The fox is watching the hen house

By Stuart Ingle

Don’t you just wonder at times what and who is thinking in our state capitol, Santa Fe?

Secretary of State Mary Herrera’s decision to hire the son-in-law of a candidate for the U.S. Senate, who is also the husband of the candidate’s campaign manager, to be in charge of New Mexico’s election has to be one of the biggest blunders in our state’s history. Is the public relieved that this job is filled? Did Secretary of State Herrera think we would all agree to her pick of a competent, qualified lawyer for the job and overlook the obvious conflict of interest?

Did it really never occur to her, or any of her deputies, that it might — just might — seem a bit out of the ordinary, or just might raise a few eyebrows, or just might cause a touch of doubt that a job that should be performed by a nonpartisan professional, insulated from and indifferent to the political intrigue that runs thick every election year, would instead be filled by the husband of a candidate’s campaign manager and daughter?

Not one of Secretary Herrera’s former peers — the county clerks of our 33 counties — would ever think to hire anyone remotely related to a candidate or anyone working in the country clerk’s office. Under state law (NM 1-2-7C), they can’t.

We can be thankful in New Mexico that our county clerks will be counting the votes on election night. It may be time to put our state’s election process under the guidance and supervision of a nonpartisan commission instead of the elected office of secretary of state.

Ingle is a Republican from Portales and the minority leader in the New Mexico Senate.