{"id":101320,"date":"2015-11-17T08:12:19","date_gmt":"2015-11-17T15:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=101320"},"modified":"2015-11-17T12:59:21","modified_gmt":"2015-11-17T19:59:21","slug":"progressive-group-spent-about-3100-on-las-cruces-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2015\/11\/progressive-group-spent-about-3100-on-las-cruces-election\/","title":{"rendered":"Progressive group spent about $3,100 on Las Cruces election"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A progressive political action committee and the nonprofit that started it spent <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/ProgressNowPACReport.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">about $3,100<\/a> to influence the Las Cruces municipal election earlier this month.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_71632\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 336px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-71632\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/LasCrucesCityHall1-336x186.jpg\" alt=\"Las Cruces City Hall\" width=\"336\" height=\"186\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/LasCrucesCityHall1-336x186.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/LasCrucesCityHall1-768x426.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/LasCrucesCityHall1-771x428.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/LasCrucesCityHall1-1170x649.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/LasCrucesCityHall1.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 336px) 100vw, 336px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Heath Haussamen \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Las Cruces City Hall<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The money went to ProgressNow NM PAC&#8217;s efforts to help Kasandra Gandara and Jack Eakman win seats on the city council. They\u00a0won by narrow margins and have been <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lcsun-news.com\/story\/news\/local\/2015\/11\/16\/newly-elected-mayor-councilors-sworn\/75896592\/\" target=\"_blank\">sworn in<\/a>. A <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2015\/11\/losing-candidates-ask-for-recount-in-las-cruces-city-council-races\/\" target=\"_blank\">recount<\/a>\u00a0of both races is being held Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>ProgressNow NM PAC&#8217;s spending may\u00a0be the only money\u00a0from an independent group that\u00a0helped\u00a0progressive-backed candidates in Las Cruces&#8217; Nov. 3 election. No other\u00a0group backing those candidates has registered or filed a finance report with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.las-cruces.org\/departments\/city-clerks-office\/municipal-elections\" target=\"_blank\">the City Clerk&#8217;s Office<\/a>, and NMPolitics.net has learned of no other spending by independent groups to aid them.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>The report<\/h3>\n<p>Find ProgressNow NM PAC&#8217;s finance report <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/ProgressNowPACReport.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Meanwhile, independent groups spent a great deal of\u00a0money in an unsuccessful attempt to elect the progressive-backed candidates&#8217; opponents &#8212; Richard Hall in the District 4 council race that Eakman won, Eli Guzman in the District 1 race Gandara won, and\u00a0Miguel Silva, who Ken Miyagishima easily defeated to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2015\/11\/voters-give-miyagishima-a-third-term-as-las-cruces-mayor\/\" target=\"_blank\">win a third term<\/a> as Las Cruces&#8217; mayor.<\/p>\n<p>We won&#8217;t\u00a0know how much was\u00a0spent until the next finance reports are due in early December. But as of Oct. 19 &#8212; about two weeks before the election &#8212; independent groups had already spent big in support of Silva, Hall and Guzman:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>GOAL WestPAC had <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2015\/11\/super-pac-continues-barrage-of-negative-attacks-in-las-cruces\/\" target=\"_blank\">spent $22,509.38<\/a> and had almost $60,000 left to spend. It worked to elect Silva, Hall and Guzman.<\/li>\n<li>The National Association of Realtors Fund had <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2015\/10\/las-cruces-mayor-self-finances-re-election-bid-pac-aids-challenger\/\" target=\"_blank\">spent $14,383.91<\/a> to help Silva.<\/li>\n<li>Advance Las Cruces spent money\u00a0to help elect Silva. It reported no spending on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2015\/10\/last-minute-pac-and-anonymous-attacks-color-las-cruces-election\/\" target=\"_blank\">its first finance report<\/a> but NMPolitics.net is aware of at least one mailer the group sent after its Oct. 19 report attacking Miyagishima and praising Silva.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Miyagishima, meanwhile,\u00a0appears to have won\u00a0without any financial support from independent groups and despite\u00a0a barrage of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2015\/11\/super-pac-continues-barrage-of-negative-attacks-in-las-cruces\/\" target=\"_blank\">negative attacks<\/a>\u00a0from GOAL West and others. He largely <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2015\/10\/las-cruces-mayor-self-finances-re-election-bid-pac-aids-challenger\/\" target=\"_blank\">self-financed<\/a> his re-election bid.<\/p>\n<p>Lucas Herndon, Las Cruces organizer for ProgressNow NM, said all the PAC&#8217;s fundraising and spending related to the election is included in the report it filed Nov. 4.<\/p>\n<h3>Explaning\u00a0PAC&#8217;s\u00a0fundraising, spending<\/h3>\n<p>ProgressNow&#8217;s PAC sent one mailer attacking Guzman and praising Gandara. The PAC\u00a0also made phone calls and bought Facebook ads in support of Gandara and Eakman and set up a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lcvotes.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The PAC had three sources of funding that added up to $3,111.94, according to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/ProgressNowPACReport.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">its finance report<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Forty-four New Mexicans &#8212; some Las Crucens, others from as far away as Santa Fe and Los Alamos\u00a0&#8212;\u00a0gave a combined $1,464.90 to the PAC.\u00a0That included five donations of $100 apiece.<\/li>\n<li>ProgressNow&#8217;s other PAC &#8212; called <a href=\"https:\/\/progressnownm.wordpress.com\/better-nm-pac\/\" target=\"_blank\">Better NM PAC<\/a> &#8212; gave ProgressNow NM PAC $400. Better NM PAC focuses on state races, while ProgressNow NM PAC was set up specifically for\u00a0the Las Cruces election.<\/li>\n<li>The nonprofit that started both PACs &#8212; <a href=\"https:\/\/progressnownm.wordpress.com\/about-us\/\" target=\"_blank\">ProgressNow NM<\/a>, a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/501(c)_organization#501.28c.29.284.29\" target=\"_blank\">501(c)(4)<\/a>, donated $1,247.04 in &#8220;staff support&#8221; to the Las Cruces PAC for work related to the city election.\u00a0Herndon, the group&#8217;s Las Cruces organizer, is employed by the nonprofit.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meanwhile, independent groups that attempted to elect opponents of candidates backed by progressives spent lots more on their unsuccessful efforts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":71632,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[145,214,705],"class_list":["post-101320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-las-cruces","tag-las-cruces-election","tag-money-in-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}