Lawmakers hoping the ethics-reform front would remain quiet during this session – and this election year – aren’t going to get their wish.
Legislative leaders had an initial plan to consider only four issues – contribution limits, an ethics commission, funding for the Secretary of State’s online reporting and disclosure system and a study on the possibility of creating an election commission. Activists are complaining that it isn’t enough. They’re drawing attention to ethics reform and, it appears, having some success in shifting the debate.
• Gov. Bill Richardson on Wednesday said he will allow debate on public financing during the session, and Speaker Ben Lujan said he might introduce a bill to expand the state’s public-financing system.
• Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez is apparently reworking a contribution limits bill he introduced that, in its current form, would only place limits on contributions to individuals – not political action committees and parties – and would do nothing to address the state’s weak reporting laws.
• Common Cause New Mexico announced Wednesday that it will issue a report card grading legislators on how they vote on ethics bills after the session ends. An environmental group that does something similar each year successfully puts a lot of public pressure on lawmakers to back its bills.
• Senate Bill 312, sponsored by Minority Whip Leonard Lee Rawson, is attracting bipartisan support. It would increase the frequency of required finance reports in off-years from annually to quarterly. It would also require the reporting, within 24 hours, of contributions over $250 made in the final days of an election.
The bill would address some of the flaws in reporting laws that Sanchez’s current bill does not. We don’t yet know what changes Sanchez is making to his bill.
But Sen. Dede Feldman, D-Albuquerque, has signed on to Rawson’s bill, and Lt. Gov. Diane Denish told The Santa Fe New Mexican that it has an excellent chance of passing the Senate. Denish, a 2010 gubernatorial candidate, began voluntarily releasing quarterly finance reports to the public last year even though the law didn’t require it since it wasn’t an election year.
The media is also pitching in to bring attention to ethics reform. Steve Terrell of The New Mexican highlighted much of what’s happening in two articles that ran in today’s edition. (The first link is above. Click here to read the second.) A reporter from the Albuquerque Journal has also been hounding officials in
Terrell highlighted an October report from the California Voter Foundation and other groups that graded states’ disclosure laws.
All the attention means that lawmakers aren’t going to be able to avoid ethics reform in this election year. At least six lawmakers – Senate Majority Whip Mary Jane Garcia, House Minority Whip Dan Foley, Rep. Joni Gutierrez, Sen. Rod Adair, Sen. Linda Lopez and Sen. James Taylor – are facing primary challenges this year. They and other lawmakers get to finish out the remainder of this 30-day session knowing the attention on ethics reform isn’t going away, and that they’re going to be graded on their dedication to ethics reform in a very public way before the primaries.