NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday September 4, 2007

Tim Bee already misleading Arizonans about campaign

Continuing to test the parameters of Arizona’s resign-to-run law, Tim Bee is also playing word games about whether he’s hired any political consultants to run his campaign.

“What Tim Bee says and what he does are completely different things,” said Maria Weeg, executive director of the Arizona Democratic Party. “These tactics are a dishonorable way to kick off a campaign for the U.S. Congress. They’re just part of an emerging pattern of Bee’s deliberately misleading behavior.”
Bee, the current president of the Arizona Senate, is quoted in an Aug. 31 story in the Arizona Capitol Times saying that he hasn’t hired any consultants to manage his campaign. Bee said: “I have formed an exploratory committee to evaluate the viability of a future candidacy and have not hired any consultants or spokespeople.” (http://www.azcapitoltimes.com/story.cfm?id=5859)

Yet, in the same article, a Republican insider asserts the opposite.

A Republican familiar with Bee’s plans confirmed that political consultant Nathan Sproul now works for Bee. Sproul, of Sproul & Associates, also works for Wake Up Arizona!, the organization that is opposed to the employer sanctions law, which Bee helped pass out of the Legislature. The Republican said it is “normal” for consultants to have multiple clients, and those clients may not always agree on a particular point.

Moreover, an Aug. 22 Arizona Daily Star also reports that a consultant attends Bee in interviews. (http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/metro/197587.php)

But as he has done in the past, Bee resisted answering questions about his political positions.

After initially sidestepping a question about the Iraq war, Bee said, “I believe that this war has been poorly executed, and there have been many mistakes made along the way, but at the same time, it’s going to be extremely important that we have a successful outcome.”

Before he could respond to follow-up questions, though, Garrick Taylor, a Republican consultant, interjected that Bee would “save the discussion of the issues for whether the senator decides he wants to be a candidate.”

Taylor works with Sproul. According to the firm’s Web site, Taylor “works with our clients to generate positive media coverage in order to influence voters and opinion makers, while confronting dissenting opinion and recognizing threats and opportunities.” (http://www.sproulassociates.com/ourteam.html)

This isn’t Bee’s first attempt to mislead southern Arizonans.

Bee is also avoiding the spirit of Arizona’s resign-to-run law, which requires that office holders give up their seats to pursue a higher office.

Attorneys for the Arizona Democratic Party are already investigating whether Bee is in violation of the letter of the law. The attorneys are examining whether Bee is stockpiling money to compete with Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and discussing his positions on issues like the war in Iraq. Both could be factors that trigger the law.

According to Arizona state law, Bee would have to resign his seat as president of the Arizona Legislature to run against Rep. Giffords (D-Ariz).

As Democrats have pointed out in the past, Bee is already raising money through an exploratory committee and, according to the Star, Bee wants to “…amass enough money to compete with the $1 million already in Giffords’ campaign war chest.”