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PHOENIX — Jack LaSota is taping radio ads and phone messages urging Arizonans to vote for Proposition 200, saying that as a former state attorney general, he knows "the payday loan industry needs to be reformed."

What LaSota does not disclose is that his law firm, Miller, LaSota & Peters, is the paid lobbyist for the group of payday lenders that has collected more than $14.6 million for Proposition 200.

The state law allowing short-term lenders to charge fees that translate into more than a 400 percent annual interest rate expires in July 2010. Proposition 200 repeals that sunset provision as well as making some regulatory changes.

Lee Miller, LaSota's partner, lobbied the Legislature last year to repeal the sunset provision in the law. When lawmakers refused, the lenders decided to go to the ballot instead.

And the pro-200 campaign itself has paid the firm of Miller, LaSota and Peters more than $8,500 for "professional services."

LaSota also fails to mention in the radio ad or robo calls directed at voters that he was never actually elected attorney general. He inherited the job and held it for less than two years when his boss, Bruce Babbitt, became governor in 1978 after the death of Wesley Bolin.

LaSota did not return repeated phone calls to his office, home or mobile. Calls to Stan Barnes, who is managing the campaign, also were not returned.

The ads and phone calls take a very firm tone, saying the payday loan industry "needs to be stopped," and the measure would "crack down on the payday loan industry."

The only way to know it is the lenders themselves who are sponsoring the ad is if listeners know the Arizona Community Financial Services Association, the group listed at the end as paying for the commercial, is the payday lenders themselves.

"As the former chief law enforcement officer of our state, I can tell you with confidence that the payday loan industry needs to be reformed in order to better protect Arizona consumers," LaSota says in the automated telephone calls.

In the commercial, he says he supports the measure "because it will give the authorities the power to clean up the payday loan industry and crack down on the bad apples."

Most lenders can charge no more than 36 percent interest. But the law passed in 2000 lets borrowers get up to $500 for up to two weeks by writing out a check to the lender for the amount sought, plus $17.85 for each $100 borrowed. The lender agrees not to cash it for two weeks.

On an annual basis, that fee equals more than 450 percent. Proposition 200 would cap the fee at $15 per $100, the equivalent of 391 percent.

But the key provision of the measure deals with that 2000 law exempting payday lenders from the usury cap.

Proposition 200 would make payday lending a permanent part of Arizona law and preclude the Legislature from ever imposing future restrictions because the state constitution bars lawmakers from altering anything approved at the ballot without first taking it back to voters.

The initiative does include some new restrictions on how the industry can operate, including prohibiting loans from being "rolled over" into new ones with additional fees, when borrowers cannot pay up at the end of the first two weeks.

The new version would allow those who cannot pay after two weeks to get an extension for up to four paydays — or four months if the person is unemployed — with no additional interest if periodic payments are made on time.

The $14.6 million contributed by the lenders makes Proposition 200 the second-most-expensive campaign in state history.