{"id":15225,"date":"2010-04-01T09:53:44","date_gmt":"2010-04-01T15:53:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=15225"},"modified":"2010-04-01T09:53:51","modified_gmt":"2010-04-01T15:53:51","slug":"judicial-candidate-appeals-public-financing-ruling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/04\/judicial-candidate-appeals-public-financing-ruling\/","title":{"rendered":"Judicial candidate appeals public financing ruling"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Dennis W. Montoya<\/p><\/div>\n

Appellate judge candidate Dennis W. Montoya<\/a> is appealing the secretary of state\u2019s decision to reject his application for public financing.<\/p>\n

Montoya\u2019s campaign manager, Santiago Ju\u00e1rez, filed the appeal<\/a> with the Secretary of State\u2019s Office on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Secretary of State Mary Herrera<\/a> sent Montoya a letter<\/a> on Friday notifying him that he exceeded the $5,000 limit on what publicly financed candidates can contribute to their own campaigns as seed money. Montoya\u2019s\u00a0seed money report<\/a> indicates that he contributed $8,887.29 to his campaign.<\/p>\n

But Ju\u00e1rez wrote in his appeal that \u201cseed money\u201d is defined in state law as \u201ca contribution raised for the primary purpose of enabling applicant candidates to collect qualifying signatures.\u201d He said the $8,887.29 was for \u201cgeneral electioneering and preparation for delegate voting at the Democratic State Convention,\u201d not for collecting petition signatures.<\/p>\n

The problem, according to Ju\u00e1rez, is that the public financing law, which was recently expanded to included statewide judicial candidates, \u201cis not clear how judicial candidates shall submit their general electioneering expenses for qualifying as a candidate through the convention process.\u201d<\/p>\n

The public financing law previously applied only to candidates for the Public Regulation Commission, who don\u2019t have to compete for ballot position at their party\u2019s preprimary nominating convention because they aren\u2019t statewide candidates. Ju\u00e1rez wrote that the Montoya campaign is \u201ctrying to preserve the intent and integrity\u201d of the law, but if it denies publicly financed statewide candidates their right to participate in the preprimary conventions, then it\u2019s unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, given the ability to reasonably understand that it was not the intent of the writers (of the law) to foreclose the full participation by statewide candidates, the law can allow Mr. Montoya to participate and the New Mexico Legislature can fix the inconsistencies at the next legislative session,\u201d Ju\u00e1rez wrote in his letter.<\/p>\n

Montoya received Herrera\u2019s letter Tuesday and had three days to challenge the ruling.<\/p>\n

Deputy Secretary of State and Elections Director Don Francisco Trujillo<\/a> confirmed that his office had received the appeal.<\/p>\n

Trujillo said his office may have a decision on the appeal by next Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in the process of following the protocol and scheduling the appeal based on statute.
\nThis is the earliest date that we tentatively expect a decision may be rendered by,\u201d Trujillo said.<\/p>\n

Montoya, an Albuquerque lawyer, is running against Appeals Court Judge\u00a0Linda Vanzi<\/a> in the Democratic primary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Appellate judge candidate Dennis W. Montoya is appealing the secretary of state\u2019s decision to reject his application for public financing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[108,161,107],"class_list":["post-15225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-2010-election","tag-judiciary","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15225","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=15225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15225\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}