Rivers of Money Flowing in NM Politics
Rivers of Money Flowing in NM Politics
The Center for Public Integrity compiled a list of the top donors in the 2014 elections to all state-level races — from governors to state legislators — and compiled separate lists of the top five donors for each state. To determine the sugar daddies of state politics, reporters reviewed three types of destinations for political giving: candidates’ campaigns, state political parties, and independent groups that typically campaign for or against candidates. Read the full report here.
How could this report have been improved with greater transparency, disclosure, searchable and downloadable data?
Disclosure legislation just introduced today by House Government, Elections and Indian Affairs Chairman, Rep. James Smith (R-Bernalillo, Sandoval, Santa Fe) and Senate Conservation Committee Chairman Senator Peter Wirth (D-Santa Fe) answers many of those questions and responds to the request of 92% of all registered New Mexico voters who support requiring that all large political contributions from individuals, corporations, PACs, non-profits or unions be made public.
This legislation has passed the Senate three times (the last two unanimously), as well as all House committees in prior years. This bill will overhaul the current law to bring it in line with both recent constitutional rulings and modern campaign practices by:
- Requiring public disclosure of information about the campaign spending of PACs and other non-candidate campaign participants without crossing constitutional boundaries established by the courts
- Requiring independent groups to disclose contributions and expenditures as candidates and political parties do now