{"id":103100,"date":"2015-12-01T08:51:13","date_gmt":"2015-12-01T15:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=103100"},"modified":"2015-12-15T12:30:12","modified_gmt":"2015-12-15T19:30:12","slug":"following-the-money-becomes-even-more-difficult","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2015\/12\/following-the-money-becomes-even-more-difficult\/","title":{"rendered":"Following the money becomes even more difficult"},"content":{"rendered":"

COMMENTARY:<\/strong> It\u2019s going to be exhausting and, too often, impossible to follow the money spent on elections in New Mexico next year.<\/p>\n

\"Heath<\/a>

Heath Haussamen<\/p><\/div>\n

I expect the state to be flooded with political spending. In addition to the presidential race, several members of our congressional delegation are up for re-election.<\/p>\n

On a state level, there\u2019s a fight brewing for control of the New Mexico House of Representatives and Senate. Dianna Duran\u2019s resignation<\/a> also means a secretary of state race.<\/p>\n

So-called \u201cdark money\u201d \u2013 cash funneled through nonprofits that don\u2019t have to disclose donors \u2013 is a big problem on the right<\/a> and on the left<\/a>. It\u2019s so pervasive that Democratic members of Congress recently complained about dark money in a video<\/a> created by a left-leaning group funded by dark money.<\/p>\n

Weak laws, a lack of enforcement, and ethically challenged decisions add to\u00a0the problem in New Mexico. Duran was stealing money<\/a> from her campaign for years before anyone noticed. Many others have been sloppy<\/a>, at best, about reporting campaign donations and spending.<\/p>\n

State law isn\u2019t clear<\/a> on how lobbyists should report donations to candidates. KOB-TV in Albuquerque recently identified hundreds of thousands of dollars<\/a> in donations to 10 legislators that were nearly impossible to track because of discrepancies between how candidates and lobbyists reported them.<\/p>\n

And Court of Appeals Judge J. Miles Hanisee intentionally concealed<\/a> use of a political operative\u2019s services when he ran for election in 2014. Hanisee paid Jay McCleskey\u2019s company, McCleskey Media, through a DBA (a company \u201cdoing business as\u201d a different name) instead of writing checks directly to McCleskey Media \u2013 which, as a result, didn\u2019t appear on public finance reports.<\/p>\n

All this reveals that the state\u2019s campaign finance reporting system<\/a> is a joke. This crisis should spark action in the next legislative session in January. Gov. Susana Martinez, who controls the agenda, hasn\u2019t decided whether to allow consideration of reform.<\/p>\n

There are local-government problems too. Some residents in my hometown of Las Cruces received an anonymous mailer<\/a> a few weeks ago attacking a city council candidate. City law forbids anonymous mailers. But it\u2019s difficult to find the offenders.<\/p>\n

Even if we could identify those responsible, there\u2019s no penalty for violations. Lawbreakers apparently operate with impunity.<\/p>\n

Las Cruces\u2019 election will be remembered for an out-of-town super PAC\u2019s immense spending<\/a>. While GOAL WestPAC is disclosing donors<\/a>, there are still barriers to transparency. The city doesn\u2019t require candidates or groups to file finance reports in the two weeks before an election. We know nothing about the mad dash to the finish line until a month after the election is over, when a final report is due.<\/p>\n

And the big money that has seeped into local elections doesn\u2019t show up at FollowTheMoney.org<\/a> \u2013 a national database of money in state politics \u2013 or the federal money-in-politics database OpenSecrets.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Another group\u2019s spending in the Las Cruces election was small but illustrates how difficult it is to track money. The ProgressNow New Mexico PAC raised about $3,100<\/a>. Almost half came as donations from individuals whose identities the group was required disclose. Another $400 came from a different ProgressNow PAC. You\u2019ll have to look up finance reports for that PAC if you want to know how it\u2019s funded.<\/p>\n

Finally, $1,247.04 came as an in-kind donation of staff time from ProgressNow\u2019s nonprofit, which is allowed to keep its funding secret.<\/p>\n

Confused? I am. It\u2019s hard to keep up with all of this. I suspect that\u2019s intentional.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Weak laws, a lack of enforcement, and ethically challenged decisions add to the problem of dark money in New Mexico.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55852,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,10],"tags":[708,2111,705,107,706,116],"class_list":["post-103100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-haussamen-columns","tag-2016-election","tag-jay-mccleskey","tag-money-in-politics","tag-roundhouse","tag-transparency","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103100","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=103100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}