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After former President Donald Trump campaigned in Albuquerque last week with an unpaid bill from the city for his previous visit, City Council President Dan Lewis blasted Mayor Tim Keller’s administration about consistency when it comes to charging for other campaign events.
Trump stopped in Albuquerque on Oct. 31 at CSI Aviation, near the Albuquerque International Sunport, and spoke to residents for about an hour and a half. His visit caused some political tension and confusion about where the rally would be held and where attendees should park.
The rally was also marked with a reminder from Keller that the city still holds a $200,000 unpaid invoice from Trump’s visit in 2019. During that visit, the former president stayed overnight and required additional security from the Albuquerque Police Department (APD).
Read more about Trump’s visit here and here.
During Monday’s council meeting, Lewis questioned the administration about whether or not it has plans to also charge President Joe Biden’s campaign for a former campaign event. He was referring to a visit from Vice President Kamala Harris’s husband, Douglas Emhoff, to Albuquerque in 2021 to promote Biden’s pandemic relief bill.
“That visit was explicitly a campaign event…we provided services for that, provided APD lead entail, we provided an escort,” Lewis said. “These are the same charges that we charged in the invoice to the presidential campaign, the only invoice we’ve ever actually sent. Are we planning on sending an invoice for those expenses by the city, by APD, for that campaign?”
The City’s Chief Financial Officer Kevin Sourisseau and Lewis argued back and forth about the differences between the two different campaign visits, with Sourisseau insisting that the 2019 Trump campaign stop put a toll on city hall since Trump’s overnight stay Downtown required the building to be cleared.
“Council President, can you answer the question, did Biden spend the night downtown?” Sourisseau asked.
“This is not a question for me, it’s a question for you,” Lewis said.
“In order to answer that question, I need details, and you seem to have a lot of details you can explain,” Sourisseau said.
Lewis continued to ask whether the city plans on invoicing the Biden campaign for Emhoff’s visit when APD provided escorts and said he is “trying to look for some consistency here in how we’re doing this.”
Sourisseau told Lewis “if you’re looking for consistency at this point, you’re comparing apples and Toyotas.”
Lewis then asked City Attorney Lauren Keefe if it is important that the city is consistent in how it charges entities for city services, in which Keefe said that was generally true.
“There is nothing consistent or comparable about the Biden campaign visit you’re talking about and the 2019 Trump visit, where downtown was shut down,” Sourisseau said.
The conversation abruptly ended after Lewis told Sourisseau, “I’m sorry that you have to answer for your mayor who put you in this position.”
“Probably a pretty tough position for someone who has just made a big political game out of this,” Lewis said. “Now you guys have to sit here and answer these questions in a way, that I think it’s pretty obvious, that it’s pretty hard to.”
