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New Mexico’s attorney general Gary King, a democrat previously linked to pay-to-play scandals, told reporters yesterday that it was entirely legal to accept a $15,000 political contribution from the New York City law firm of Bernstein Litowitz Berger and Grossman LLP last month — despite the nine-month-old campaign contribution limits law he championed less than a year ago.
In his defense, he told reporters that because he was no longer a candidate when the check arrived on September 22 but already an elected official that it was fine to apply the funds to debts incurred during his 2010 campaign. “The easy legal solution,” he said, “is that it applies to candidates in elections 2012 and after. And I am not a candidate.”
The matter now goes to Secretary of State Dianna Duran, whose office tends to turn to the Attorney General for legal advice. King is confident that after Duran’s lawyers reflect on his interpretation of things, “they’ll agree” with him.
King’s contributions come at a particularly busy time in campaign contributions news.
Last Friday, James Bopp Jr., an Indiana lawyer who specializes in lawsuits aimed at ending campaign finance and disclosure laws, filed, a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the state’s campaign contributions limits law along with other plaintiffs from New Mexico (including state senator Rod Adair, R-Roswell, former New Mexico Republican Party chair Harvey Yates, and state representative James Conrad, R-Albuquerque).
It was also reported today that Governor Susana Martinez took in $66,000 in campaign contributions last month. She claimed her acceptance of the money “adheres to both the spirit and the letter of the law.”
King has come under scrutiny because the $15,000 contributions are well above the limit as set forth in the state’s campaign contributions limits law, which banned pledges of $5,000 or more per election cycle as of November 3 of last year (the day after he was reelected as attorney general).
