Citizens for Mike McLachlan – an issue group that emerged to oppose efforts to recall the Durango state House member – wasn’t waiting for the worst-case-scenario – a successful petition that would have triggered a recall election – before it started spending.
In The Durango Herald on Sunday, Citizens for Mike McLachlan paid for 7,000 inserted ads printed by a private company on thick, glossy paper, touting McLachlan’s record as a veteran and deploring the $150,000 the group said a recall election would have cost taxpayers if it had been successful.
Citizens for Mike McLachlan will disclose what it raised and spent in the last month by the end of business today. The filing of the San Juan Freedom Defense Committee, the effort backing the recall, isn’t due until June 2.
As of April 22, Citizens for Mike McLachlan had raised $5,685 in just two months – more than the $3,581 raised by the San Juan Freedom Defense Committee.
While the two groups’ expenditures in the final weeks leading to the recall petition deadline remain unknown, both the recall effort and Citizens for Mike McLachlan have speculated that big, out-of-district interests like the National Rifle Association and the National Democratic Committee were playing some sort of financial role in the recall battle.
According to filings with the Secretary of State’s Office, as of early May, such suspicions were not substantiated.
Unlike November’s election, available filings suggest the people underwriting the recall battle’s efforts are almost entirely local, with Pagosa Springs being the farthest flung donor address and most donations coming to about $50.
cmcallister@durangoherald.com
