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AUDIO: Turner says ‘maybe’ to voluntarily releasing finance report
Doug Turner (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Turner doesn’t have plans to release a campaign finance report to the public until the next one is required on April 12 – but he’s also not entirely closing the door on doing it sooner.
“I would imagine we’ll report in April when it’s appropriate,” Turner told NMPolitics.net’s Peter St. Cyr earlier today.
Turner was speaking at a tax protest outside the Roundhouse that he held with former Gov. Gary Johnson.
“Maybe we’ll do it earlier,” Turner said of releasing a finance report. “You know, we haven’t had a plan. Today our focus is on fighting taxes.”
Meanwhile, three other gubernatorial candidates — Democrat Diane Denish and Republicans Susana Martinez and Janice Arnold-Jones — have already gone beyond what the law requires in terms of campaign finance transparency, and Republican candidate Pete Domenici Jr. says he plans to join them.
“We don’t have any resistance to that,” Turner said of releasing reports more often than the law requires. “It’s just that we haven’t been focusing on following every single campaign on, you know, who’s proving that they’re more transparent than the other.”
“I have started off this campaign acknowledging from the beginning that I’m self-funding a significant portion of it, and I will continue to self-fund significant portions of it even while I’m raising money,” Turner said. “I’m raising money from oil and gas industry. I’m raising money from businesses that care about the future of this state. And when we report, we’re going to report and everyone will know about it.”
You can listen to Turner’s comments here:
The other candidates
Denish has been voluntarily releasing reports quarterly — even in off-election years when it’s not required — for some time, and she did it again last week. Martinez matched Denish last week in voluntarily releasing a report of contributions and expenditures for the fourth quarter of 2009.
Arnold-Jones has gone well beyond that in terms of disclosure of campaign contributions. She recently posted on her campaign Web site information about every contribution she’s received to date, and she is keeping the list of contributions current.
But unlike Denish and Martinez, Arnold-Jones has not been releasing information about campaign expenditures more often than state law requires.
Domenici, who entered the race over the weekend, plans to voluntarily release information about contributions at least monthly, his spokesman says.
Only Turner and Republican Allen Weh haven’t agreed to go beyond what the law requires. Weh hasn’t answered the question about whether he’ll voluntarily release a campaign finance report this month.
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Looks like the supreme court made this kind of a mute point. We all know the corporate money will start flowing now. As far as Doug Turner I agree with Astute Observer, it’s his money so there, beside if you need to report at a certain time and you do what the law dictates who cares when you report. Sounds like people trying to create an issue when there is none.
After I clicked on “submit comment”, I realized I had forgotten about Domenici,
who is also in the battle over last place.
I am not satisfied with his answer – basically, “I’m too busy doing other things, to get in the transparency battle.” How long would it take, how hard is it, to put this information on line?
While I agree the “transparency battle” on campaign contributions is a mountain being made of a molehill, it is what it is;
Janice Arnold-Jones came in first,
Denish came in, in second place,
Martinez came in third, and
Weh and Turner are fighting over who will come in dead last.
This one is in the can. Time for a new issue.
I agree with his remark about “who has the most transparent campaign.” Especially this early on, in anticipation of the primary, it’s almost becoming a distraction (NOT saying that reporting is unnecessary or anything, but the quarterly reporting WILL continue, so big deal). The Arnold-Jones reporting mechanism is almost a novelty, kind of like a twitter feed on the homepage or something, more of a sideshow (Pearce is doing the same thing, btw) than the real story. I still like Turner’s responses versus anybody else in the running here. It kills me because I understand his profession is that of a wordsmith, but he’s really good at it. I’m patient enough to wait for the quarterlies, after all, if they’re going to hide something there, they’re going to hide it everywhere, no?
Agree with Astute Observer. Turner is being straight. Moreover, this ridiculous game of who can be more transparent is idiotic. Lets be honest. The only reason candidates are releasing any substantive info on their fundraising is to prove to their target audiences that they are viable or at least still in the game. We know Turner is committed and has put in his own cash. Hell he’s got billboards all over the place and those are not cheap! He has said that from the start. With Arnold-Jones, we now know she doesn’t have much cash but at least she is straight. With Martinez, we see she has raised some cash although her in-kind contributions look somewhat suspect and clearly make her success at raising money look better than it probably is. As for Weh, I think we know he’s got the personal juice to self fund longer than anyone. As for Pete Jr. who knows what his plan is or why he is even in the race. He may be able to tap into his dad’s connections but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s currently suing a woman in abq for smoking in her own back yard!!! Anyway, lets move on to more substantive issues rather than who is releasing what and when and talk about the mess this state is in and who is the best person to fix it!!
I like Turners comment – basically … “it’s my own money, go away”. Weh is still trying to figure out the question or how to twist it to give an answer that is acceptable in these times of less restricted information. Arnold-Jones had said all along she was going to set up a disclosure site, and Martinez is following Arnold-Jones and Denish. In the meantime, Domenici needs to get funding from one or two of his environmental clients or dad’s friends. Turner has more spine that people gave him credit, and Arnold-Jones kept her word. The others aren’t players on this issue.