No opponent? No problem when it comes to public cash
Pat Lyons’ re-election this year to the state Public Regulation Commission was a breeze. He had no opposition in either the primary or general election.
Yet Lyons, a Republican and former state senator from Cuervo, near Santa Rosa, received nearly $42,000 in public financing for his can’t-miss campaign.
Lyons, who represents much of eastern New Mexico on the PRC, spent a large part of his public financing on newspaper and radio ads and to travel his vast district. Purchases included tires, brakes and a battery for a campaign truck.
“I like to keep my name out there, (and to let constituents know) that I’m interested in serving them,” Lyons says.
A candidate must return any unspent public financing to the Secretary of State’s Public Election Fund, and Lyons says he expects to return about half of the $41,630 he received.
Lyons has already returned about $8,700 from his $12,186 allotment for the primary election. He received $29,444 for the general election. His final campaign finance report is due to be filed with the Secretary of State’s Office by Dec. 4.
Also winning election to the PRC in the Nov. 4 general election was Democrat Lynda Lovejoy, who served on the commission from 1999 to 2006, then in the state Senate from 2007 to 2012.
Lovejoy won a three-way race in the primary election but was unopposed in the general. She received $28,290 in public financing for the primary election and $27,574 for the general.
Like Lyons, she spent public financing on travel and ads. Also, after winning the primary election and before her uncontested election in
the general, she paid more than $10,000 to campaign consultant and lobbyist Mark Fleisher of Albuquerque.
Lovejoy, of Crownpoint, who will represent northwestern New Mexico on the PRC, couldn’t be reached for comment. Her final campaign finance report is also due Dec. 4.
Fleisher says candidates who have agreed to accept public financing and are unopposed still want to make sure voters know their names and they have agreed not to take private donations to accomplish that.
“They don’t want to make it easy for someone to come after them next time,” he says.
Fleisher’s lobbying clients this year include a telecommunications company regulated by the PRC. He has also represented a power company before the commission.
Sandy Jones, elected Nov. 4 to represent southwestern New Mexico on the PRC, also paid Fleisher for consulting work. Jones opted not to accept public financing for his campaign, instead funding it with private donations.
Fleisher says his work as a campaign consultant and lobbyist isn’t a conflict, noting that many other lobbyists make donations to candidates or help them raise private contributions.
State Sen. Peter Wirth, a major player in the Legislature on issues of campaign finance, says providing public financing to unopposed candidates doesn’t make sense to him.
“I see no purpose in having taxpayers fund unopposed races,” Wirth says.
“That is a mistake we made,” says former state Sen. Dede Feldman, D-Albuquerque, who helped lead the charge in the Legislature for public financing of campaigns.
Wirth, a Santa Fe Democrat, says lawmakers can take a look at the issue as part of a larger overhaul of public financing of campaigns he plans to propose when the Legislature meets in January.
Common Cause New Mexico, a group that works on campaign finance issues, says it will propose that public financing for uncontested elections either be eliminated or sharply reduced.
Candidates in uncontested elections now receive 50 percent less in public financing than they would have if they had opponents.
In a bid to reduce the influence of money in politics, the state has provided optional public financing to candidates for the PRC since 2006 and for candidates seeking election to the state Appeals and Supreme courts since 2008. Efforts in the Legislature to expand public financing to candidates for other statewide offices have failed.
Public financing comes from the Public Election Fund, which is financed with fees levied by the PRC on companies it regulates and with $1.2 million a year from the state’s proceeds from unclaimed property, such as abandoned bank accounts.
The amount of money a candidate receives is based on the number of registered voters eligible to cast ballots in the race.
Appeals Court Judge Miles Hanisee, who this year became the state’s first statewide judge elected with public financing, has proposed that public financing no longer be made available to candidates in uncontested judicial races and that the money be used to expand public financing to candidates for state district courts.
Money to expand public financing doesn’t seem to be an issue. Since 2010, the Legislature has drained more than $8 million out of the Public Election Fund to finance other election-related expenses.