{"id":13328,"date":"2010-02-18T07:26:55","date_gmt":"2010-02-18T14:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=13328"},"modified":"2010-02-18T09:54:36","modified_gmt":"2010-02-18T16:54:36","slug":"legislature-approves-whistleblower-protection-bills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/02\/legislature-approves-whistleblower-protection-bills\/","title":{"rendered":"Legislature approves whistleblower protection"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_11833\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11833\" title=\"Roundhouse2010\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/Roundhouse2010-300x246.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"246\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/Roundhouse2010-300x246.jpg 300w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/Roundhouse2010.jpg 325w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Roundhouse in Santa Fe (Photo by Peter St. Cyr)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The Legislature has sent two bills to the governor that would enact a state whistleblower protection law.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmlegis.gov\/lcs\/_session.aspx?chamber=H&amp;legtype=B&amp;legno=%20165&amp;year=10\">House Bill 165<\/a>, sponsored by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmlegis.gov\/lcs\/legdetails.aspx?SPONCODE=HCERV\">Joseph Cervantes<\/a>, D-Las Cruces, was unanimously approved by the Senate in the early hours of the morning. And <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmlegis.gov\/lcs\/_session.aspx?chamber=S&amp;legtype=B&amp;legno=%20%2096&amp;year=10\">Senate Bill 96<\/a>, sponsored by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmlegis.gov\/lcs\/legdetails.aspx?SPONCODE=SBEFF\">Sue Wilson Beffort<\/a>, R-Sandia Park, was approved by the House on a vote of 61-1 late last night.<\/p>\n<p>Both pieces of legislation would protect public employees from retaliation for exposing wrongdoing. Beffort\u2019s bill, according to the fiscal impact report, would prohibit public employees from retaliating \u201cagainst public employees who take action, object to, or refuse to participate in a matter they believe, in good faith, to be an unlawful or improper act.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnder the act, protected activities of employees include disclosing or threatening to disclose, providing information or testifying about unlawful or improper act(s) of a public employer, or objecting to or refusing to participate in an activity, policy or practice of the public employer that constitutes an unlawful or improper act,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n<p>Those who retaliate could face monetary damages, a news release states.<\/p>\n<p>Beffort said her bill is similar to one the governor vetoed last year.<\/p>\n<p>Under Cervantes\u2019 bill, according to a news release, a public employer is prohibited from taking retaliatory action against a public employee who:<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Discloses or threatens to disclose activity, policy or practice of the public employer that is unlawful or improper, or that the public employee believes is unlawful or improper.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Provides information or testifies as part of an investigation, hearing or inquiry into an unlawful or improper act.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Objects or refuses to participate in an activity, policy or practice that is unlawful or improper.<\/p>\n<p>The bill provides that a public employer is liable to the public employee for:<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Actual damages.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Reinstatement with same seniority.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Two times the amount of back pay, with interest.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Special damages.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Litigation costs and attorney fees.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis legislation promotes\u00a0honesty in the workplace\u00a0by protecting public employees who come forward to disclose unlawful conduct in state government, or who refuse to be a part of that unlawful activity,\u201d Cervantes said in a news release. \u201cThe Whistleblower Protection Act reflects our commitment to protect those who see government service as a public trust. This measure takes the next step by prohibiting retaliation against those who report government corruption.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Legislature has sent two bills to the governor that would enact a state whistleblower protection law. Both pieces of legislation would protect public employees from retaliation for exposing wrongdoing.<\/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-13328","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\/13328","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=13328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13328\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}