Longtime Democratic lawmaker challenges fellow Democrat over New Mexico election law
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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – Two high-profile democrats are now squaring up in federal court over New Mexico election law. A longtime senator is suing the Secretary of State, claiming she crossed the line by filing a complaint over how the Senator used campaign funds.
“This is worth fixing for the future,” said Senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino.
Months away from retirement, one of Senator Ortiz y Pino’s last moves may lead to a change in New Mexico election law. “When we picked it up and filed a federal suit, we said this is an important enough issue to resolve,” said Ortiz y Pino.
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The fight stems from a 2021 donation to a Cibola High School student who’d reached out to state lawmakers for donations to go to a summer career workshop. “It sounded like a good thing for a student to encourage young people to do so I sent her a $200 contribution,” said Ortiz y Pino.
The senator thought nothing of that donation from his campaign funds, until three years later when the Secretary of State flagged the donation because it wasn’t a 501c3 charity. The senator’s violation was then reported to the New Mexico State Ethics Commission at the end of the last legislative session.
“The ethics commission said look it’s a small amount of money, this guy is not running for re-election, he’s on his way out the door, let’s just it’s not worth our time and effort to get involved,” said Ortiz y Pino.
Despite not getting in any real trouble, he is now suing Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver hoping to change the law she accused him of breaking. “The law is pretty clear you can spend it on your own campaign, you can spend it on contributions, you give to other candidates but not federal candidates just state and local and you can give it to charities,” said Ortiz y Pino.
His hope is to change the definition surrounding what exact charitable contributions state lawmakers are allowed to make. “Then their interpretation of charities would be broadened so that it can be anything that maybe doesn’t have the federal 501c3 cause there’s a lot of 501c’s that aren’t 501c3’s,” said Ortiz y Pino.
He believes the state’s current campaign law is unconstitutional. “The U.S Supreme Court has already ruled that how you contribute money is a matter of free speech and you can’t limit it in this fashion,” said Ortiz y Pino.
The lawsuit is still pending in federal court. KRQE News 13 reached out to the Secretary of State’s office about it Monday afternoon, we were forwarded to the NM Dept. of Justice for comment but did not hear back.
