{"id":4085,"date":"2008-12-18T23:03:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-19T05:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/12\/sos-stands-firm-in-face-of-nonprofits-lawsuit\/"},"modified":"2008-12-18T23:03:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-19T05:03:00","slug":"sos-stands-firm-in-face-of-nonprofits-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/12\/sos-stands-firm-in-face-of-nonprofits-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"SOS stands firm in face of nonprofits’ lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Secretary of State\u2019s Office<\/a> says it is standing firm in the face of a lawsuit challenging its attempt to force two nonprofits to register as political committees or pay steep fines.<\/p>\n

\u201cAttorney General (Gary) King<\/a> said it best: \u2018If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it\u2019s probably a duck,\u2019\u201d Secretary of State Mary Herrera<\/a> said this evening in a news release. \u201cWe cannot allow organizations with political agendas to manipulate the campaign reporting laws of New Mexico for the sole purpose of benefiting any political party, Democrat, Republican or independent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Herrera said she\u2019s confident \u201cthat justice will prevail, and that the integrity of New Mexico\u2019s campaign reporting laws will be preserved by our judicial system.\u201d<\/p>\n

But again, as she and King have done in the past, Herrera failed to state exactly why she believes mailers sent out by SouthWest Organizing Project<\/a> (SWOP) and the Center for Civic Policy\u2019s<\/a> New Mexico Youth Organized (NMYO) two to three months before the June primary targeting several lawmakers, including some who had primary opponents, fit the definition of \u201cpolitical activity\u201d in the state\u2019s Campaign Reporting Act<\/a>. All they have done is use the \u201cduck\u201d quote.<\/p>\n

The nonprofits filed the lawsuit earlier this week<\/a> in an attempt to block the efforts to force them to register as political committees or pay steep fines. The groups hope to put an end to what the lawsuit calls the \u201cchilling effect\u201d the state agencies\u2019 action has had on the groups\u2019 right to free speech.<\/p>\n

You can read the entire complaint, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque, by clicking here<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Earlier this year, King advised the secretary of state that the nonprofits had resorted to political campaigning in the mailers, like this one<\/a>. The secretary of state ordered both groups to register as political committees and comply with the Campaign Reporting Act by regularly reporting contributions and expenditures publicly, just like candidates, campaigns and political action committees.<\/p>\n

The groups say their mailers were related to a coming special session of the Legislature, not the election, and they shouldn\u2019t have to register.<\/p>\n

By way of disclosure, I also write for the New Mexico Independent<\/a>, which is owned by the Center for Independent Media<\/a> in Washington. When the group was starting up its New Mexico news site earlier this year, the Center for Civic Policy helped it locate funding sources. The Center for Civic Policy has never tried to use that fact to influence anything I have written.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Secretary of State\u2019s Office says it is standing firm in the face of a lawsuit challenging its attempt to force two nonprofits to register as political committees or pay steep fines. \u201cAttorney General (Gary) King said it best: \u2018If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it\u2019s probably a duck,\u2019\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4085","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=4085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4085\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}