NM Democrats buying votes, too

NM Democrats are buying votes, too

Lujan and Wiviott offer delegates food and motel rooms

Dave Cargo says AG won’t investigate vote-buying charges because he doesn’t want to hurt Dems

By Dennis Domrzalski

Former New Mexico Gov. Dave Cargo says he now knows why the state Attorney General’s Office seems to be dragging its feet in investigating allegations of vote buying at the February Bernalillo County Republic Party’s pre-primary nominating convention.

Democrats have been engaging in the same kind of vote-buying behavior, and Democrat AG Gary King doesn’t want his party to get caught up in the mess.

The Espanola-based Rio Grande Sun reported Thursday that at least two candidates for the Third Congressional District seat being vacated by Rep. Tom Udall, D-NM—PRC Commissioner Ben Ray Lujan and Developer Don Wiviott—were rewarding delegates who voted for them at the Party’s March 15 pre-primary convention with food and hotel rooms.

The AG’s Office said last week that it wasn’t investigating the allegations of GOP vote-buying because political party elections are private affairs that aren’t covered by the New Mexico Election Code.

Cargo sees another reason for Democrat King’s refusal to investigate:

“They don’t want it to slip over into the Democrats,” the former governor said. “I’ve said that if they looked at the Republicans they’d have to look at the Democrats. It’s amazing that they aren’t cracking down.”

Here’s what the Sun reported:

Gifts for Delegates

The financial disparity between the top two candidates for Udall's seat and the rest of the field was made evident at the convention. Lujan has received broad support with the help of his powerful father, state Speaker of the House Ben Lujan (D-Nambé).

Lujan's staff swarmed the Santa Ana Star Center with ear pieces and walkie-talkies and handed out food coupons for pizza and hotdogs to delegates who voted for him.

Wiviott's staff and volunteers also took measures to ensure Wiviott's delegates were well looked after.

San Juan County delegate Ivan William Pfeifer had arrived the day before the event and stayed the night at a Holiday Inn Express in Bernalillo, care of Wiviott's campaign.

"We were very much surprised it was even offered," said Pfeifer, who donned a blue Wiviott shirt at the convention.

Caroline Buerkle, Wiviott's campaign spokeswoman, said the campaign provided rooms for about 20 delegates. Two-hundred delegates voted for Wiviott, who has used his own money to build a war chest worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"The overwhelming majority of delegates got here completely on their own," Buerkle said.

Nothing in campaign finance law explicitly prohibits candidates from providing lodging for delegates, and the Secretary of State’s Office deferred any questions on the matter to the Attorney General’s office.

“We have a similar situation regarding the paying of registration fees at the (Republican Convention),” Secretary of State spokesman James Flores said. Buerkle said the campaign was not worried about any perception the rooms brought.

"What do you do for the delegate who can't afford to come?" Buerkle said. Pfeifer said he had not been swayed by the free lodging.

Cargo, a Republican who brought the allegations of Republican vote buying to the news media and to the state Secretary of State’s Office, said what Lujan’s and Wiviott’s campaigns did at the convention amounted to vote buying.

“I consider it vote buying. What else did they pay, their back taxes?” Cargo asked. “It amounts to blatantly buying votes.”

The AG’s Office told us last week that it doesn’t think the Republic vote-buying scandal warrants an investigation because political party elections are private affairs that aren’t covered by the New Mexico Election Code. The election law says it is a fourth-degree felony to offer someone a bribe to vote a certain way, or to accept a bribe to vote.

King’s office might be wrong in its opinion that party elections aren’t covered by the state’s election law. Here’s what the Election Code says about party elections:

1-7-1. Political parties; condition for use of the ballot. (1969)

All nominations of candidates for public office in New Mexico made by political parties shall be made pursuant to the Election Code [1-1-1 NMSA 1978]. No political party shall be permitted to have the names of its candidates printed on any election ballot unless and until it has qualified as provided in the Election Code.

