NM House candidate faces state ethics complaint over coordinating with dark money group

A New Mexico House of Representatives candidate is facing an ethics complaint that accuses her of illegally coordinating with a newly formed political committee that has thrown money behind an array of House candidates without disclosing its donors or leadership.

The complaint, against House District 30 candidate Veronica Mireles, marks the latest example of New Chapter, New Mexico’s involvement in this year’s primary, and also sheds light on the organization’s possible connection to a dark money group out of Colorado.

Mireles, a medical malpractice defense attorney challenging incumbent state Rep. E. Diane Torres Velásquez (D-Albuquerque), is among a handful of Democratic primary candidates that New Chapter, New Mexico, a 501(c)4 nonprofit organization, has boosted through roughly $85,000 in advertisements.

Under state law, independent expenditure committees like New Chapter are allowed to spend unlimited funds without disclosing their donors provided they do not coordinate with campaigns. 

The complaint, filed by attorney James Altamarino, accuses Mireles of coordinating with the group because her fianceé and campaign treasurer Vincent Chavez lists himself as a New Chapter board member on his photo studio’s website.

“To me, it appears a little too close,” Altamirano told Source NM on Tuesday, when he filed the complaint. “It would appear to me that it’s coordinated and not independent.”

Altamirano, who lives in House District 30, was also part of a lawsuit earlier this year seeking to remove Mireles from the ballot, alleging she improperly filed campaign paperwork. The state Supreme Court ultimately ruled in Mireles’ favor. 

Mireles and Chavez, in separate phone interviews with Source NM on Wednesday, denied that New Chapter coordinated with Mireles’ campaign. They said Chavez resigned from the board after two months and well before Mireles decided to run for office. 

Chavez told Source NM that an entrepreneur friend, whom he declined to identify, asked him to serve on the board last year, and he decided to join it “because it might be fun to join a board,” he said.

He said he understood that the organization was “political” and would seek to support “centrist” candidates that support small businesses. It was modeled after a similar organization in Colorado, the name of which he could not recall, he said. 

He also said that a man named Andrew Short contacted him originally about joining the New Chapter, New Mexico board. Short is executive director of One Main Street in Colorado, a pro-business dark money group that recently came under fire for its Colorado state house donations, including paying $25,000 for hotel stays for state lawmakers at a Vail, Colorado resort. 

Short did not respond to Source NM’s request for comment Wednesday. 

Apart from Short, Chavez said he could not recall the names of other board members and said he attended two virtual meetings featuring introductions but no substantive discussion of the group’s mission, before deciding to leave the board in November because he became too busy.  

New ‘dark money’ group backs array of New Mexico House Democratic candidates

“I am not good with names, so I’m definitely not going to remember,” he said. 

Mireles told Source NM that she knew little about Chavez’s work on the board, which she said she believed to be an “arts and culture”-oriented organization, and that she first learned that New Chapter endorsed her candidacy when she came across an ad it created on her behalf online. 

“I experienced new emotions once I even learned and saw what New Chapter was doing,” she said of seeing the advertisement. “I had no idea.”

If New Chapter were to have coordinated with the campaign, the group would be subject to a $6,200 contribution limit, and Mireles and the group would be required to disclose the contribution as an in-kind political donation. 

State Ethics Commission Deputy Director Amelia Bierle declined to comment on the matter, saying the commission is prohibited by law from disclosing information about alleged violations.