Duran withholds cash from publicly financed candidates

Secretary of State Dianna Duran
From NMPolitics.net - By  - The Secretary of State’s Office is refusing to provide matching funds state law dictates are due to publicly financed candidates who are up against wealthier, privately financed campaigns. To back up her decision, Secretary of State Dianna Duran cites a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down a similar law in Arizona in 2011. As a result, six Public Regulation and Court of Appeals candidates are currently without funds state law says they’re due. However, with the June 5 primary days away, the matter may not be fully resolved. A state district judge in Santa Fe will consider a request today to order Duran to release the funds. The biggest impact of Duran’s decision is in the race for the Albuquerque-area District 1 seat on the Public Regulation Commission. State law dictates that Al Park’s publicly financed opponents in the Democratic primary, Cynthia Hall and Karen Montoya, are each due $61,066 because Park, whose campaign is privately financed, has raised almost $139,000. In the Democratic Court of Appeals primary, Victor S. Lopez is due $21,727 under the N.M. Voter Action Act because opponent M. Monica Zamora has raised $107,475. And in the PRC District 3 primary, Danny Maki’s raising of almost $42,000 means his three Democratic primary opponents – Valerie Espinoza, Brad Gallegos and Virginia Vigil – are each due $1,730.90. Read more
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UPDATED: Gov, Legislative Leadership Report on PAC Money

Albuquerque Journal (subscription) - The latest campaign finance reports show that Republican Gov. Susana Martinez’s political action committee has contributed $19,000 to candidates for the Legislature and other offices in the past three weeks. Susana PAC gave $14,000 to six candidates for the House and Senate. That included $2,500 to Albuquerque lawyer Chris Saucedo, who is running against another Republican for the party’s nomination in House District 15. The governor’s PAC contributed $5,000 to Dona Ana County District Attorney Amy Orlando, who faces in a Democratic challenger in the general election. Martinez vacated the district attorney’s position in becoming governor. According to a campaign report filed Thursday, the governor’s PAC had a cash balance of $171,000 earlier this week. The committee raised about $3,200 and spent nearly $106,000 in the past three weeks. 
The latest state campaign finance reports show that New Mexico’s Democratic and Republican legislative leaders have more than $200,000 stockpiled in their political action committees that could be used in this year’s legislative elections. Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, a Belen Democrat, reports a cash balance of nearly $54,000 in his PAC. A leadership PAC affiliated with Republican Senate Leader Stuart Ingle of Portales had cash-on-hand of nearly $67,000. House Majority Leader Ken Martinez, a Grants Democrat, had a balance of nearly $37,000 in a PAC he runs and House GOP Leader Tom Taylor’s PAC reported cash-on-hand of almost $47,000. Political committees and legislative candidates faced a Thursday deadline for filing campaign finance disclosures in advance of next week’s primary election. Read More News New Mexico

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New Mexico Court site hacked

KOB - The New Mexico Courts website has been hacked – and it appears the people responsible didn’t do much to cover up their identities. You can see the group “Latin Hack Team” is claiming to have done the deed. As of right now, the site is still down. We’ll let you know when it’s back up and working. Read More News New Mexico

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Loving resident beach bound after winning $250,000 New Mexico Lottery jackpot

Carlsbad Current-ArgusIt's going to be a day at the beach for Loving resident Adama Vasquez. After winning a $250,000 jackpot from the New Mexico Lottery, Vasquez said she plans to take a vacation to Hawaii. She said surfing lessons are out, but poolside refreshments will be topical during her tropical adventure. Vasquez beat odds of 1 in 435,897 to land the top prize in the Roadrunner Cash game. Her quick-pick ticket for the May 22 drawing matched the winning numbers of 15, 25, 29, 30 and 37. The winner, who bought her ticket at Food Jet No. 2 located at 3102 National Parks Hwy. in Carlsbad, discovered her good fortune after checking her ticket with winning numbers published in the Carlsbad Current-Argus. "I had to read it five times," Vasquez recalled for lottery officials in Albuquerque Tuesday. "I didn't know if I was dreaming." She showed the ticket to her husband, Ben. "He looked at me like I was crazy," Vasquez said. Read More News New Mexico

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Deval Patrick: Bain is a "perfectly fine company"

Deval Patrick
Politico - Appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Thursday, Patrick called Bain “a perfectly fine company.” “They have a role in the private economy, and I’ve got a lot of friends there … on both sides of the aisle,” Patrick added. “I think the Bain strategy has been distorted in some of the public discussions.” “I think the issue isn’t about Bain. I think it’s about whether he’s accomplished in either his public or private life the kinds of things he wants to accomplish for the United States,” the Massachusetts governor said. “It’s never been about Bain,” Patrick emphasized during another Thursday appearance, on CNN’s “Starting Point.”
Afterward, the Romney campaign couldn’t resist a dig. “It’s clear the Obama campaign has no message and no vision when their surrogates continue to repudiate the Obama campaign’s attacks on free enterprise,” said Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul. “We appreciate all of the Obama surrogates who have praised Mitt Romney’s record.” Read full story here: News New Mexico

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Romney Visits Shuttered Doors at Solyndra

ABC - “The reason for keeping it quiet is because we knew if word got out that Solyndra would do everything in their power and the Obama administration would do everything in their power to stop us from having this news conference,” an aide said in a briefing en route. “But taxpayers made a substantial investment in Solyndra, there are serious questions about what happened at Solyndra, why that investment was selected, what happened to that money.”
Solyndra is the failed California-based solar technology company that received more than $500 million in federal stimulus money before it went bankrupt last year. It has since become a mantle of Romney’s argument that Obama doesn’t know how to run the economy. Read full story here: News New Mexico

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Artur Davis Dumps Democratic Party for its "agenda that would punish business and job creators"

L.A. Times - Artur Davis, one of President Obama’s earliest supporters and a former co-chairman for his presidential campaign, announced Tuesday that he was leaving the Democratic Party for good. In a post published Tuesday on his website, Davis was vague about his future political endeavors, but declared: “If I were to run, it would be as a Republican. And I am in the process of changing my voter registration from Alabama to Virginia, a development which likely does represent a closing of one chapter and perhaps the opening of another.”
Artur Davis
Davis, who represented Alabama’s 7th Congressional District from 2003 to 2011, was notably the first member of Congress outside of Illinois to endorse then-Sen. Obama’s 2008 presidential bid. And it was Davis who seconded the official nomination of Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
Along with making hints at the future, Davis reflected on his experiences as a Democrat, and condemned the path he believes the party is taking. Renouncing the party “is no light decision on my part,” he wrote. “Cutting ties with an Alabama Democratic Party that has weakened and lost faith with more and more Alabamians every year is one thing; leaving a national party that has been the home for my political values for two decades is quite another.” But “wearing a Democratic label no longer matches what I know about my country and its possibilities,” he said.
“On the specifics, I have regularly criticized an agenda that would punish businesses and job creators with more taxes just as they are trying to thrive again,” he said. “I have taken issue with an administration that has lapsed into a bloc by bloc appeal to group grievances when the country is already too fractured: frankly, the symbolism of Barack Obama winning has not given us the substance of a united country.” Read full story here: News New Mexico
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