Gary King took the reins of the attorney general’s office in January knowing he would have to focus much of his effort on rooting out government corruption.
Six months later, King is making a difference.
The indictments last month of the wife of state Rep. Richard Vigil and three others on government corruption charges were an indication that King, who like Vigil is a Democrat, places the law above politics.
Other investigations are ongoing. King’s office is scrutinizing Land Commissioner Pat Lyons’ decision last year to bypass his own bidding process and lease thousands of acres of land in Las Cruces to a developer who gave $20,500 to a political action committee that passed most of it on to his re-election campaign. The developer later gave
King’s office is also looking into a $3 million budget shortfall in the secretary of state’s office that occurred last year, during the tenure of Rebecca Vigil-Giron.
And his office is actively investigating allegations that led this year to reform of the state’s housing authority system, which has been mired in scandal since the Albuquerque-based Region III authority defaulted last year on $5 million on bonds it owed the state. Subsequent reviews have found that:
• Almost $900,000 that was to be spent on affordable housing went instead to the former director of the Albuquerque-area authority as salary, benefits and a questionable loan.
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King has hired Lorenzo Garcia, a respected accountant who ran for auditor last year and treasurer in 1994, to work in his government accountability division. Garcia is working on the housing authority case and will soon travel to
King has also announced a number of ethics reform proposals he wants approved next year. He wants the Legislature and governor to:
• Increase penalties for public corruption and disqualify public officials from holding office after conviction.
• Create a whistleblower law that would protect public employees from retaliation when they report government corruption.
• Give the attorney general, instead of district attorneys, primary jurisdiction to prosecute statewide elected officials for corruption.
• Make the Governmental Conduct Act, which regulates the conduct of state officials and employees, apply to local governments.
• In cases of corruption, have the statute of limitations begin when crimes are first investigated, not when they occurred.
King’s office has also responded quickly to lawmaker requests for formal opinions on a number of hot topics. And he has created a Web site that discloses complaints of open meetings and public records laws violations and the outcome of investigations.
That’s a busy six months. If King and his staff can keep up the pace, they might chip away at the culture of corruption that plagues government in
A version of this article was published today in the Albuquerque Tribune. I write a column for the newspaper that runs on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month.