Bernalillo County WILL consider public campaign financing at August 11 meeting (a vote will be held that night)

It has received VERY little attention to date, but at their meeting on August 11 (Tuesday) the Bernalillo County Commission will vote to take a big step towards public financing of elections. We wrote about this recently, but having talked to one commissioner about the plan recently, the idea is to set out a broad framework first with the following statement: “The Board of County Commissioners may, by ordinance, enact an Open and Ethical Elections ordinance to provide voluntary public financing for candidates for Countywide Office and County Commission who agree to campaign spending limits and meet qualification requirements.”

Then, upon voter approval of a ballot measure this November, the Commission will formulate legislation that would allow candidates for each of the five commission seats as well as County assessor, clerk, probate judge, sheriff, and treasurer.

How much taxpayer funding would be available and what levels of public support would be required in order to receive taxpayer funding are open questions.

Albuquerque is the nearest governing body with taxpayer-funded elections. To say that public financing has failed to keep “big money” out of Albuquerque elections is an understatement underlined by left wing groups. In 2019 they attempted to pour more money into the failed system. 

During his successful 2025 campaign for a third term, incumbent Mayor Keller was the only mayoral candidate to qualify for public dollars, securing $755,946 in initial public funding in June 2025. He later received an additional $377,973 in public funds for the December 2025 general election runoff. But, Keller’s political machine was able to raise even MORE money from private sources.

Why would Bernalillo County even consider adopting such a failed system? Would they really be able to address the major shortcomings of Albuquerque’s public financing system?

You can weigh in with the County Commission here. As we get closer to the meeting we will provide further details on the proposed taxpayer financing and details on the meeting.