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| Ivey-Soto mailer (click to enlarge) |
In the District 15 race Ivey-Soto, on the defense for several years over sex harassment charges that have already cost him the chairmanship of the powerful Rules Committee, has run a sprightly campaign and is back on higher ground in these final fateful hours.
But opinion remains divided on whether the three term senator in the ABQ Mid-Heights can beat newcomer Berghmans, also a a Santa Fe player who has worked as a consultant for the House Democrats campaign finance committee.
Consultant David Alcon, son of Dem state Rep. Eliseo Alcon, believes that the bread was baked long ago in this race and that Ivey-Soto will be unable to overcome antipathy from female voters:
The allegations have stung and have been in the news long enough to be fatal. Progressives have mounted an all-out campaign to get rid of him and while he may bounce some I think his campaign was lost before it began.
But consultant Sisto Abeyta, who has worked with Ivey-Soto, declared:
Ivey-Soto has been courting women voters who will make up the majority of votes cast and who are seen as most prone to go against him because of the allegations.
As seen in the mailer at the top of the blog, he touts his "strong record" on domestic violence and sexual assault. That qualifies as an in-the-face response to the progressive left trying to take him out.
Berghmans campaign complains that a lobbyist who accused Ivey-Soto of screaming and
cursing at her at the Roundhouse in 2017 is pictured in one of the mailer's photos and should not have been shown. But, as one would expect, that fell on deaf ears at the Ivey-Soto campaign as they battle against far more vicious and personal attacks from progressives.
Sen. Ortiz y Pino, a liberal lion who is retiring this year, has gone all in for Ivey-Soto, cutting videos that tout Ivey-Soto's support of progressive issues. Those ads and others are here.
In the final days Berghmans and the progressives continue to hammer him over the sex harassment charges that were never resolved--as seen in ads here in which she states that she will "stand up to anyone" who "mistreats women" and "flip-flops" on paid family medical leave.
IVEY-SOTO'S BREAK
A hearing officer for the commission closed the case after the agency’s general counsel found no probable cause related to allegations that the Albuquerque legislator violated the state Governmental Conduct Act by engaging in “harassing, hostile and retaliatory conduct” against women and that he took various legislative actions too personally. . . Commission general counsel Walker Boyd concluded that three of the five alleged violations fell outside of the two-year statute of limitations, or were privileged under the New Mexico state constitution. In a 27-page decision he determined the other two, involving Ivey-Soto’s business contracts with county clerks in the state, weren’t “supported by probable cause.”. . . “I thought this was specious and frivolous. And the fact that they couldn’t even meet the low standard of probable cause is a vindication of that,” said Ivey-Soto.
Critics of the decision responded that the allegations were dismissed for technical reasons not on the merits:
Daniel Yohalem, a Santa Fe attorney who filed the complaint, said he was disappointed in the dismissal, “because it doesn’t seem to me that the decision determined that any of the facts that I alleged in hundreds of pages of documents were inaccurate. It just determined that they couldn’t do anything about them. So what kind of ethics protections do the citizens and taxpayers of this state have?”
This race is down to the wire and we'll have the finish when we take to the KANW radio microphones Tuesday, June 4 at 6:30 to bring you all of the primary election results and expert analysis.
DAMON AND SAM
Bregman is a tremendous presence in the DA’s Office. . . As one of most well-known attorneys in New Mexico history, he is able to recruit young, talented prosecutors fresh out of law school and proven prosecutors from across the country. . . While other government agencies struggle to hire staff, Bregman is expanding his force of attorneys and support staff, up to nearly 330 total people currently. . . In 2023, the DA’s Office prosecuted 111 felony trials — nearly double the number of felony trials from the prior year. And a conviction rate of nearly 70% for felony trials and more than an 80% on misdemeanor cases also isn’t bad. DWI prosecutors in Metropolitan Court are also seeing improvements, with a DWI conviction rate of nearly 80%.
That endorsement of Bregman by the paper is in notable contrast to the intense criticism he received from them when he was chairman of the state Democratic party and during the tenure of GOP Governor Susana Martinez. But times change, don't they?
ABQ attorney Jeffrey Paul carries the water for the Martinez campaign in pushing back against the editorial love note to Bregman:
. . . The endorsement states, “Bregman says he’s fallen in love with being District Attorney and that he has a lot more work to do to restore a sense of public safety in Bernalillo County. That’s good enough for us.” And, “Bregman also has a tremendous presence outside the courtroom.” Well, that’s not good enough for me. Yes, Bregman has a presence in the community; never turning down a chance for a photo op. He can talk all he wants to about hiring lots of new prosecutors but he will not tell you that many are just filling positions that others have vacated. And his lack of good judgement is not good enough for me. His announcement letting us know he dropped hundreds of DWI cases due to a confidential federal investigation just opened the door for those under investigation to potentially conceal or destroy evidence. Loving his job is just not good enough for me. Good judgement and dedication to solving problems is more important than photo oping in a cowboy hat.
Has Martinez raised Bregman's negatives enough to score an upset next Tuesday or is "Showboat Sam" going to show him who's boss?
APODACA AND ETHICS
Jeff Apodaca tells us he will not have any comment on this Ethics Commission action until he's "officially notified." The latest:
The State Ethics Commission filed a lawsuit against The New Mexico Project and Jeff Apodaca to enforce the disclosure provisions of the Campaign Reporting Act. TNMP or Apodaca spent thousands of dollars on a website and purchased radio and social media advertisements to influence the outcome of elections for at least 15 legislative districts in the House of Representatives and Senate.
The CRA requires those who have made aggregate independent expenditures in excess of $1,000 dollars in a non-statewide election to disclose to whom those expenditures were made and the source of the contributions that funded the expenditures.
TNMP has made more than $1,000 dollars in independent expenditures in support of specific “pro-moderate” and “pro-business” candidates but has failed to register as a political committee or make any disclosures related to those independent expenditures. Accordingly, the Commission filed suit to enforce the CRA’s disclosure requirements.
In 2019, the Legislature amended the CRA to shine light on “dark money” in New Mexico’s elections, requiring groups that pay for advertisements or advocacy in support of candidates to be minimally transparent about who funded those efforts. The CRA allows New Mexicans to know who funds efforts to influence their votes. The State Ethics Commission has authority to enforce the CRA and has pursued civil enforcement actions to bring greater transparency to New Mexicans regarding who is funding and coordinating election advertisements.
This is a case that La Politica will be following closely. Businessman Apodaca started the PAC this year with a heap of help of from oil and gas interests in an effort to move state politics to a more centrist mode. The NM Project is supporting conservative House Dems like Patty Lundstrom, Ambrose Castellano and Marian Matthews. Ads for all their candidates are here.
Apodaca earlier told us that his attorneys believe The NM Project is not required to disclose their donors or spending to the SOS. Now that will be put to the test.
(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2024