Citing No on 200: Arizonans for Real Immigration Reforms’ latest charge that a crime may have been committed by Protect Arizona NOW’s volunteers, who accidentally handed out 16-month-old copies of its initiative, PAN Chairman Kathy McKee responded, “Right when we thought their campaign, already based on misinformation, scare tactics, and outright lies, couldn’t sink any lower, they come out with this babble.  Everybody knows PAN is a grassroots effort of all volunteers.  Anybody who has seen the Lou Dobbs’ show that was taped at my home, or been to my home, knows that running a statewide campaign the magnitude of PAN, with dozens of volunteers and dozens and dozens of boxes all over the place, has turned my home and garage into a circus sometimes.  The facts, which can be corroborated by many others, are:  
1.    We ran out of initiatives when the petition phase ended.  While lamenting the possibility of having to print more initiatives after the petition phase was over, a volunteer stated there was a whole box still out in my garage.  She went out to my garage and brought a box in—and she remembers exactly where she got the box . . . right by my recycle can.  There was no reason for anyone to look over its contents.
 
2.     The first time the question of an obsolete initiative being distributed came on the evening of October 12, 2004, at a GOP District 11 debate.  A volunteer/house guest who accompanied me to that debate and I checked into where an obsolete copy could have come from, since the files on both my computers matched what has been on our web site since July 2003, matched what we filed with the Secretary of State’s office, and matched what’s in the ballot book.  We realized it was a box of initiatives we had planned to hand out at our announcement press conference July 8, 2003, but had to remove at the last minute due a change recommended by one of our attorneys.  I printed new versions that very night (October 12) and put the box of old ones in my trunk, both to show anyone who questions this as well as to make sure more accidents don’t happen.

3.    My husband and friends will be happy to verify that they have tried to get me to throw out some of the boxes of papers in my garage on numerous occasions, but being the environmentalist I am known to be, I keep hoping I’ll have the time to go through them and be able to recycle a lot of it.”

PAN/Prop 200  supporters are disgusted with the shoddy campaign tactics of “No on 200/Arizonans for Real Immigration Reform,” including asking a government agency to waste its resources on something they should be embarrassed to even bring up.   States McKee, "We have spent over a year trying to elevate this issue to an intellectual discussion of facts.  Our opponents keep trying to drag it down to the gutter with their meritless campaign of misinformation, character assassinations, name-calling, scare tactics, and outright lies.  What's actually comical is that their news release announcing their press conference yesterday, trying to turn this silly accident into something criminal, had the wrong time and wrong location in it.  Since they are hardly the unpaid volunteers that we all are, what's their excuse for issuing a news release with inaccurate important information in it?  Did they have some kind of criminal intent?  We believe, or at least hope, the public sees through these despicable campaign tactics.  Regardless, I personally refuse to denigrate my soul by sinking to that level.  I can take these constant lies and attacks, but if they think they're going to hang our innocent, dedicated volunteers out to dry, they'd better think again.  We ask that our opponents try to get a grip on some dignity and stop this harassment and persecution of the citizens of Arizona."