Cargo has been pushing for an investigation into allegations of the Republican vote buying efforts. Heather Wilson’s U.S. Senate campaign has admitted that it paid the $30 registration fees for five people to attend the Bernalillo County GOP’s mid-February convention in Albuquerque. Attendees to the convention elected delegates to the state GOP’s March 15 nominating convention.

NM SoS Mary Herrera, a Democrat, has been trying to investigate the allegations of Republican vote buying. But her office is represented by the AG, and any charges in the matter would have to be brought by the AG.

“I did hear back from the AG and they told me that they don’t have a date when they will make a determination,” Herrera said Thursday. “Our legal counsel (from the AG’s Office) says he is still meeting with his authorities and that they don’t have a determination yet. There’s nothing I can do until I get a determination from the AG.”

Why Bloggers are Important

A Week Later, the Albuquerque Journal Reports and Buries the Laura MacCallum Story

So Much Left Out and not Reported

That’s Why More and More People Distrust the Mainstream Media


By Dennis Domrzalski

After waiting nearly a week, and after waiting for the story to travel around the world on the blogosphere, the Albuquerque Journal--New Mexico's largest news outlet--decided on Sunday to finally publish a story about Laura MacCallum quitting her job as KKOB Radio’s afternoon drive time anchor because of political pressure on the station from Heather Wilson's U.S. Senate campaign.

What a pathetic and disgraceful story it was, though. It shows why the blogosphere is daily becoming more powerful and why more and more people are turning away from traditional media sources for their news. The fact is, those traditional sources can’t be trusted to tell us what’s really going on, especially when it comes to their own industry, and especially when it comes to political parties they support and who support them.

MaCallum quit because KKOB News Director Pat Allen pulled her stories about allegations of vote buying at the recent sate Republican Party’s pre-primary conventions. Allen caved after getting complaints from Heather Wilson’s U.S. Senate campaign and from state Republican Party officials.

The Journal’s seven-paragraph story, buried on page B4, fails to mention that it was Wilson’s campaign that did the complaining. It didn’t go into detail about the vote-buying scandal, and it said nothing about Allen’s memo to MacCallum that he didn’t think the stories were valid because other media outlets and bloggers hadn’t picked them up.

The MacCallum story involves legitimate and burning questions about the state GOP’s delegate selection process—whether campaigns can buy delegates to the main nominating convention—and whether a federally licensed radio station caved to political pressure to kill the stories. Would KKOB have pulled stories critical of the state Democratic Party if one of its campaigns or officials had complained?

The Journal wasn't alone in its failure cover this story properly and inform the public about how ugly, deceitful and power driven political campaigns can be. No TV stations ran it, and with the exception of KKOB Radio's Thursday afternoon four-hour apology to the New Mexico Republican Party, no other commercial radio stations ran it. Only public radio covered the story.

They refused to run it even though the New Mexico Secretary of State's and the State Attorney General's offices are investigating the allegations and whether they amount to felony vote buying.

Truth is, TV, radio stations and newspapers routinely make decisions about which stories to pursue or not based on political pressure, personal and corporate biases and advertising dollars.

They just don’t want you to know about it. That’s why you rarely see the media writing or airing stories about itself. That’s why you hardly ever see or hear stories about their inner workings, their profit margins, their reasons for killing or pursuing stories, their news judgment.

The industry that demands that politicians, institutions and businesses reveal just about every detail of their lives, offices and business, tries as hard as it can to keep those things about itself secret.

They’re all members of the same club, and the club doesn’t criticize itself. They protect each other.

Is it a big deal that the state’s largest radio station—a conservative talk station—pulled stories after a Republican campaign and the state Republican Party complained?

You damn straight it is.

Was the public served—KKOB operates on the public airwaves—by the station’s censoring a story critical of the Republican Party?

No.

Is it news that the Journal, New Mexico's largest media outlet, buried this story and kept key details of it from the public? Is it news that the Journal refused to dig into a story about whether political pressure kept a story from the public airwaves?

