![\"Las](\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/LasCrucesCityHall1-336x186.jpg\")
<\/a>Heath Haussamen \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p>
Las Cruces City Hall<\/p><\/div>\n
GOAL WestPAC filed its first finance report<\/a> with the City Clerk’s Office on Friday. Three donors — all from southeast New Mexico — have given a combined $80,000 in the last week to fund the group’s efforts to influence Tuesday’s Las Cruces municipal election<\/a>, according to the report.<\/p>\n The group had spent $22,509.38 by Friday. All of that went to the public-relations firm\u00a0Agenda<\/a>, which\u00a0is handling GOAL West’s\u00a0mailers related to the Las Cruces election.<\/p>\n As NMPolitics.net has reported<\/a>, GOAL West has endorsed one of Miyagishima’s opponents, Miguel Silva, in addition to City Council District 1 candidate Eli Guzman and District 4 candidate Richard Hall. Last week the group began attacks on Miyagishima, Guzman’s opponent Kasandra Gandara, and one of Hall’s opponents, Jack Eakman.<\/p>\n Miyagishima has taken the hardest\u00a0hits. GOAL West launched an assault Friday evening that’s among the most harsh attacks\u00a0political operatives told NMPolitics.net they can remember in New Mexico in recent years.<\/p>\n NMPolitics.net isn’t repeating the details of negative attacks from any candidate or group\u00a0this close to Tuesday’s election.<\/p>\n GOAL West’s latest assault on Miyagishima included a post on its website that was widely disseminated through social media, flyers left on cars in the parking lot of at least one department store, robocalls to Las Cruces residents\u00a0on Saturday, and a mass email.<\/p>\n The Las Cruces Sun-News<\/a>\u00a0declined\u00a0an ad from\u00a0GOAL West over the weekend related to the attack on Miyagishima.<\/p>\n “I refused to run the ad because we do not allow new allegations this close to Election Day — because the accused does not have time to respond,” Sun-News Publisher Frank Leto said. “That has been my policy for over 30 years.”<\/p>\n GOAL West was formed in 2013 with the help of U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., though a spokesman said Thursday<\/a>\u00a0the congressman is “not involved in GOAL\u00a0West\u2019s operations.” In Las Cruces, the PAC is targeting candidates who are ideologically at odds with\u00a0Pearce.<\/p>\n The PAC’s treasurer is Pearce’s brother Philip, who lives in Texas. Most of the PAC’s money comes from eastern New Mexico. The group\u00a0is based in Hobbs, according to the finance report<\/a> it filed with the city clerk. In the past it’s used an address in College Station, Texas.<\/p>\n GOAL West’s executive director is Burly Cain of Albuquerque, who also works for the libertarian-leaning Rio Grande Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n The three funders of GOAL West’s efforts to influence the Las Cruces election are:<\/p>\n Agenda, the company GOAL West is paying to help with its Las Cruces election work, is headed in Albuquerque\u00a0by former Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Turner<\/a>.<\/p>\n This apparently isn’t the first time Agenda has worked with a PAC to spend money from big donors to influence\u00a0an election in New Mexico. In 2013, Albuquerque resident\u00a0Jerry Ginsburg gave $40,000 to Concerned Citizens of District 2, a PAC that tried unsuccessfully to help Roxanna Meyers defeat Isaac Benton for a council seat in that city, according to the Albuquerque Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n Progressive activist Pat Davis, whose ProgressNow New Mexico is involved in politics in Albuquerque and Las Cruces<\/a>, wrote a column<\/a> in 2013\u00a0documenting apparent\u00a0ties between Agenda and the Concerned Citizens\u00a0PAC. Davis\u00a0argued that Turner’s company “started the PAC” and “orchestrated” its attacks.<\/p>\n No one is alleging that Agenda\u00a0is orchestrating GOAL West’s attacks in Las Cruces. But the situation in Albuquerque helps illustrate\u00a0why PAC spending\u00a0matters. From the Journal<\/a>:<\/p>\n Ginsburg\u2019s $40,000 donation alone is almost as much as either Benton or Meyers can spend on the race themselves. They opted into the city\u2019s public-financing system, which limits their spending to about $47,700 each.<\/p>\n Under the city system, political committees aren\u2019t bound by contribution limits, the way mayoral and City Council candidates are. Mayoral candidates, for example, cannot accept more than $5,192 from any one donor.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n GOAL West may be on track to outspend any other candidate or group involved in the Las Cruces election. If it spends the entire $80,000 it reported raising, that would be more than any candidate or group spent in 2011<\/a>, the last time there was a mayoral election in Las Cruces.<\/p>\n The group’s next finance report is due in\u00a0early December, a month after the election is over.<\/p>\n Spending by independent groups on local elections may be the new norm,\u00a0The Huffington Post\u00a0wrote in a Saturday article with the headline, “Your state and local elections are now a Super PAC playground.”<\/a><\/p>\n While the wealthiest Americans are dominating spending in the 2016 presidential and congressional races in the post-Citizens United<\/a> era, “local and state elections in 2015 are also attracting big money from Forbes-listed billionaires and local wealthy interests that’s funneled through super PACs,” the article states.<\/p>\n Such spending on state and local races “often has more of a direct influence on government,” according to the article.<\/p>\nThose\u00a0behind the attacks<\/h3>\n
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‘A super PAC playground’<\/h3>\n
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