Frank Foy filed a lawsuit last week to try to force the New Mexico Educational Retirement Board (ERB) to release documents it’s withholding. He filed another lawsuit against the State Investment Council (SIC) today for the same reason.
Foy, who has also filed a third lawsuit alleging a pay-to-play scheme involving the Richardson administration, filed requests under the state Inspection of Public Records Act in January seeking a myriad of documents from the two state agencies. As the ERB did last week, SIC also rejected Foy’s request — but for a different reason.
While ERB rejected the request on the basis that it was “excessively burdensome and broad” — which Foy alleges in that lawsuit is not a valid justification for rejecting a request for public records — the SIC’s rejection letter states as its basis “the well settled public policy and case law that freedom of information laws cannot be used to evade a court’s discovery process.”
Translation: Any records Foy wants, the SIC is saying, will have to be obtained through a subpoena.
Foy’s lawsuit against SIC, which you can read by clicking here, states that the refusal, in addition to being a violation of the public records act, “is dilatory and in bad faith. … The SIC has denied the request in order to prevent the public from learning about malfeasance, nonfeasance and incompetence at the SIC.”
Foy’s pay-to-play lawsuit, which he has filed on behalf of the state, alleges that the state made investments with Vanderbilt and affiliated companies in exchange for a little more than $15,000 in contributions to Gov. Bill Richardson’s 2008 presidential campaign. The state lost $90 million in the investment deals, which were made by the ERB and SIC.
Richardson and other state officials flatly deny the charges brought by Foy.