Yeah.

Would this matter of public interest have been covered so extensively by the mainstream and traditional media?

Hell no. They didn’t want you to know about it.

But you do know about it, thanks to bloggers.

People in the traditional media have long been society’s information gatekeepers. In the past, what you’ve been able to see, hear and read has been totally up to them.

They demanded your trust--after all, they knew what information you needed and didn't need-- but they’ve abused that trust time and time again, especially in regards to their own decisions and secrets.

That’s why the gatekeepers are being swept away. That’s why we need more bloggers.

Radio Station Caves to Heather Wilson's Campaign

KKOB Radio News Anchor Laura MacCallum Quits After Station Pulls Stories About Alleged Republican Vote-Buying Efforts

Ex-anchor Says Station Caved to Pressure From Heather Wilson’s Senate Campaign

Station Says Story Had No Legs

By Dennis Domrzalski

KKOB Radio afternoon drive time news anchor Laura MacCallum quit her job last Thursday after the station’s news director pulled her stories about alleged vote-buying efforts at the recent Bernalillo County Republican Party delegate nominating conventions.

MacCallum, a 32-year radio and TV news veteran who has worked in Chicago, Denver and Los Angeles, said the station caved to complaints from Congresswoman Heather Wilson’s Senate campaign about the stories. Wilson campaign spokeswoman Whitney Cheshire called the station to argue the unfairness of stories alleging that many delegates to the ward conventions were paid by Wilson’s and other campaigns to show up and cast their votes for certain delegates.

Critics of the alleged vote-buying effort say it was an unfair scheme to lock out any challengers to Wilson’s senate and Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White’s congressional campaigns

KKOB News Director Pat Allen said the stories were pulled, not because of the campaign’s complaints, but because he felt they lacked corroboration and that a source in some of MacCallum’s stories, former New Mexico Governor Dave Cargo, was bitter because he wasn’t elected as a delegate to the upcoming state Republican Party nominating convention.

“I talked to Heather Wilson’s campaign and they expressed concerns that the stories had no basis in fact,” Allen said, adding that he also talked to sate a Republican Party official about MacCallum’s stories, which were broadcast last Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

MacCallum was outraged by the situation.

“I had an ethical problem with the stories being pulled because Heather Wilson’s campaign put pressure on newsroom management,” MacCallum said. “They allowed political pressure to dictate the news. As journalists we can’t do that. The news has to stand alone. That a political candidate can inject herself into news department management is just mind blowing. Should we just be doing the Heather Wilson news? And as soon as we make her angry she’s going to call and start giving everybody trouble?

“If a political campaign can bring pressure on a news department to change how they cover the news, that is a disservice to everyone who listens. We are not there to make everybody happy; we are there to do the news. And if we don’t do that if we are serving as the biggest PR agency in the state of New Mexico and we are not doing our jobs.”

Flabbergasted by Memo; Bloggers Didn’t Have the Story

MacCallum was also flabbergasted by a memo she got from News Director Allen on Thursday morning before she quit. The memo said that because there were no official investigations of criminal wrongdoing into the matter, the story would go nowhere. It also suggested that the story wasn’t valid because bloggers and other news outlets hadn’t picked it up. Here’s Allen’s memo:

“From: "Pat Allen" <pat.allen@mail.citcomm.com>
Reply-To: <pat.allen@mail.citcomm.com>
Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:22:27 -0800

laura,

i pulled the cargo stories. i'm troubled by his motivation as he was not selected as a delegate. unless there is an official investigation of criminal wrongdoing related to these meetings then the story is going nowhere.
it's also a very inside politics story that i don't think has much importance to our listeners.

also, don't you think if there was anything to it the bloggers would have picked this up, let alone other news agencies?
this is the kind of story that has to be fully developed and verified before it can air.

pat allen news director 770 kkob radio, Albuquerque”

“We’ve billed ourselves as the news leader, and now we can’t do stories unless other news outlets and bloggers do them? That’s not right,” MacCallum said. MacCallum wrote her resignation letter after reading Allen’s memo.

