Garduño and O'Malley Kickoff Signature Drives

From frequent guest blogger Suzanne Prescott:
Rey Garduño (photo right), candidate for Albuquerque's District 6 City Council seat currently held by Martin Heinrich, met the May 31st City Clerk's deadline for signatures and $5.00 contributions in order to qualify to receive public campaign finance funds. As a result of meeting the deadline, on June 6th Garduno expects his campaign to receive a little over $27,000  of public campaign finance funds from the Albuquerque city treasury. 

On Saturday, June 2, a party of Rey supporters assembled at the Garduño household to kickoff the next phase of the campaign. Rey is now collecting signatures from 2% of the registered voters who are petitioning to get Garduño on the October ballot . According to Garduño 543 signatures are needed  in all. Tomas Garduño, Rey's son, is coordinating the petition gathering and has a little over 50 lists checked out. About a dozen have already come back filled. Rey believes that he already has 150 signatures. A report is due to the City Clerk's office by June 12th. Rey is asking for help in the collection of signatures. He can be reached at reygard@unm.edu or call (505) 266-4424.

Assistant City Clerk, Kelli Fulgenzi, in a comment made on the May 31st New Mexico Blog Radio show, believes that in subsequent years it may be possible to combine the signature/donation collection phase with the signature petition phase. New Mexico policy analyst, Matt Brix, who was also on the show, agrees that combining the two steps would be more efficient and save candidates time. 

District 2 candidate, Debbie O'Malley (photo left), who also qualified to receive public campaign financing, needs approximately  650 petition signatures. O’Malley is making copies of the signature petition sheets and will begin walking her district early this week. Debbie says she can really use help collecting signatures. Anyone who would like to help collect signatures can email her at debbie.omalley@usa.net or call 243-0832.  Debbie points out that each sheet only contains spaces for ten signatures and each sheet would be easy to fill quickly.

Editor's Notes: Speaking of Albuquerque's new clean election law, check out Suzanne's post at on a situation that developed with another City Council candidate who was trying to qualify for public funding. The City Clerk's office ALMOST allowed Katherine Martinez to turn in $5 donations and signatures AFTER the established legal deadline. Not a good way to start down a path of clean elections. Katherine Martinez works for The Home Builders Association of Central New Mexico. Hmmm....

Click to check out our archived posts on the Albuquerque City Council elections. You can listen to New Mexico Blog Radio's archived shows by visiting the online radio show's web page.