Pearce, state move to settle campaign finance lawsuit
Candidate would be able to spend $900,000 raised for congressional seat in race for gov.
New Mexico’s top election official and U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce are moving to settle a lawsuit over more than $900,000 in donations that Pearce wants to use in his campaign for governor.
The agreement would be a boost for Pearce, a Republican, whose campaign initially lagged behind Democratic rivals in fundraising.
It also would clear the way for members of Congress to bring money they have raised on Capitol Hill into races for state office.
Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, a Democrat, had told Pearce he could not transfer the $900,000 from his congressional campaign’s war chest to his campaign for governor.
Instead, she said, Pearce could only use the maximum amount allowed for any donation from one political committee to another under state law — a total of $11,000, or less than 2 percent of what his congressional campaign had in the bank.
Pearce sued. His lawyers argued that the money should not
be treated as one routine contribution. Rather, they likened use of the money for the governor’s race to other state candidates rolling over their funds from one election cycle to the next.
The only difference is that this would involve moving money from a federal campaign to a state campaign.
A federal judge sided with Pearce in a hearing last year. Now a proposed final judgment filed by both sides last week would bring the case to an end.
Under the proposed agreement, the state would allow people holding federal office to use old donations to run for state-level office, provided that those contributions were not any bigger than what is allowed under New Mexico law. The donations would have to have been reported to the Federal Election Commission, too.
Effectively, such transfers would be allowed as long as federal campaign finance laws are tighter than New Mexico’s laws and not just used as a way around the state’s donation limits.
“Those conditions were included to prevent future federal-to-state transfers from becoming a loophole around New Mexico’s campaign finance laws,” said Joey Keefe, a spokesman for the Secretary of State’s Office.
Pearce’s campaign will seek at least some legal fees from the lawsuit.
The case raised a novel question not tested to any great extent since thenCongressman Bill Richardson was mulling running for governor of New Mexico in the 1990s.
But Pearce is not the only member of Congress running for governor this year. U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham is seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination.
Her staff received similar guidance from the Secretary of State’s Office on restrictions in transferring campaign money.
Lujan Grisham’s campaign says it complied, stopped raising money for the congressional campaign account and gave away much of its remaining funds.
Contact Andrew Oxford at 505-986-3093 or aoxford@sfnewmexican.com. Follow him on Twitter @andrewboxford.