{"id":26830,"date":"2011-03-04T10:37:25","date_gmt":"2011-03-04T17:37:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=26830"},"modified":"2011-03-04T13:20:43","modified_gmt":"2011-03-04T20:20:43","slug":"common-cause-says-complaint-against-guv-isn%e2%80%99t-political","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2011\/03\/common-cause-says-complaint-against-guv-isn%e2%80%99t-political\/","title":{"rendered":"Common Cause says complaint against guv isn\u2019t partisan attack"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Gov. Susana Martinez<\/p><\/div>\n

Gov. Susana Martinez<\/a> alleges that a complaint from two groups that she violated campaign finance law by using campaign funds to lobby the Legislature is a partisan attack.<\/p>\n

One of those groups, Common Cause<\/a>, says that\u2019s ridiculous.<\/p>\n

\u201cCommon Cause has a history of, in this type of circumstance, filing complaints against both parties, so the idea stated in the governor\u2019s letter that this is purely a partisan attack \u2013 at least from Common Cause\u2019s perspective that is not true,\u201d said Common Cause Executive Director Steven Robert Allen.<\/p>\n

He was referring to a letter the Republican governor\u2019s campaign attorney, Paul Kienzle, sent to the secretary of state in response to the complaints. In the letter, Kienzle wrote that the complaint came from \u201cpartisan special interest groups who are attempting to misuse the complaint process and silence the First Amendment rights of persons with whom they do not agree.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the letter here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As an example of Common Cause filing a complaint against a Democrat, Allen pointed to the group\u2019s complaint \u2013 and additional work with the Attorney General\u2019s Office \u2013 in the case against Public Regulation Commissioner Jerome Block Jr.,<\/a> who is facing felony charges related to abuses of the state\u2019s public financing system.<\/p>\n

In the case of Martinez, Common Cause and Somos Un Pueblo Unido<\/a> filed complaints in response to the governor\u2019s using campaign funds to pay for radio ads<\/a> pushing lawmakers to approve legislation would make it illegal for undocumented immigrants to obtain driver\u2019s licenses. On Thursday, Secretary of State Dianna Duran<\/a> ruled that Martinez didn\u2019t violate the Campaign Reporting Act<\/a>, arguing that the ads \u201cpromote the governor\u2019s issues and ideas, and that the promotion of such issues and ideas are a standard campaign activity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Allen said that\u2019s an extremely broad interpretation of the law that \u201cmakes that section of the act functionally meaningless.\u201d He said he doesn\u2019t see how lobbying activity two months into the governor\u2019s tenure can be construed as part of her 2014 re-election campaign.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Allen said, \u201cI don\u2019t want to overstate the violation,\u201d which would be punishable by a fine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the small civil fine outlined in the act would be appropriate for this, but I do think the act needs to be enforced and I think that\u2019s the secretary of state\u2019s job,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Duran suggested that former Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a>, a Democrat, engaged in lobbying activity similar to Martinez\u2019s with campaign funds. Allen said his group didn\u2019t know about such activity by Richardson until Duran brought it up on Thursday.<\/p>\n

A prior version of this posting incorrectly reported Allen\u2019s final quote as, \u201cI think the small civil fine outlawed in the act would be appropriate for this, but I do think the act needs to be enforced and I think that\u2019s the secretary of state\u2019s job.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Susana Martinez alleges that a complaint from two groups that she violated campaign finance law by using campaign funds to lobby the Legislature is a partisan attack. One of those groups, Common Cause, says that\u2019s ridiculous.<\/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":[197,107],"class_list":["post-26830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-2014-election","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26830","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=26830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26830\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}