Bill McCamley
District 5 Public Regulation candidate Bill McCamley says there’s a “fairly obvious” contrast between him and his opponent when it comes to ethics.
McCamley, a Democrat, said he “personally rewrote” portions of the Doña Ana County ethics ordinance when he was a county commissioner “to put barriers between commissioners and special interests.” He worked on reforming the county’s election system. He served on the governor’s ethics reform task force in 2007. He was a Common Cause Board member in 2009.
“I have experience and passion when it comes to this issue,” McCamley said during a recent interview.
By contrast, McCamley said his opponent, Republican Ben Hall, had a record when he served in the state Legislature in the late 1980s and early 1990s of “voting for big corporations, insurance companies and banks.” For example, he said Hall voted against forcing insurance companies to cover mammograms.
McCamley also pointed to court records that show Hall has been sued a number of times for failing to pay taxes as evidence that Hall doesn’t follow the rules.
And in a recent article published by the New Mexico Independent, Hall was quoted as saying that he’s skeptical that structural reforms can help clean up the scandal-plagued PRC. Instead, Hall was quoted as saying, commissioners must lead by example.
“He said that we don’t need structural changes for ethics,” McCamley said. “… Maybe the reason for that is he likes to represent big corporations and special interests.”
Ethics reform
With the PRC having faced so many ethical problems – even now, a current commissioner is under indictment for misusing the state’s public financing system – McCamley wants to contrast the race as being between a reformer and more of the same.
McCamley said the PRC needs to increase accountability and transparency and “strengthen barriers between the commission and staff and special interests.”
As an example of something that needs to change, McCamley cited the money involved in the PNM rate increase case. He said the company has budgeted $2.4 million for legal representation in the case, while the AG has one lawyer and $100,000 to represent “the people.”
“That’s not exactly equitable,” McCamley said. “Those are the sorts of systematic processes we need to examine to make sure that we hold these companies accountable. … The basic job of the PRC is to represent the little guy against big corporations.”
McCamley also wants to make the insurance superintendent – “probably the most powerful appointed position in the state” – more accountable. How? He’s not sure, but he knows that there is currently “no direct accountability in that office.”
He has two ideas. One is to make the office a statewide elected position. The other is to give the PRC authority to approve decisions made by the insurance superintendent before they become official.
“Either way, there’s some accountability to the people,” McCamley said.
McCamley wants to expand webcasting. The PRC already streams audio of its meetings online, but he wants to include video, and to archive webcasts so people can watch them whenever they have time.
He also wants to consider changing the PRC’s meeting schedule to give commissioners more time to spend in their districts. Currently, the commission meets Tuesday and Thursday of each week. He plans to propose that the PRC meet Monday-Thursday one week and not at all the next week so commissioners – especially those who represent districts far from Santa Fe – have more time for constituent services.
Other items on McCamley’s agenda
Ethics reform isn’t the only item on McCamley’s agenda. He hopes to help expand the use of wind, solar and other alternative energy sources. He wants to look at adding distance education courses for people training to be volunteer firefighters so they don’t have to spend as much time at the state’s fire academy in Socorro.
And McCamley wants to consider streamlining some state services. He said the state needs to examine duplicate services in different offices to determine whether they are needed. For example, businesses have to register with the PRC and secretary of state, but he said perhaps they don’t need to do both.
McCamley pointed out that he tried to debate many of these issues with Hall, but Hall refused.
“I would hope that people would choose someone who has the courage to have these public conversations,” McCamley said. “If you can’t have that dialogue, you can’t stand up to the big folks.”
As I’ve disclosed in the past, I’m friends with McCamley. Click here to read more about that.