Tagged: Secretary of State Ken Bennett

The state's chief election official said Monday morning that as far as he's concerned, Jan Brewer's reign as governor ends in January 2015, no matter what she and her legal help say.

Secretary of State Ken Bennett said today he will not verify the birth records of Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, at least not now -- and possibly not ever -- despite an earlier public commitment to do so. 

One hurdle to Barack Obama being on the November ballot has been removed. 

That came late Tuesday when Secretary of State Ken Bennett got an e-mail from Hawaii officials confirming for him that they do, in fact, have an original birth certificate for the president on file.

"There's 12 points," he noted. "The first one says a birth certificate is on file with the department of health indicating that Barack Hussein Obama II was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. And then the second through 12th points each deal with a different point that we asked in the request."

A 2010 comment by Ken Bennett when he was running for secretary of state may be coming back to haunt him. 

During a debate in the 2010 race, Bennett was asked about endorsing something on that year's ballot.

"It's not appropriate for election officials to be taking positions on either the propositions or candidates when we're going to have to conduct the election," he said. 

A 2010 United States Supreme Court ruling says corporations have the right to spend as much as they want supporting or opposing any candidate as long as they do that independent of the candidate's campaign. Secretary of State Ken Bennett said some corporations suddenly popped up last year during the Phoenix mayoral race and the Russell Pearce recall claiming that they did not have to disclose the SOURCE of their funds.