Governor’s ads praise her record on handling economy

Susana Martinez cannot run for a third consecutive term as governor. And she’s not running for any office. However, her political team has formed a new committee that’s running radio ads praising her efforts to strengthen New Mexico’s economy and asking people to call her office to tell her to “keep fighting.”

The new committee is called New Mexico Legacy. It’s classified by the Internal Revenue Service as a 501 (c)(4), a tax-exempt “social welfare organization.”

Legacy is “educating the public about important policy successes over recent years and advocating in favor of these issues,” Martinez’s political consultant Jay McCleskey told The New Mexican Tuesday. “It is countering well-funded left-wing dark money groups that have spent well over a million dollars in opposition to these various issues over the previous months and years.”

Since she isn’t running for office, it’s not clear why the governor and her advisers feel the need to run ads to talk her up. McCleskey didn’t directly respond to a question about that. It’s possible the effort is to boost Martinez’s brand before her final legislative

session, which begins next month. Since winning a landslide re-election in 2014, Martinez’s approval ratings have steadily plummeted.

An October Morning Consult poll showed only 37 percent of New Mexicans approved of her job performance while 52 percent disapproved.

New Mexico Legacy filed as a corporation with the Secretary of State’s Office in June. Its officers include Amy Orlando, who worked as a prosecutor under Martinez in Las Cruces and now is deputy secretary of Public Safety in Martinez’s administration; Albuquerque lawyer Rob Doughty, who Martinez appointed to The University of New Mexico Board of Regents; and Jessica Perez, a longtime fundraiser for Martinez.

Unlike regular political action committees, because of its 501 (c)(4) status, Legacy does not have to disclose contributors or expenses.

McCleskey said the new entity “has no plans to engage in any electioneering efforts.”

But a 60-second radio spot — which ran on at least three Albuquerque stations last month and recently is running on at least two stations — sounds similar, at least in tone, to some of Martinez’s ads in her reelection campaign. The script of the ad is as follows: Last year it was Facebook official. Gov. Susana Martinez went to California and convinced Facebook to come to New Mexico, creating nearly 1,000 jobs.

And just last week, more big news. Facebook just announced its investment will now be one billion dollars in New Mexico, tripling their size and creating even more jobs.

New Mexico was hit hard by the federal budget crunch, by federal defense cuts and then again by the global oil crash, factors outside our control.

But we are coming back. Thanks to Gov. Martinez and local leaders fighting to make New Mexico more competitive, less dependent on federal spending.

By cutting taxes 37 times, small businesses are growing. And we’re attracting big companies like Facebook. That’s why New Mexico was recently named top 10 in the nation for public sector job growth.

Call Gov. Martinez at 505-476-2200 and tell her to keep fighting to grow jobs in New Mexico. Paid for by New Mexico Legacy. The Facebook facility, to be built in Los Lunas, will be a six-building data storage center expected to employ 800 to 1,000 construction workers a day through 2023. Company managers say that after construction they expect about 300 permanent technicians, electricians and maintenance workers in the facility.

Jason Martinez, FM general sales manager at Cumulus Media in Albuquerque, confirmed this week that the spots ran on three Cumulus stations — KKOB, KRST and Magic 99.5 — for three days in late November, then began running again this week for four days on KKOB and KRST.

The most recent round of campaign finance reports, filed in early October, showed relatively meager fundraising by Martinez’s two major political committees, both of which had been major players in recent election cycles.

Susana PAC, as of early October, had $21,564 in the bank, while Advance New Mexico Now, in its October report showed a balance of $63,709.