{"id":40532,"date":"2012-06-01T15:22:50","date_gmt":"2012-06-01T21:22:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=40532"},"modified":"2012-06-01T19:52:35","modified_gmt":"2012-06-02T01:52:35","slug":"sos-reverses-courses-will-issue-matching-funds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2012\/06\/sos-reverses-courses-will-issue-matching-funds\/","title":{"rendered":"SOS reverses courses, will issue matching funds"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Secretary<\/a>

Secretary of State Dianna Duran<\/p><\/div>\n

Updated, 7:45 p.m.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The federal judge rejected the request to stop the distribution of matching funds since they had already been distributed, so the publicly financed candidates now have the money to spend by Tuesday. The judge ordered an accelerated schedule for addressing the GOP lawsuit seeking to invalidate the matching-funds law so that the issue will be resolved soon and there will be some certainty for candidates in the general election about funding.<\/p>\n

Original post:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

But a federal judge will consider this afternoon whether to rule the state\u2019s matching-fund law unconstitutional, so the issue isn\u2019t settled.<\/h4>\n

Secretary of State Dianna Duran<\/a> is reversing courses and releasing matching funds to publicly financed candidates today.<\/p>\n

Chief of Staff Kenneth Ortiz confirmed in an e-mail that the funds are being made available to all publicly financed candidates in PRC and Court of Appeals races today.<\/p>\n

But the drama surrounding the funds may not be over. An out-of-state federal judge who is newly appointed to oversee the GOP lawsuit trying to invalidate the state\u2019s matching funds law will hold an emergency hearing today at 4 p.m. in Albuquerque.<\/p>\n

Duran\u2019s reversal came after a state judge on Thursday ordered her to issue the matching funds<\/a> state law says Democratic PRC District 1 candidate Cynthia B. Hall<\/a> is due – $61,066. The judge didn\u2019t order Duran to release funds to other candidates, but Ortiz said the secretary of state will do that anyway.<\/p>\n

The matching funds are an issue because, as NMPolitics.net\u00a0reported Thursday<\/a>, a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling struck down a similar matching-funds law in Arizona\u00a0in 2011<\/a>. Duran\u2019s decision to withhold the funds came early this week and followed two federal court hearings in\u00a0the case brought by the Bernalillo County GOP and others challenging the constitutionality of New Mexico\u2019s matching funds provision.<\/p>\n

The federal judge denied a request from the plaintiffs \u2013 and Hall opponent Al Park<\/a>, a privately financed candidate who filed a motion to intervene last week \u2013 to issue a temporary restraining order requiring Duran to withhold the funds.<\/p>\n

Despite the denial of the request from the plaintiffs, Duran initially decided to withhold the funds anyway,\u00a0saying<\/a> the attorney general advised that the New Mexico law was probably unconstitutional but Duran should issue the matching funds anyway unless a court ordered otherwise.<\/p>\n

Before reversing courses, Duran rejected that advice, saying she is \u201cfaced with two conflicting legal directives\u201d \u2013 a state law requiring the disbursement of funds and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that says such disbursements would violate the constitutional rights of non-publicly financed candidates and their donors.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the federal judge who rejected the GOP request to stop issuance of the matching funds recused herself from the case, leading to the newly appointed judge\u2019s hearing this afternoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATED: Secretary of State Dianna Duran is reversing courses and releasing matching funds to publicly financed candidates today, and a federal judge has declined to stop that.<\/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":[156,223,161,217],"class_list":["post-40532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2012-election","tag-campaign-finance","tag-judiciary","tag-prc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40532","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=40532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}