{"id":14445,"date":"2010-03-12T13:28:44","date_gmt":"2010-03-12T20:28:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=14445"},"modified":"2010-03-12T13:28:48","modified_gmt":"2010-03-12T20:28:48","slug":"hatch-act-complaint-filed-against-judicial-candidate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/03\/hatch-act-complaint-filed-against-judicial-candidate\/","title":{"rendered":"Hatch Act complaint filed against judicial candidate"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_14446\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 110px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-14446\" title=\"Wellborn, Rick\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/Wellborn-Rick.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"110\" height=\"152\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rick Wellborn<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A Las Cruces resident has filed a federal <a href=\"http:\/\/www.osc.gov\/hatchact.htm\">Hatch Act<\/a> complaint alleging that Republican <a href=\"https:\/\/wellbornforjudge.worldsecuresystems.com\/\">Rick Wellborn\u2019s<\/a> candidacy for district judge violates the ban on partisan political activity by public employees whose jobs involve federal funds.<\/p>\n<p>Wellborn is a prosecutor in the 3rd Judicial District Attorney\u2019s Office. He and his boss, Do\u00f1a Ana County District Attorney <a href=\"http:\/\/www.da.state.nm.us\/districts\/third\/index.html\">Susana Martinez<\/a>, say though the office receives federal funds, Wellborn\u2019s job isn\u2019t funded with those dollars and none of his duties have anything to do with the federal grants.<\/p>\n<p>Federal law prohibits federal employees, and other government employees whose jobs involve federal funds, from running in partisan political races.<\/p>\n<p>Las Crucen Ernie Bean wrote in his complaint that the district attorney\u2019s office receives federal funding through several programs and includes southwest border funds, crime victim funds and funds to combat drug trafficking.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am not aware of any mechanism by which the district attorney is able to fully segregate Mr. Wellborn\u2019s salary and other office resources from federal grant money,\u201d Bean wrote in his complaint. \u201cAs such, Mr. Wellborn is violating the Hatch Act by running for partisan office.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Martinez said the funds are separated. Each source of funding that comes into the office \u2013 such as state general fund money and the various federal grants \u2013 is assigned its own accounting code. The state\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shareinfo.state.nm.us\/\">SHARE system<\/a>, which handles accounting, employment, payroll and purchasing information for Martinez\u2019s office, keeps track of how each position is funded.<\/p>\n<p>Martinez said Wellborn\u2019s job is paid \u201cabsolutely 100 percent\u201d by state general fund money.<\/p>\n<p>Bean pointed to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.osc.gov\/haStateLocalSampleAdvisoryOpinions.htm\">previous Hatch Act opinions<\/a> that state that \u201cEmployees are subject to the Act if, as a normal and foreseeable incident of their principal employment, they perform duties in connection with the federally financed activities.\u201d The opinions state that coverage \u201cis not dependent on the source of an employee\u2019s salary, nor is it dependent upon whether the employee actually administers the funds or has policy duties with respect to them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Martinez said none of Wellborn\u2019s duties involve federal funds either \u2013 because, in her office, duties are based on where the funding for an employee\u2019s job comes from.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not clear when the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.osc.gov\/hatchact.htm\">U.S. Office of Special Counsel<\/a>, which oversees compliance with the Hatch Act, will respond to Bean\u2019s complaint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Las Cruces resident has filed a federal Hatch Act complaint alleging that Republican Rick Wellborn\u2019s candidacy for district judge violates the ban on partisan political activity by public employees whose jobs involve federal funds.<\/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":[108,115,161],"class_list":["post-14445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-2010-election","tag-dona-ana-county","tag-judiciary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14445","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=14445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}