pause, and they asked a judge to block the commission from clawing back the public money. Their attorney, Timothy La Sota, argued the commission has no role in certifying $5 qualifying contributions and that commissioners cannot retroactively cancel the secretary of state's determination that his clients had qualified for funding. La Sota wrote earlier this month that the candidates were in limbo and were finding it extraordinarily difficult to run their campaigns.
Why the Judge Ruled Against Them
Judge Julian dismissed the lawsuit because the investigation is still ongoing and because the commission has not yet attempted to claw back any money. Arizona state law allows the commission to investigate allegations that Clean Elections candidates violated program rules, and Julian concluded that Collins’ warning letters did not mean the commission had already found the candidates at fault. She wrote that the commission may ultimately reject the anticipated recommendation, proceed on another ground, or take no enforcement action at all.
Under state law, the candidates retain the right to appeal any final commission decision to an administrative law judge, who in turn makes a recommendation that the commission may accept or reject. Only after that full administrative process concludes can the candidates seek judicial review, the ruling found. La Sota argued that Lombardo and Collier simply did not have time to complete that process before the November 4 election, and he said Collins’ letters had effectively stopped the candidates from campaigning altogether.
State law could require the candidates to repay Clean Elections funding out of personal money if they lack sufficient campaign cash left to cover it. Lombardo and Collier have suspended their campaigns, and La Sota has since filed a petition for special action with the Arizona Court of Appeals, which has accepted the case and set an expedited schedule ahead of the election.
A Parallel Criminal Investigation
The civil dispute over public funds is only part of the legal exposure facing the candidates. The Arizona Attorney General's Office has opened a criminal investigation into Lombardo, Collier, and former Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Neely over allegations that they falsified voter records and $5 donations to secure public campaign funds, according to the Arizona Mirror. Independent inquiries by the Citizens Clean Elections Commission and the Arizona Mirror found that all three candidates reported $5 qualifying donations from nearly 4,000 of the same voters, including more than 2,600 whose names were submitted as donors to all three campaigns at once.
Combined, the three candidates obtained $4.7 million in public funds before regulators and law enforcement intervened, Axios reported. Campaign expenditure records show Lombardo disbursed a substantial majority of her public campaign dollars to a Nevada-registered business that was formed only days before her campaign qualified for public funding, the Arizona Mirror has reported.
Gaps in the Vetting Process
Part of the controversy traces back to how qualifying donations get verified in the first place. Under administrative guidelines from the Secretary of State's Office, state election officials only check whether total submission numbers match what a candidate claims, leaving the actual verification of individual donor voter registrations and signatures to county recorders, per KJZZ's earlier reporting on the probe.
The Citizens Clean Elections Act itself dates back to Proposition 200, approved by Arizona voters in November 1998 to curb special interest influence by offering state-funded campaign grants to candidates who collect small $5 contributions and forgo PAC or corporate money, according to the Citizens Clean Elections Commission. Under Arizona campaign finance law, candidates who knowingly submit fraudulent contribution forms or falsify donor records can face Class 6 felony charges in addition to administrative repayment orders, according to legal analysis from Nossaman LLP.
Lombardo secured the Green Party's gubernatorial nomination during the July 21, 2026 primary by defeating write-in candidates, even though party leadership had disavowed and actively opposed her candidacy beforehand, according to Ballotpedia. That institutional rift echoes another recent controversy within the party: Hoodline has previously reported on another disavowed candidate, David Redkey, who was arrested on threat charges after also being cut loose by state party leadership.
With the November 4 election just over a month away, the Arizona Court of Appeals is now weighing the candidates' expedited appeal while the underlying Clean Elections investigation and the Attorney General's criminal probe both continue on separate tracks.
