New Mexico Mercury

Voters in Albuquerque and Santa Fe overwhelmingly voted to establish public financing systems in both cities to eliminate the influence of special-interest money on our elected officials and to permit them to take office beholden to no one but the voters who elected them.

The systems are now facing two challenges, one old and one brand new.  The older challenge arises from a U.S. Supreme Court decision which held unconstitutional the part of the public financing law that allowed publicly financed candidates to obtain additional matching funds when they were outspent by privately financed opponents.  As a result of that decision, publicly financed candidates have been required to make do with their initial stipend and to take the risk that these amounts, which are much less than what was spent by many privately financed candidates in past elections, might not be sufficient to stand up against heavy spending by privately financed opponents.  The worry was that most candidates would not be willing to run this risk and would therefore reject public financing in favor of business-as-usual private fund-raising.

So far, the system seems to be meeting this first challenge. In Albuquerque, one Mayoral candidate and nine of fifteen city council candidates qualified for public financing. And in Santa Fe, of the five announced mayoral candidates who are regarded as having a serious chance, all of them have already committed to take public financing.  Many council candidates have also chosen public financing and only one has rejected it, although several are still uncommitted.  So far so good, but fingers crossed.

The second challenge to the public financing systems arose only recently when, “political committees” (or “PACs”) were created in both cities for the purpose of raising and spending private money to support the election of a particular candidate, even though all candidates in these races have either stated they will take public financing or have already qualified. This is not a good sign.  If it were to ignite a spending war among PACs supporting different candidates, it would reintroduce by the back door the very problem that public financing was meant to eliminate.

This unfortunate outcome can be avoided if the candidates and those who support them refuse to join in this arms race and take a firm stand against this kind of end-run around the public financing system. 

In Santa Fe, a PAC called Progressive Santa Fe and its sponsors have given assurances that the motives for its formation were purely defensive, and that this PAC, in its sponsors' words, will “back off” and refrain from any significant spending “if everybody is publicly financed and it's an even playing field.”  Common Cause New Mexico welcomes these assurances and encourages other PACs to do the same to protect the integrity of the system.

Common Cause New Mexico is asking publicly funded candidates to disavow involvement with PACs and other independent campaign spending groups, and to embrace public financing and run a clean campaign.

In Albuquerque, it is a different story as money has already been spent to influence voters. A PAC called Concerned Citizens of District 2 raised $40,000 from one donor, and then sent mailers to the voters in District 2 supporting one candidate in the race – even though both candidates are using public financing.  $40,000 is nearly the amount that the candidates themselves received for their campaigns, and when one person in the district matches that number in spending it can undermine the public financing system approved in 2005 by 69% of Albuquerque voters.

Our concern is the voters' perception that spending large amounts of money is the way to influence the office-holders' decisions and large spending by outside groups undermines the candidates’ decision to forgo private funding of their campaign. We ask voters to take into account, in deciding whom to vote for, the risk that any candidate who benefits from PAC spending, as well as any candidate who rejects public financing, may feel indebted to the private spenders who helped elect them.

This is not to say that citizens should not be able to publicly express their support for their favorite candidates.  We would not tolerate a system in which the only ones allowed to speak publicly about the candidates were the candidates themselves.  But when the candidates are publicly financed and have agreed to forgo any private spending, any third-party publicity on their behalf should be confined to free publicity such as press releases announcing endorsements.  When serious money for paid advertising is spent by these outside entities, it tends, as we’ve noted, to revive the very same potentially corrupting influences that public financing was supposed to have extinguished.

Endorsing candidates is a great way to show your support for them – however, we believe that in a publicly financed race any money spent on advertising should be done by the candidates and not independent groups. For supporters, it makes sense to do a press release and let people know you support a candidate, and then the candidate uses their own funds for advertising or mailers, thus keeping public financed races just that, publicly financed.