Strong Ethics Commission, Automatic Voter Registration, Campaign Disclosure Are Among Common Cause New Mexico’s 2019 Legislative Priorities

Strong Ethics Commission, Automatic Voter Registration, Campaign Disclosure Are Among Common Cause New Mexico’s 2019 Legislative Priorities

Common Cause New Mexico today announced its priorities for the 2019 legislative session.

“We’re focusing on creating the strong, independent ethics commission that 75% of voters approved in a constitutional amendment last fall,” said Heather Ferguson, Common Cause executive director.

Over the past few months, Common Cause participated in an interim working group on enabling legislation for the commission, which she expects will be introduced early in the session.

In addition, she said Common Cause is determined to require greater disclosure from independent groups and PACs and wants to make it easier for citizens to vote through secure, automatic voter registration.

She also said that the group was backing legislation to ensure that the President is elected by a majority, and not a minority, of U.S. voters.

Among the specific measures prioritized by the good-government group:

• A bill to provide the powers and duties of the Independent Ethics Commission to hold elected officials accountable.
• A bill to allow automatic voter registration using a secure electronic process at Motor Vehicle Division offices and other state agencies (SB 50 sponsored by Sen. Jeff Steinborn).
• A campaign finance disclosure bill (SB 3 sponsored by Sen. Peter Wirth) to require disclosure of campaign spending of independent groups and PACs. This bill has passed the Senate five times, as well as all House committees in prior years. It will overhaul the current law to bring it in line with recent court rulings and modern campaign practices.
• A bill to require New Mexico’s electoral votes to be cast for the winner of the popular vote in a presidential election (HB 55, co-sponsored by Rep. Gail Chasey and Sen. Mimi Stewart)

Ferguson said that Common Cause was also supporting bills to allow advance voter registration up to three days before elections, independent (DTS) voters to vote in primaries, to restore felon voting rights, allow 16 & 17-year-olds to vote in school elections, to clean-up public financing and require additional lobbyist reporting requirements.