Source of anti-school bond flier still unclear
State campaign laws are vague on disclosing who is behind mailer
U.S. Postal Service records say a commercial printing firm in Albuquerque sent an anonymous campaign flier to Santa Fe voters in early February, urging them to reject a $100 million general obligation bond for public school construction projects and renovations.
But efforts to find out the source of the lastminute mass mailing may have been complicated.
Susan Valdez, owner of Print Express LLC, confirmed her company handled the job but told she could not release the names of those who ordered the mailers, a failed attempt to derail the bond for Santa Fe Public Schools just a couple of days before the Feb. 7 election. The mass mailing drew criticism because of its timing, the lack of a named sponsor and information on the fliers that school officials said was incorrect. Voters who favored the bond outnumbered those who opposed it by more than 2-1.
Valdez wouldn’t say how many fliers were sent out or how much the job cost.
“Our company policy does not allow us to give client information out,” she said this week.
School district leaders also have sought to determine who paid for the initiative. Superintendent Veronica García wants to reach out to those who opposed the bond to discuss their concerns, said Lisa Sullivan, general counsel for Santa Fe Public Schools.
A Print Express representative told Sullivan that “a bunch of individuals,” including a man named John Onstad, paid for the flier, she said.
Onstad, who identified himself as a Santa Fe business owner who opposed the bond, told The New Mexican in an email before the election that the district’s recent request for bond money — including a technology bond to buy computers in the classroom — was adding up to “some serious money over a decade or more.”
Reached by phone Tuesday, Onstad declined to comment on whether he was involved with the flier.
García was out of town Tuesday and unavailable for comment on the anonymous campaign mailer.
“Unfortunately, there are currently no disclosure requirements for printed campaign material for school board elections,” Deputy Secretary of State John Blair said in an email Tuesday. “… the Secretary advises all political campaigns that it is a best practice to provide disclosures on all printed material and she will continue to push for a legislative fix requiring this kind of disclosure.”
A state law prohibits “any person, organization or political committee” from publishing campaign literature that “does not specify the name of the sponsor or the name of a responsible officer who authorized the printing or publication of such material.” But a state attorney general issued an opinion in 1997 that said the statute is unconstitutional and unenforceable.
Viki Harrison, executive director of Common Cause New Mexico, a government watchdog group, said “the waters are muddy” in the state when it comes to such campaign advertising. She sees a need to clarify laws and said a campaign finance reform bill pushed by Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, could help because it requires anyone spending more than $1,000 on such campaign materials to reveal who they are. The bill passed both chambers of the Legislature is now awaiting Gov. Susana Martinez’s signature.
Douglas Carver, executive director of New Mexico Ethics Watch, agrees that campaign laws aren’t clear when it comes to issues like the anonymous, anti-bond flier. Even the issue of whether the group behind the flier should have registered as a political committee is “completely in flux,” he said. The registration requirement is based on the amount of money that people spend on campaign advertising.
“Where that line is, however, is not clear,” Carver said, particularly if no one can find out how much was spent on campaign materials.
State Rep. Linda Trujillo, D-Santa Fe, who also serves as a member of the Santa Fe school board, introduced legislation that would have required anyone spending at least $500 on school board campaign literature to disclose who they are. Though the House of Representatives voted to support the bill, it stalled in the Senate Rules Committee before the 60-day session ended Saturday.
Trujillo said she respects Print Express’ decision to protect its clients, but “the public needs to have access as to who is providing them information … particularly if it is on a grand scale.”
The mass mailing “was pretty organized,” she said, “and I believe that with that kind of organized communication, when in reference to an election or the passing of a bond, the public deserves to know who that is coming from.”