Public Campaign Finance “Fix” Needs a Few More Fixes

Senator Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, presented SB58 in Senate Rules today.  While the bill was well-received by members of the committee and supported by several groups in the audience who voiced their approval of the legislation today, there were a couple of small changes that were requested by the committee.  These changes included defining a “family member” in the section of the bill that prohibits candidates to use their public campaign finance monies to pay their immediate family members to provide a service (i.e. manage a campaign) for their campaign.  Another was to clarify the definition of “living expenses” as another prohibited expense and public campaign finances cannot be used to reimburse.  These changes have been made and the bill will be up again in Senate Rules this Friday morning at 9 am!

Common Cause in the News 

Steve Terrell of the Santa Fe New Mexican discusses the committee hearing in his latest blog post.