Rey Garduno - To Get Public Campaign Finance Funding

by: suz

Wed May 23, 2007 at 15:39:48 PM MDT

( - promoted by LP)

If Rey Garduno’s current level of organization is any sign of how he will run his campaign for Albuquerque City Council's District 6 seat, other candidates will have quite a race on their hands. Yesterday Rey turned in exactly the required 271 signatures and $5.00 donations in order to qualify for public campaign financing. Albuquerque City Clerk, Millie Santillanes, said the official announcement won't be made until May 31st, but unofficially Rey's signatures have been accepted.

Rey becomes the first person in NM, and Albuquerque specifically, to quality for public campaign financing. He attributes a portion of his early success to his use of a walk-list of voters in District #6. Rey also noted that he was able to turn in the required number of signatures in two weeks, about half the time given to candidates to collect signatures.

Rey Garduno said that he delivered the signatures in three batches, an initial set of 90, a second set of 175 and a third set of 28. Rey stayed at the City Clerk's office for the counting and validating or "vetting" of the final batch of signatures. The City Clerk's office went through all of the gathered signatures in each batch carefully and eliminated those that could not be identified as registered voters in District 6. Garduno stated that only 8% of the signatures he turned in were rejected while other candidates had rejection rates between 23% and 40%. He also indicated that if he had fallen short of the 271 signatures needed, several people were waiting in the wings to give their signatures and donations.

Rey and Debbie O'Malley, candidate for Albuquerque City Council's District 2 seat, will be guests on the New Mexico Blog Radio show at 4:30 PM Thursday, May 24th to discuss their experience with the new public campaign finance law. Listeners are invited to call in and ask questions during the half hour show. The call-in number is (718) 664-9717. The show will be hosted by Democracy for New Mexico's Barbara Wold, and Suzanne Prescott, who produced the radio show, Insight New Mexico during the NM Legislative session.