Ken Bennett, former Secretary of State, to challenge Gov. Doug Ducey in GOP primary

Ken Bennett, who has served as Arizona Secretary of State and president of the state Senate, announced Saturday that he will run against Gov. Doug Ducey in the Republican primary.

Bennett criticized Ducey’s hasty rollout of a plan to raise teacher pay.

Bennett, who ran unsuccessfully against Ducey in the 2014 Republican primary, said he was motivated to run after watching “the panic and flip-flopping of the governor” in announcing a plan to give teachers a 20 percent pay raise by 2020.

Ducey announced his plan last week, saying he could raise teacher pay by 19 percent over the next three years without raising taxes or making deep cuts to services. Coupled with the 1-percent boost teachers received this year, he said, would make an effective 20-percent raise.

RELATED: Ducey vetoes House bills and calls for passage of his teacher pay plan

Bennett criticizes Ducey's teacher plan

Bennett questioned comments Ducey made in a radio interview two days before announcing his plan. Bennett said Ducey told listeners that the state had no money for the 20-percent raise teachers demanded.

"He said the leaders of those (teacher) groups were engaged in political theater," Bennett said.

But two days later, Bennett said, Ducey proposed the exact raise the groups wanted.

RELATED: Arizona governor's race: Ducey dominates in fundraising

"But, in my opinion," he said, "with no real way to pay for it."

Ducey's administration has said that the sudden rush of money came from good economic news that emerged the week Ducey proposed his plan. Those included a resetting of economic forecasts predicting increased revenue and a downward trend in those seeking healthcare aid from the state.

MORE: Where Ducey found money for teacher pay raises

Ducey's administration, in two conference calls this week with reporters, laid out financial forecasts and details of the plan arguing it is on firm financial footing.

The plan appears to be facing resistance in the legislature.

On Friday, Ducey's chief of staff had a brief and apparently unproductive meeting with Republican House leaders. Three hours later, Ducey vetoed 10 bills sponsored by House Republicans. Each veto letter contained an identical message, asking for a budget that included 20-percent raises for teachers.

"Our teachers have earned this raise. It’s time to get it done," Ducey said in his letter.

The Senate is running scenarios of its own using less rosy projections than Ducey's, Sen. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, the president pro tempore, said this week.

Democratic lawmakers requested an analysis of the governor's proposed budget — including the teacher raises — compared with the state's Joint Legislative Budget Committee estimates for how much revenue the state will receive.

Analysts with that committee have projected less robust growth than the Governor's Office.

Furthermore, two education advocacy groups that had supported the plan, the Arizona Parent Teacher Association and Save our Schools Arizona, withdrew their support this week. The organizations said Ducey's funding plan was unsustainable.

RELATED: Ducey touts support for teacher pay plan, some push back on details

Is Bennett a serial candidate?

The head of the Ducey campaign, J.P. Twist, responded to the news of Bennett’s run with an email that read: "It wouldn't be an election year without Ken running for something."

Bennett, an Arizona native, was first elected to the Prescott City Council in 1985. He was elected to the state Senate representing Prescott in 1998.

He served as President of that body from 2003 to 2006, according to his biography on the Secretary of State's website. That biography also notes Bennett's guitar playing. He was known to serenade the body with political songs of gentle satire.

Bennett was appointed Secretary of State in 2009 by the previous occupant of the spot, Jan Brewer. She became governor after then-Gov. Janet Napolitano resigned to join the administration of President Barack Obama.

Bennett ran for governor in a six-way Republican primary. He finished in fourth place behind Ducey, former Mesa Mayor Scott Smith, who earned Brewer's endorsement, and lawyer Christine Jones. Ducey won the plurality with 37 percent of ballots cast.

Bennett later endorsed Ducey, saying that Arizona was "at a critical moment in time and Doug's principles on growing the economy and improving our education system are exactly what we need to move our state forward."

"He basically got one-third of the vote," Bennett said of the 2014 GOP primary results. "Almost two-thirds wanted someone else."

Bennett said he has a better shot in an uncrowded primary.

"This time, it's one on one," he said.

There is another declared Republican in the race. Bob Donahue of Cornville filed his paperwork on Friday, according to the Secretary of State’s office.

Bennett said he filed his paperwork through the Secretary of State's website days ago, but his candidacy was not listed as of Saturday afternoon.

Bennett also sought the District 1 Congressional seat in 2016. He came in fourth in a six-way Republican primary race.

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Bennett's teacher-pay plan

Bennett said there was a way to give teachers a raise that is sustainable.

"We can do the 20 percent, but we can't do it without coming up with a funding stream," he said.

Bennett said the answer is in a restructuring of the tax system, broadening the types of activities taxed and possibly boosting taxes paid by tourists.

Bennett said he received both calls of encouragement and discouragement as he floated running against Ducey, something he described as a David and Goliath-type battle.

"But my interests are what's best for the state of Arizona," he said, "Solving problems with real solutions rather than panicking and flip-flopping."

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Bennett said that he will run against Ducey as a publicly-funded Clean Elections candidate. That will give him, he said, about $1 million in funding and two months to convince voters he is the better choice.

"I have no illusions that I am going to out-resource Doug Ducey," Bennett said. "Doug is very tied to the establishment, both in-state and out-of-state, as far as high-dollar contributors. There’s no way I'm going to have the kind of money that Doug Ducey has."

Bennett is known for his sense of humor that relies on puns. He joked that Ducey can expect help from David and Charles Koch, the Kansas millionaires known as the Koch Brothers, and that he might have to find "some Pepsi brothers."

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