{"id":12868,"date":"2010-02-10T21:59:42","date_gmt":"2010-02-11T04:59:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=12868"},"modified":"2010-02-12T08:14:42","modified_gmt":"2010-02-12T15:14:42","slug":"land-commissioner-contribution-ban-bill-tabled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/02\/land-commissioner-contribution-ban-bill-tabled\/","title":{"rendered":"Land commissioner contribution ban bill tabled"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_12869\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12869\" title=\"Roundhouse\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/Roundhouse1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"226\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Roundhouse in Santa Fe (Photo by Peter St. Cyr)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The Senate Rules Committee tabled a bill earlier today that would have banned people who have contracts with the <a href=\"http:\/\/nmstatelands.org\/\">State Land Office<\/a> from giving campaign contributions to the land commissioner or candidates for that office.<\/p>\n<p>It was on a 5-2 vote that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmlegis.gov\/lcs\/_session.aspx?chamber=S&amp;legtype=B&amp;legno=%20110&amp;year=10\">Senate Bill 110<\/a>, sponsored by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmlegis.gov\/lcs\/legdetails.aspx?SPONCODE=SFISC\">Steve Fischmann<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n<p>The most vocal opposition to the current version of the legislation came from Senate President Pro Tem <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmlegis.gov\/lcs\/legdetails.aspx?SPONCODE=SJENT\">Tim Jennings<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n<p>The land office\u2019s general counsel, Robert Stranahan, also objected to the bill.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s almost like you\u2019re disenfranchising tens of thousands of voters because they have ag leases, commercial leases,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Stranahan added that the land office would support an \u201cacross-the-board\u201d limit on contributions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we\u2019re going to apply ethics reform and campaign reform, it should be across the board,\u201d Stranahan said. \u201cWe would support a measure that would do that and put an emergency clause on it and have it apply right now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut this particular bill specifically singles out the commissioner of public lands,\u201d he said. \u201cWe believe it\u2019s bad public policy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sen. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmlegis.gov\/lcs\/legdetails.aspx?SPONCODE=SFISC\">Dede Feldman<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s 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,\u201d he said. \u201cI think the risk of conflicts of interest is, frankly, great.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Feldman was joined in voting against the motion to table by Sen. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmlegis.gov\/lcs\/legdetails.aspx?SPONCODE=SWIRT\">Peter Wirth<\/a>, D-Santa Fe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[109,107],"class_list":["post-12868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-ethics-reform","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12868\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}