NM Pop Politics

A lot of breaking Blockgate news… for something less, um, Blocky, check out our intern Bonar’s post on political pumpkins.

Democratic PRC candidate Jerome Block Jr.’s campaign manager, Jonathan “There’s a warrant out for my arrest” Valdez filed the most inane, misinformed complaint against his Green Party opponent, Rick Lass, today.

Block accuses Lass of accepting $7,000 in illegal contributions. What are these contributions?

• $3,000 from the Green Party of New Mexico.

And then he cites the three payments to the political action committee, Democrats for Rick Lass:

• $2,000 from former state Democratic Party Chairman Earl Potter
• $ 1,000 from Shelby Miller & Karin Wikstrom-Miller
• $1,000 from Sanford Brickner

Block cites this statute, which is part of state law defining what the Public Regulation Commission is:

C.   A candidate for election to the public regulation commission shall not solicit or accept:
… (2)   more than five hundred dollars ($500) per election from any other person.

OK, a FEW problems with this. First of all, Democrats for Lass is an independent PAC and can spend as much as it likes. Contributions to Democrats for Lass are not the same as Rick Lass’s own campaign committee, which files separate reports. Maybe Block would’ve had an argument if he pointed out that Bernie Perea was also paid by Lass’s campaign for work, because that could be problematic. But that’s another issue altogether and not one covered by this law: the money did not go to Lass’ campaign.

Number two, the Green Party of New Mexico isn’t a person, but a party, and as such IS allowed to donate up to the equivalent of 10 percent of what the state gave him. Something around $6,400. Here’s the statute on that, from the Voter Action Act, which regulates publicly funded campaigns:

A.   A certified candidate may accept monetary or in-kind contributions from a political party; provided that the aggregate amount of such contributions from all political party committees combined does not exceed the equivalent of ten percent of the value of that candidate’s aggregate public financing per election cycle.

That’s pretty clear, innit? So far, Lass has received in total $3250, if you include the $250 from the Green Party of Bernalillo County. Add to that another couple thousand in-kind for the office space the Green Party is lending Lass and he’s still under the limit.

Throughout today’s forum, Block read verbatim from a lot from the PRC’s Web site and other official resources. The question now, I guess, is whether he actually understood what we was reading–because he sure as shit can’t read the laws pertaining to his own candidacy.

And I don’t know why Block’s campaign would want to provoke the SOS, when he has at least two more outstanding violation that SFR has identified:

1) In July, SFR reported that Block had not paid for his Web site, which had been online since January. As crappy as it is, it was present on his campaign material throughout the primary. Jerome Block’s father admitted on record that he had asked the web department of his employer, Mescalero Apache Telecom Inc., to build his son a site. In fact, the Web site is still registered in MATI Networks’ name, which means it could be argued that the web site was an illegal in-kind contribution from a corporation.

Block claimed that he had never been billed for the site and so later (and only after SFR broke the story about it)  he finally paid for the site using general election funds. So, in essence, Block used general election money to pay for a primary election expense. He was just fined $5,000 on Friday for a similar offense.

What’s worse, is that he paid MATI Networks $507 for it in August and by the code Block cites in his complaint, that would definitely breach the $50 limit

2) Last week, SFR reported that a payment to an employee in the Attorney General’s office for a mailout was potentially illegal as well. In July, using general election funds, Block paid $350 to Cordy Medina. According to the AG spokesman Phil Sisneros, this was a payment for debt Block had outstanding since March. Again - that’s using general election funds to pay for unreported primary expenses.

Why is using general election money to pay primary expense illegal? Well, think of it this way. Had Block lost the primary, he would not have received general election funds with which to pay those two expenses. They would have been completely unreported, secret expenditures made on the behalf of his campaign.

SFR is currently awaiting a response from the Secretary of State’s office regarding these two issues.

In this week’s paper,  SFR covers the Green Party and Democrats for Lass money  and argues what Block should’ve: that he is entitled to matching funds. (Block says he requested matching funds, but we’ve received no confirmation on that from the SOS.)

If anybody wonders why I know/care so much about the intricacies of public campaign financing, it’s because that’s how I learned about politics: My first real reporting gig out of college was covering Arizona’s “Clean Elections” system leading up to and after the first publicly funded statewide race. Gov. Janet Napolitano (who’s been stumpin’ in New Mexico for Sen. Barack Obama) won her first term using public funds.

Anyway, Lass’ response to the complaint is after the jump. As the main man at Voting Matters, which passed public campaign financing (or at least a commitment to it) on the municipal election level in Santa Fe, he also knows a little bit about the law (and he explains it in terser words, too, with a political spin at the end).

From Rick Lass, via e-mail:

This complaint is absurd. Mr Block’s campaign clearly does not understand the law, particularly the Voter Action Act, which spells out publicly financed campaigns for the PRC. Section 1-19A-8 of the election code clearly states that a candidate for PRC may accept donations from a political party in an amount up to 10% of the total received from the state. ($6,477.80 in this case)

He also does not seem to understand the difference between a PAC (Democrats for Rick Lass) and a candidate (me), or that the Green Party is not a “person”.

This complaint is frivolous, and is being used by the Block campaign as a feeble attempt to deflect attention away from his illegal and unethical practices. Mr Block has proven himself incapable of holding an office of public trust, and is desperately trying to win this election by falsely accusing me of invented charges.

I trust the voters will see through his charade.