{"id":38882,"date":"2012-04-12T06:42:32","date_gmt":"2012-04-12T12:42:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=38882"},"modified":"2012-04-13T06:19:05","modified_gmt":"2012-04-13T12:19:05","slug":"sunland-park-among-cities-requiring-no-campaign-disclosure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2012\/04\/sunland-park-among-cities-requiring-no-campaign-disclosure\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunland Park among cities requiring no campaign disclosure"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Roll<\/a>

Photo by AMagill\/flickr.com<\/p><\/div>\n

Sunland Park has no public records detailing who funded the mayoral campaign of the indicted Daniel Salinas. It\u2019s one of many cities, towns and villages across the state that requires no disclosure of campaign donations and expenditures.<\/h4>\n

Want to know who funded the mayoral campaign of Daniel Salinas, who\u2019s at the center of a massive public corruption scandal<\/a> that has rocked Sunland Park?<\/p>\n

The city has no public records that will provide that information. Sunland Park doesn\u2019t require candidates to file campaign finance reports. In Do\u00f1a Ana County, neither do the City of Anthony, the Village of Hatch, or the Town of Mesilla, the Las Cruces Sun-News reported today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From the newspaper:<\/p>\n

\u201cClerks from Hatch, Mesilla and Anthony explained that reports are not required and therefore the records did not exist. Mesilla town Clerk Nicholas Eckert said that a city can decide to impose its own rules for campaign finance reporting, but there isn\u2019t a state law that mandates it across the board.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are such laws in place for county, regional and state candidates who run in the primary and general elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cSunland Park City Clerk Liz Gamez did not respond to the inspection of public records act request; several attempts to reach her were unsuccessful. But the city\u2019s new mayor pro tem, Isabel Santos, said there isn\u2019t a finance-reporting requirement.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Then how do we know who\u2019s influencing municipal campaigns? State Rep. Andy Nu\u00f1ez, who is also a Hatch trustee, was quoted by the Sun-News as saying he doesn\u2019t file finance reports in trustee races because, \u201cIn Hatch, we don\u2019t have to spend any money to run for election.\u201d<\/p>\n

He acknowledged that in some bigger cities candidates do spend money.<\/p>\n

That includes Sunland Park, where the city was plastered in advance of the March 6 election with professionally made signs promoting the candidacies of Salinas and his slate of council candidates and Gerardo Hernandez, the mayoral candidate who lost to Salinas by fewer than 90 votes, and his slate of candidates.<\/p>\n

Hernandez even had a massive sign hanging on the side of a tractor-trailer that was parked near a polling place.<\/p>\n

The only thing we do know about Salinas\u2019 campaign funding, thanks to court records, is that he allegedly took a $10,000 contribution from a company that law enforcement charges was involved, along with Salinas, in defrauding the city<\/a> out of tens of thousands of dollars.<\/p>\n

The Sun-News pointed out in its article that the City of Las Cruces is working on reforming its campaign finance ordinance<\/a>\u00a0after former Mayor Bill Mattiace\u00a0donated $10,000 from his campaign account<\/a>\u00a0to help pay for the funeral of his sister-in-law\u2019s husband \u2013 a donation that was legal because the city doesn\u2019t regulate how campaign funds can be spent.<\/p>\n

Should the state implement requirements?<\/h3>\n

Should the state implement minimal requirements all municipalities must follow?<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it would be a bad idea,\u201d the Sun-News quoted Nu\u00f1ez as saying, though he said he wanted to check with the municipal league.<\/p>\n

Proposals have gone before the Legislature before. The municipal league has supported implementing requirements about disclosure of contributions and spending. But the Sun-News quoted the organization\u2019s executive director, William Fulginiti, as saying such laws shouldn\u2019t be so \u201conerous\u201d that small towns can\u2019t comply.<\/p>\n

In an editorial<\/a>, the Sun-News said the state should implement minimum standards that apply to all municipalities.<\/p>\n

\u201cCities, towns and villages throughout New Mexico are free to decide just how much information they want to share with voters,\u201d the newspaper wrote. \u201cAnd far too many have decided they don\u2019t want to share any at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cVoters should have the right to know who is trying to influence the outcome of the election,\u201d the editorial states. \u201cAnd, they should have the right to know how much money a candidate has raised, and how that money was spent.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunland Park has no public records detailing who funded the mayoral campaign of the indicted Daniel Salinas. It\u2019s one of many cities, towns and villages across the state that requires no disclosure of campaign donations and expenditures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[173,223,142,109,166,145,163,114,107,167],"class_list":["post-38882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-anthony","tag-campaign-finance","tag-crime","tag-ethics-reform","tag-hatch","tag-las-cruces","tag-mesilla","tag-public-corruption","tag-roundhouse","tag-sunland-park"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38882","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=38882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38882\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}