{"id":38949,"date":"2012-04-16T10:26:01","date_gmt":"2012-04-16T16:26:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=38949"},"modified":"2012-04-16T20:03:06","modified_gmt":"2012-04-17T02:03:06","slug":"da-but-not-opponent-accused-of-elections-violations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2012\/04\/da-but-not-opponent-accused-of-elections-violations\/","title":{"rendered":"DA, but not opponent, accused of elections violations"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Amy<\/a>

Amy Orlando<\/p><\/div>\n

Among the allegations is that Amy Orlando failed to disclose on her campaign website who paid for it, but ProgressNow New Mexico failed to mention that Orlando\u2019s opponent did the same thing.<\/h4>\n

Most political candidates interpret state law to mean they need to put a \u201cpaid for by\u201d disclaimer on campaign websites, but Do\u00f1a Ana County District Attorney Amy Orlando<\/a> doesn\u2019t have such a disclaimer on her site<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s one of two reasons the left-leaning group ProgressNow New Mexico slammed Orlando, a Republican, last week. From a blog post<\/a> on their website:<\/p>\n

\u201cA recent mailer from Orlando to prospective voters and supporters\u00a0failed to disclose the name of the person or group behind printing the mailer. \u2026 Similarly, Orlando\u2019s campaign website,\u00a0www.amyorlandoda.com,\u00a0fails to disclose the person or group responsible for paying for and publishing the site.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Mark<\/a>

Mark D'Antonio<\/p><\/div>\n

ProgressNow cited the relevant state statute: \u201cAccording to New Mexico law (NMSA 1-19-16<\/a>), failing to disclose either the printer of mailers or persons responsible for paying for campaign advertising and communications is a\u00a0fourth-degree felony, punishable by up to 18-months in jail.\u201d<\/p>\n

Orlando said Friday that she and her campaign team have complied with the law, but she didn\u2019t elaborate. Three days later, her website still doesn\u2019t state who paid for it.<\/p>\n

Orlando told NMPolitics.net she personally paid to register the domain name.<\/p>\n

The campaign website<\/a> for Orlando\u2019s Democratic opponent, Mark D\u2019Antonio, also doesn\u2019t state who paid for it, though it does state that the campaign copyrighted it, just as Orlando\u2019s states that it\u2019s copyrighted by \u201cAmy Orlando \u2013 District Attorney.\u201d ProgressNow didn\u2019t mention the problem with D\u2019Antonio\u2019s website or accuse him of a felony.<\/p>\n

Not picking and choosing which laws to follow<\/h3>\n

As ProgressNow pointed out, Orlando said this recently when explaining why she challenged D\u2019Antonio\u2019s candidacy<\/a> in court after he left the district number of the office he was seeking off his nominating petitions:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cAs district attorney,\u00a0I cannot and will not pick and choose which laws I will follow.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Supreme Court decided to let D\u2019Antonio and other candidates in that situation stay on the ballot<\/a>.<\/p>\n

ProgressNow called on the attorney general to investigate Orlando and called on the DA to \u201cmake it clear to the residents of Do\u00f1a Ana County that she truly is the law-and-order candidate she claims to be. Ms. Orlando should self-report these two individual violations of the Campaign Reporting Act and then either appoint a special prosecutor to investigate these violations or request that New Mexico Attorney General Gary King conduct an investigation in order to avoid the potential conflict of interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

The state GOP responded late last week with a robocall to Do\u00f1a Ana County residents that called D\u2019Antonio a \u201cpolitician\u201d who has the backing of a liberal special interest group, referring to ProgressNow.<\/p>\n

Update, 10:50 a.m.<\/h3>\n

Orlando pointed out that her website does disclose who paid for it on the \u201ccontribute\u201d page<\/a>. But the disclosure isn\u2019t on the home page, which is where most candidates put it to maximize visibility.<\/p>\n

Update, 11:25 a.m.<\/h3>\n

D\u2019Antonio described the website he has up now as a \u201cplaceholder\u201d that was put up by a friend about eight months ago. He said he \u201cdidn\u2019t even know it was up until recently\u201d and it \u201cwas never intended to be the webpage for my campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n

D\u2019Antonio said he\u2019s in the process of building a campaign website to replace the other and, in the meantime, will have his friend take down the existing site that doesn\u2019t include the \u201cpaid for by\u201d disclaimer.<\/p>\n

A prior version of this posting incorrectly said the GOP robocall identified D\u2019Antonio as a \u201ccareer politician.\u201d It actually identified him simply as a \u201cpolitician.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATED: Among the allegations is that Amy Orlando failed to disclose on her campaign website who paid for it, but ProgressNow New Mexico failed to mention that Orlando\u2019s opponent did the same thing.<\/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":[156,142,115,111],"class_list":["post-38949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2012-election","tag-crime","tag-dona-ana-county","tag-open-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38949","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=38949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38949\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}