The Roundhouse in Santa Fe (Photo by Peter St. Cyr)
The Senate Rules Committee tabled a bill earlier today that would have banned people who have contracts with the State Land Office from giving campaign contributions to the land commissioner or candidates for that office.
It was on a 5-2 vote that Senate Bill 110, sponsored by Steve Fischmann, D-Las Cruces, was tabled, but at least two of the members voting against the legislation said they might agree to bring it back this session with some changes.
The most vocal opposition to the current version of the legislation came from Senate President Pro Tem Tim Jennings, D-Roswell, who said he worried that it was too broad. He expressed concern about how it might affect people who hunt on state land and people who lease only small amounts of state land.
The land office’s general counsel, Robert Stranahan, also objected to the bill.
“It’s almost like you’re disenfranchising tens of thousands of voters because they have ag leases, commercial leases,” he said.
Stranahan added that the land office would support an “across-the-board” limit on contributions.
“If we’re going to apply ethics reform and campaign reform, it should be across the board,” Stranahan said. “We would support a measure that would do that and put an emergency clause on it and have it apply right now.”
“But this particular bill specifically singles out the commissioner of public lands,” he said. “We believe it’s bad public policy.”
Sen. Dede Feldman, D-Albuquerque and one of two members of the committee who voted against tabling the measure, pointed out that the Public Regulation Commission has a similar ban on contributions from people who do business with that office. Fischmann said his bill is modeled after the PRC law and important for the same reason it was important to pass such a regulation for PRC candidates.
“There’s an extraordinary level of autonomy and power that the state land office and commissioner of public lands has that does not get a broad review from elsewhere in state government,” he said. “I think the risk of conflicts of interest is, frankly, great.”
Feldman was joined in voting against the motion to table by Sen. Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe.