The last of the House Democrats’ group of ethics reform bills to get a hearing was given unanimous approval by a committee today.
House Bill 823, sponsored by Rep. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, would make several amendments to the Governmental Conduct Act, which attempts to set ethical standards for public officials. The most significant change in the original version of the bill would make public officials disclose, in cases of contracts and other business with the state, not only their own business but that of spouses, children, parents and siblings.
The bill was also amended by the House Health and Governmental Affairs Committee today to make the act apply to judges, who are currently exempt. The bill now moves to the Judiciary Committee.
The amendment comes after the December overturning by the New Mexico Supreme Court of the 2003 rape and bribery conviction of a former Española judge. He was convicted under the bribery statute in the Governmental Conduct Act, which currently exempts judges.
Cervantes, when questioned by committee members about why the original version of the bill didn’t include the amendment related to judges, said he is “very receptive to including judges.”
“In all honesty, Madame chair, I didn’t want to be, as an attorney who practices before these judges, the one to do that,” Cervantes told Rep. Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque and the committee’s chair.
He chuckled as he said it. Stewart then proposed the amendment, noting that the bill was moving next to judiciary, and most of that committee’s members are attorneys.
“Maybe we should amend it here so all those attorneys aren’t nervous Nellies,” Stewart said.
The bill has the support of the governor. A representative of Attorney General Gary King also spoke in support of it at the hearing.