Allegations of Vote Buying

The allegations of vote buying stem from the Bernalillo County Republican Party ward conventions on February 17. The conventions were held to nominate delegates to the state party’s March 15 statewide convention. At that convention, the delegates who were who were elected on Feb. 17 will select candidates to be on the GOP’s June primary election ballot.

Cargo says he noticed something different when 59 people showed up at the Albuquerque Marriott to elect delegates from the 31^st ward in Albuquerque.

“This is probably the biggest ward in the city, by far. Normally we have between 9 and 15 people show up,” Cargo said. “And so along comes the convention on Sunday and 59 people show up.”

Cargo began passing around a signup sheet. “I said ‘I’m going to pass around notebook and would like to have you write down your names and address and phone number so I can call you and put you to work for the party,’” Cargo said. “Then one gal got up and said, ‘We aren’t working for any party; we’re here only this one time and we won’t be back.’”

Cargo said that over the course of the meeting many of the participants said they were from Wilson’s senate campaign and from Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White’s congressional campaign. Several people told him they were being paid $35-an-hour (for two hours) by their campaigns and that the campaigns had also paid their $30 registration fees.

“I told them that this was known as vote buying, that it was illegal and that it was fourth-degree felony,” Cargo said. “I said, ‘You can’t buy votes. We’re not in Chicago or St. Louis.’ They just blinked and looked at me. They didn’t see anything wrong with it.”

MacCallum attended Cargo’s convention and said she heard many participants say that they had been paid to show up and vote for a specific slate of candidates. Cargo ran for a delegate spot, but didn’t get enough votes.

State Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones, R-Albuquerque, said she saw the same thing in the 24^th Ward’s convention. Many of the participants said they had been paid to attend and vote for certain delegates, she said.

“They were free about telling us why they were there and what they were trying to do,” Arnold-Jones added. “Some people said they had been paid to participate in the convention. It was clear that some of them had no stake in the process and that they were not coming back for the convention.”

Denials and Non-answers

White is running for the First Congressional District seat that is being vacated by Wilson. A source in his campaign flatly denied paying campaign workers to attend the conventions and vote for certain candidates.

Wilson’s spokeswoman Cheshire refused to answer our questions about the issue.

“I’m not going to respond to anything Dave Cargo says unless you have a tape recording of him. I’m not going to have any comment on this until Mr. Cargo puts his complaints in writing to the Republican Party,” Cheshire said.

For Cargo, the affair smells of vote buying and constitutes a fourth-degree felony. Two portions of the state’s election code apply, he says. They are:

“1-20-11. Offering a bribe. (1969)

Offering a bribe consists of willfully advancing, paying, or causing to be paid, or promising, directly or indirectly, any money or other valuable consideration, office or employment, to any person for the following purposes connected with or incidental to any election:

A. to induce such person, if a voter, to vote or refrain from voting for or against any candidate, proposition, question or constitutional amendment;

B. to induce such person, if a precinct board member or other election official, to mark, alter, suppress or otherwise change any ballot that has been cast, any election return, or any certificate of election; or

C. to induce such person to use such payment or promise to bribe others for the purposes specified in this section.

Whoever offers a bribe is guilty of a fourth degree felony,” and:

“1-20-12. Accepting a bribe. (1969)

Accepting a bribe consists of knowingly accepting any payment or promise of payment, directly or indirectly, of money, valuable consideration, office or employment for the unlawful purposes specified in Section 1-20-11 NMSA 1978.

Whoever accepts a bribe is guilty of a fourth degree felony.”

Cargo said that Wilson’s and White’s campaigns strong-armed the conventions in an attempt to lock out challengers come March 15:

“Of the 14 delegates elected from my ward, only two are active in the party. They shut everybody out and they will never be back. This is no way to run a democracy; it’s a raw deal.”