This Citizens Clean Elections Commission Nonparticipating Candidate Guide was created to provide information to candidates interested in running for legislative or statewide office. Participating candidates for statewide offices and legislative offices are eligible to participate in the public funding program. The system is voluntary; candidates may choose to participate in the system or they may choose to raise funds in the traditional manner. Candidates who choose to raise funds with private campaign contributions are referred to as “nonparticipating candidates.”

The Citizens Clean Elections Commission was established by the enactment of the Citizens Clean Elections Act. The Commission’s mission is to fairly, faithfully and fully implement and administer the Citizens Clean Elections Act. All members must be registered to vote in the State of Arizona. No more than two members of the commission may be members of the same political party. No more than two members of the commission may be residents of the same county.

A participating candidate is an individual who has decided to run for a statewide office or the Legislature, agrees not to accept special interest monies and adheres to the Citizens Clean Elections Act and commission rules. In return, the participating candidate will receive funding from the Citizens Clean Elections Fund. In order for a candidate to receive funding, the participating candidate must collect a specified number of $5 Qualifying Contributions from registered voters within his or her district for a legislative candidate or registered voters in Arizona for a statewide candidate.

Compiles information on plants and animals that are already recognized by the federal government as imperiled species, species which have been extirpated, and a much larger number of species that are in decline either locally or nationally. Descriptions of status, location, distribution, and habitat needs are presented for each species proposed. The report also considers vegetative communities, their history of decline and modification, and recommends priorities for their protection.

If one species had to be chosen to preserve and restore, perhaps it should be cottonwood. Cottonwood-willow forests, where they exist and are healthy, indicated the presence of a viable riparian area, which is in turn the key to conserving great proportions of our native species. A reflection of the dire status of our riparian systems is that the Sonoran cottonwood-willow and Sonoran mesquite-cottonwood forests.

Chronicles how the intention to conserve a relic population of Gila topminnow under current resource conditions is generally insufficient. We have let the resource base degrade too far to expect project and site specific responses to stem losses, much less lead to recovery. The Gila topminnow was considered to be among the most common of fishes in the Santa Cruz River system in the early 1940s. Three decades later is was considered endangered; and in another three decades time, its recovery is not foreseeable, given the piecemeal approach to protection efforts.