Toulouse Oliver evades campaign funding limits
Democrat running for secretary of state plays games with multiple PACs
In my campaign for secretary of state, I’ve emphasized the need for openness, transparency and evenhandedness in both our electoral system and campaign finance system, in which accountability is paramount. My opponent, Maggie Toulouse Oliver, is now using the terms “transparency and accountability” in her campaign.
Recently, reporter Sandra Fish of New Mexico In Depth published an article detailing the actions of certain political action committees that amount to what Common Cause director Viki Harrison and Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto called a “shell game.”
I agree with them, and when New Mexico contributions from federally registered PACs are included, that shell game gets even worse.
Toulouse Oliver’s reports provide examples of the kinds of shell games used to skirt our contribution limits. Toulouse Oliver received a maximum contribution from a federally registered PAC called the League of Conservation Voters Action Fund, but that PAC also contributed to other PACs and federal candidates, who then funneled those additional dollars on to Toulouse Oliver.
This is the same scheme described by New Mexico In Depth, except with the added layer of multiple federal PACs. (In this instance, even though the Action Fund had already donated the maximum to Toulouse Oliver, it was able to slip another $11,000 more of its funding to her through four other candidates and federal PACS — allowing Toulouse Oliver to get around the $5,400 limit.)
The thinking, apparently, is that a PAC can bypass New Mexico’s $5,400 limit by just giving additional money to other PACs and asking them to distribute excess contributions to the favored candidate.
In Toulouse Oliver’s case, one of the federal PACs involved in this scheme, Lobo PAC, has ties to her own campaign manager, Alan Packman. Contributions to the federal Lobo PAC went to Packman’s post office box in Albuquerque, from which address he serves as deputy treasurer for yet another “state” PAC, also called Lobo PAC, which also contributed $2,000 to his client, Toulouse Oliver.
Out-of-state billionaire George Soros also plays the shell game to influence New Mexico politics, and Toulouse Oliver is his chosen beneficiary. In 2014, he 1) formed a federal PAC SOS for Democracy, with $250,000; 2) listed Toulouse Oliver as a “progressive champion;” and 3) spent that money on New Mexico TV on Toulouse Oliver’s behalf; while 4) also giving her $5,200 directly.
This year, Soros funded another federal PAC called Safety and Justice with $30,000 and a state PAC called New Mexico Safety and Justice with $107,000 to support Raul Torrez in the Bernalillo County district attorney primary. The federal PAC then provided over $19,000 in “in-kind polling” to the “state” PAC, then provided “in-kind polling” to another state PAC — Progressive Champions New Mexico PAC, which is an “arm” of yet another state PAC, ProgressNow New Mexico (operated by Albuquerque City Councilor Pat Davis).
Progressive Champions New Mexico PAC provided media supporting Toulouse Oliver’s deputy, Roman Montoya and Toulouse Oliver. They did so under the guise of an “independent expenditure,” while attacking fellow Democrat Linda Stover, who defeated Toulouse Oliver’s candidate Montoya.
There’s nothing “transparent or accountable” about multiple PACs, claiming to have various federal, state, and out-of-state “arms,” with each “arm” claiming to operate separately, shuffling contributions from PAC to PAC to PAC, and to candidates, until the sources of money become so obscured that the contribution limits are evaded.
These problems stem from the statute itself. The secretary of state has been enjoined by federal courts from enforcing the statute as it currently exists, and that void in the law has opened the door for this kind of nontransparent shell game that makes a mockery of campaign contribution limits.
While my opponent talks about “transparency and accountability,” that’s not what she provides New Mexico voters. It’s hard to see someone so deeply steeped in hidden-money, shell-game fundraising becoming “accountable” to voters when it comes to campaign finance reform.
On the other hand, I’m the only candidate who has noted these problems, and who has proposed clear, bright-line provisions to end this shell game.
I’m the only candidate not accepting these kinds of donations, and the only one who will provide transparency and accountability in the office of secretary of state.