Auditor’s independence is critical to government

Of all government officials, it’s most important that the state’s auditor be independent. He or she is charged with holding the rest of government in the state accountable. Wrongdoing by government officials is often first revealed by the auditor’s office.

Domingo Martinez has demonstrated the highest ethical standards in his eight years as state auditor. Though he’s a registered Democrat, it hasn’t shown. Audits by his office have revealed faulty practices and wrongdoing, regardless of the political affiliation of those being investigated.

The situation in this year’s race to replace Martinez, and a proposal of the governor’s ethics task force, should be considered with this is mind.

The Democrat’s former candidate for state auditor, Jeff Armijo, dropped out of the race earlier this week as prosecutors in Albuquerque are reviewing allegations that he made unwanted sexual advances toward a campaign volunteer. His party’s state central committee is set to put someone else on the ballot on Sept. 9.

So the Democrat’s candidate for auditor is going to be selected not by voters from his party, but by a couple hundred party insiders.

The Republican candidate is in the same position. The day that party’s insiders, at a secret meeting in Albuquerque, accepted the withdrawal of J.R. Damron and tossed John Dendahl into the race for governor, they also accepted the withdrawal of auditor candidate Daniel Alvarez and placed Lorenzo Garcia on the ballot.

I’m not saying Garcia or the candidate picked by the Democrats can’t be independent of their parties. But we all know how politics go: There will be those in both parties who expect, if their candidate is elected, some sort of favors because they were involved in helping him or her get elected.

We can only hope at this point that both candidates have the utmost integrity and will rise above party politics.

The ethics task force, meanwhile, is going to recommend to Gov. Bill Richardson that he propose, in the upcoming legislative session, a constitutional amendment that would have the treasurer and auditor become appointed, instead of elected, positions.

I can see how this would be an improvement where the treasurer is concerned, but is it really they way the auditor should be selected?

Granted, voters picked Robert Vigil to be auditor before Martinez. They got it right one out of the last two times.

But the auditor must be independent, accountable only to the voters. What if an auditor appointed by the governor was asked to investigate allegedly illegal hiring practices of the governor, who would have the authority to fire him? Considering that those allegations have been made against Richardson, it’s a scenario that’s all too real.

The voters trust their auditor and attorney general to hold the state’s leaders accountable. It would ultimately be up to voters to decide whether to change the constitution and hand the responsibility of picking an auditor to the governor.

I’m not saying it’s a bad idea. I’m saying the task force, governor, lawmakers and voters should consider it very carefully before making a decision.