Arizona pays Mecham impeachment bill.

Lawmakers closed the book on one of the most wrenching chapters in Arizona politics by paying what some considered a long overdue bill.

As the regular session of the Arizona Legislature drew to a close in mid-April, enough votes were corralled to pay former Governor Evan Mecham $423,000 to cover expenses he incurred while fighting impeachment and recall in 1988.

But, there was a string attached. Mecham had to agree not to sue the state again if he accepted the money. A 1992 Mecham suit against the state was dismissed in U.S. District Court a week or so before lawmakers approved the pay-off.

House Minority Leader Art Hamilton contended that paying Mecham the money was "the absolutely wrong thing to do." But a majority of Arizona legislators adopted the philosophy of Representative Jeff Groscost, who simply wanted the Mecham affair to "go away." Senator Stan Furman, who like many of his colleagues was not in office during the impeachment imbroglio, figured that "we have an obligation to do what a former Legislature committed to do, but never did."

Hamilton insisted that the Legislature's action authorizing the payment "brazenly exceeds" the state constitution's limit on laws granting individual privileges. Acting as a private taxpayer, he filed a special action in June asking the Arizona Supreme Court to block the payment. The court declined to hear the issue.

Mecham was at the eye of an unprecedented political storm in Arizona almost from the moment he was elected in November 1986, winning a three-way race with 40 percent of the vote. When he announced that he was rescinding a paid state holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., a recall drive kicked into motion.

But that's not what drove Mecham from office. In April 1988, after an investigation by the House, the Senate convicted him of obstructing justice and misusing state funds.

The Senate voted to pay Mecham's legal expenses at the time. But because no formal appropriation had been voted upon by both chambers, the state treasurer refused to write a check--hence the stalemate.

The perennial candidate, who ran for governor six times including a post-impeachment try in 1990, says he is not thinking of running again.

But some insiders wonder if Mecham can resist the urge as he receives a $400,000 windfall in an election year.