City elections spurred outrage and-perhaps-change.
In mid-December, the City's Ethics and Rules Committee approved an ordinance to strengthen campaign laws for municipal elections. If, indeed, the Council approves the law in 2005 (it should
***image1***
hit the Finance Committee in January), it will be in place for the March, 2006, City Elections.
Sound like a long time away? Not in politics.
After all, it took the better part of 10 months for the proposed ordinance to make it to the Ethics Committee after the 2004 City election drove home, once and for all, just how high the stakes have become for those who wish to govern in the City Different.
Four Council seats and one judgeship were at stake last March. At first the election took a backseat to the Democrats' caucus in February. When things started to heat up, candidates debated the usual Santa Fe issues: water, growth, housing [Cover story, Feb. 25: "Rethinking Santa Fe"].
But emotions really got hot when, two days before the election, a previously unknown group, Santa Fe Grass Roots, took out a full-page advertisement in The Santa Fe New Mexican that attacked the voting records of incumbent City Councilors Karen Heldmeyer, Patti Bushee and Miguel Chavez. The members of that group became the number-one topic in town, with suspicions running wild. Further, there was little time left for the incumbents to correct the misrepresentations, and in some cases, inaccurate portrayals of their voting records in the ad. Nonetheless, all incumbents were re-elected; backers of the group were later found to be campaign managers of their challengers. Once the votes were counted, however, the fallout continued. The City launched an investigation of the group itself.
Santa Fe Grass Roots filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the City's campaign code. But, by April, both sides dropped their respective campaigns and thoughts turned to preventing future events of this kind.
"Far-reaching reforms of the City's campaign code, which the Council will consider shortly, were propelled by civic outrage at the sleazy anonymous attack ads, flyers and fake report cards financed by hidden donors in an orchestrated coup to take control of a closely divided City Council," says Fred Rowe, a member of the campaign reform commission created in the election's wake.
Santa Fe writer George Johnson covered the election online and doggedly pressed the connections of the people behind Santa Fe Grass Roots. "What has really been disappointing is
***image2***
the timidity of the local press. No one, except apparently the daily newspapers, believes that Santa Fe [Grass Roots] was funded by the two campaign managers, yet they continue to report it that way. Nor has any attempt been made to follow up on other deceptive campaign practices-like laundering donations through family members and blind PO boxes," Johnson wrote to SFR in an email.
These days, Johnson uses his site to write about water. "Again, the local press is being derelict in not pointing out that the numbers just don't add up. My inspiration has been a quote from the mathematician John McCarthy: 'He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.'"
But while the loopholes that allowed Santa Fe Grass Roots to make a last-minute attack may be on the verge of closing, the issues that propelled those attacks remain. The attack on the incumbents was seen, largely, as an attack on those members likely to hold the line against development in Santa Fe. With high-stake decisions about water and a battle over annexation in the offing, challenges to incumbents seen as progressive are likely to continue. Further, several members of the current council are considered mayoral contenders in 2006.
"Unfortunately, as the financial stakes in City elections go higher, what we're seeing is a huge increase in money from people who want to protect their financial interests and accompanying increase in incorrect and personal attacks on candidates," says Heldmeyer. "I think it's extraordinarily unfortunate and I think the only thing that's going to turn it around is the voters rejecting that kind of campaign."
