Recently, AG (Aspiring Governor, not Attorney General) Gary King was caught accepting what the NM Secretary of State has ruled were illegal campaign contributions.  Not happy with following the rules the Secretary of State put forward, Gary King has shot back filing a writ of mandamus.

But back to the story via Albuquerque Journal:

Secretary of State Dianna Duran has ruled that Attorney General Gary King, the Democratic nominee for governor, accepted three campaign contributions that exceeded the state’s established donation limits.

In a letter sent to King this week, the ethics administrator for the Secretary of State’s Office told King to either put $10,900 – the sum of the three contributions in question – in the state’s public election fund or lay out why he should not be required to do so.

“Absent additional information received in writing from your campaign … it is the finding of the Secretary of State that the contribution limits have been exceeded,” ethics administrator Billy Velarde wrote in the letter, dated Monday.

In response, King’s campaign manager, Keith Breitbach said Tuesday that the campaign had not received the letter.

“The attorney general is confident that current state law allows political campaigns to accept contributions in order to pay off past campaign debts,” Breitbach told the Journal.

The individuals who made the contributions are individuals who know the political process and have previously shown they play rough– take Trudy Healy, the activist credited with starting the very low and nasty “Susana La Tejana” crusade which many northern New Mexicans found extremely disgusting.  Regarding the recent alleged illegal campaign contribution activity, Taos County GOP Chairman Ken Scarborough said, “I am not at all surprised.  It is hubris almost beyond comprehension for anyone to believe for a second that the top attorney for the state of New Mexico Gary King and a long-time wealthy Democrat donor Trudy Healy ‘just didn’t know’ that it was illegal to donate such huge sums to Gary King’s gubernatorial campaign,”

Ken Scarborough sees this as a continuing corruption problem and another reason New Mexicans can’t afford elect Gary King as governor, “The liberal and corrupt Gary King and Bill Richardson, wing of the Democratic Party of New Mexico has long seemed to see themselves as above the law,” Chairman Scarborough said, “For them to take the ‘I didn’t know it was illegal’ road or to say ‘well it was not really a campaign contribution’ shows that Gary King is not qualified or prepared to be governor of our state.”

Similarly a couple weeks ago the Republican Party of New Mexico spoke out:

[The] Albuquerque Journal reported that the Secretary of State’s Office believes Gary King accepted three illegal contributions.  However, King remains defiant and refuses to play by the rules even though just a few years ago he “championed” stricter campaign finance laws.

“Gary King’s hypocrisy knows no bounds,” said Republican Party of New Mexico spokeswoman Emily Strickler.  “King claims to stand up for children, yet he was the only legislator who voted against a bill that cracked down on deadbeat parents.  He attacks Governor Martinez on equal pay despite her record of achievement on the issue, yet he was sued repeatedly for paying women lawyers in his office less than men.  And just last week he sent out a press release lamenting drunk driving in New Mexico, but the very next day, he raised campaign dollars with a man who faces a child abuse felony for allegedly driving under the influence with his daughter in the car.  Now, again, he is acting like he’s above the very campaign finance laws he hypocritically claims he fought for.”

Strickler continued, “All this raises the question: How can New Mexicans believe anything that Gary King says?”

via RPNM Newsletter