The Arizona Democratic Party has filed a multi-part complaint against the Arizona Republican Party over $105,000 in donations the state GOP received from a Mesa group called SCA.

According to the latest campaign filing from the Arizona Republican Party, SCA, which is listed as an "unincorporated association of individuals," gave $80,000 to the party on Aug. 21 and another $25,000 on Sep. 10. SCA is the sole entity listed under "individual contributions" in the party's post-primary filing for its state account.

The Democrats allege in a complaint filed Tuesday with Arizona Secretary of State Jan Brewer that Republicans have violated campaign finance laws by taking money from SCA without obtaining a list of its donors. The Democrats claim this constitutes taking funds from an individual in the name of another individual, which they say is a class 6 felony.

Additionally, the Democratic Party alleges that SCA needed to file as a political committee, which it has not done, and that the funds were specifically earmarked for use in Maricopa County races by being directed to Arizonans for Public Safety, a group headed by Arizona Republican Party chairman Randy Pullen, that conducts independent expenditures against Democratic county candidates.

Finally, the Democratic Party says that the Arizona Republican Party broke the law by failing to report a transfer of $78,000 from the SCA funds to Arizonans for Public Safety for the production of campaign commercials against Democratic county candidates.

Read the complaint.

In an article in the Arizona Capitol Times' "Yellow Sheet" from last Thursday, Pullen denied that the SCA funds had been earmarked for anything, though Pullen also said, "I knew what I was going to do with that money before I got it."

In the same article, Pullen said he had requested the names of SCA's contributors, but decided not to wait for the results before filing, and would amend the report once the Arizona Republican Party had obtained that information.

Pullen further said that the onus wasn't on his party to obtain that information.

"It's not the party's responsibility to disclose all that information," he said in the "Yellow Sheet" interview. "We have a responsibility to get it and put it in our report. But if someone doesn't get it to us, it doesn't make us legally responsible for it. It makes the party who gave us the money legally responsible."  

Sean McCaffrey, executive director of the Arizona Republican Party, said his organization still doesn't know who SCA is.

"We requested a list of their members," said McCaffrey, who added that he believes SCA "has an obligation to disclose who their members are." He also said he hadn't heard of the group before they made the donations.

McCaffrey said he thinks the AZ GOP requested the membership information right after the donations were made, but that chairman Randy Pullen would know for certain. Pullen wasn't available for comment.

State Democratic Party Executive Director Maria Weeg didn't think that his explanation was good enough. 

"The state Republican Party under Randy Pullen's leadership appears to be undertaking a massive fraud on behalf of their candidates," said Weeg in a statement regarding the complaint. "These allegations demand a thorough investigation, given the appearance of a widespread operation of illegally raising money from an illicit shadow organization and illegally using it to pay for vile, deceptive campaigns."

There are no limits placed on the amount an individual can contribute to a state party in Arizona, but there are limits on how the money can be used. McCaffrey said that, to his knowledge, contributions over $5,000 can't go toward influencing elections.

McCaffrey said he "understands there are limits on what we can do with [the SCA] funds."

"To my knowledge I don't think we can do anything [with the SCA funds] for the federal campaigns, and I'm not even sure if it can go for our state campaigns,” he said.  

He also said the state Republicans' legal team will have to review the Democrats' complaint before he could get into details of the allegations.