Tom Horne has added another false statement to his extensive record of deception, this time by trying to paint the truth about his record as a lie.

In a legal document filed with the Maricopa Superior Court, Tom Horne called an advertisement that exposes two votes he made against child safety “a big lie.” The legal memo was part of a lawsuit Horne filed to try to get the ad removed from the airwaves – a suit that was thrown out yesterday.

The ad against Horne informs voters that he voted to reinstate a teacher who was fired for looking at child pornography on a school computer, and refused to vote for stiffer statutory rape penalties. Horne attempted to refute the facts in his legal filing, but the record is clear: The ad was completely correct.

• Horne tried to argue that a sheriff’s deputy found no child pornography on the fired teacher’s computer and thus it wasn’t there. Yet the East Valley Tribune reported that the teacher “admitt[ed] that he looked at the pornographic images, which had slipped through the district's Internet content filters, and that some had been of underage subjects.” The teacher admitted this in front of Horne, and a fellow Board of Education member even commented on it to the Tribune that day. Horne was the deciding vote to put the teacher back in the classroom.
• As a state legislator, Horne voted against raising the penalties for certain classes of statutory rape. One of the acts Horne voted to keep classified as a lesser crime is called “aggravated criminal sexual abuse” in other states and carries penalties of up to seven years.

“Horne’s cover up of his record is the latest lie in a pattern of deception stretching back decades,” said Joanna Peters, campaign manager for Felecia Rotellini. “He lied to the Securities Exchange Commission, he lied to the Arizona Corporation Commission, and now he’s lying to the court. There seems to be nothing Tom Horne won’t do to con the voters and climb to the next rung of his career ladder.”

Download PDF - Order to Show Cause, Complaint, Summons