{"id":1777,"date":"2007-05-25T08:08:00","date_gmt":"2007-05-25T14:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/05\/as-acting-guv-denish-appoints-members-to-boards\/"},"modified":"2007-05-25T08:08:00","modified_gmt":"2007-05-25T14:08:00","slug":"as-acting-guv-denish-appoints-members-to-boards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/05\/as-acting-guv-denish-appoints-members-to-boards\/","title":{"rendered":"As acting guv, Denish appoints members to boards"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Gov. Bill Richardson\u2019s<\/a> staffers have repeatedly insisted that, even though he\u2019s been out of the state most of the time since the Legislature<\/a> quit working a couple of months ago, he\u2019s still running the government. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

That\u2019s why two news releases sent out by the office of Lt. Gov. Diane Denish<\/a> late Thursday caught my attention.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Acting Gov. Denish appointed Greg Fuller of Jal to the Lea County Board of Commissioners and Fred G. Mobley of Las Cruces<\/st1:city><\/st1:place> to the New Mexico Military Base Planning Commission.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Through Monday, Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> had been out of the state 71 days this year, including 28 of the last 36. But he was in New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> on Tuesday and Wednesday, and he\u2019s in the state today.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

He was in Seattle<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> on Thursday.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Today he plans to take some official action by announcing the appointment of a new higher education secretary at a news conference in Santa Fe<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

So, I wondered, why didn\u2019t he make the other appointments himself, since he\u2019s here this week? If he\u2019s really as involved as he claims \u2013 bombarding his staff and Denish with phone calls, e-mails and notes, as staffers told the Albuquerque Journal<\/a> \u2013 I would think he was the one who really made the decisions to appoint the two men.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

So why leave the official acts to Denish?<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cThe lieutenant governor chairs the Base Planning Commission and was born and raised in Lea<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:place>, so it makes perfect sense that she be the one to make these appointments,\u201d Denish spokesman Michael Henningsen told me. \u201cThe governor and lieutenant governor work very closely together on all major issues while he\u2019s out campaigning, and she made these appointments today in her capacity as acting governor, with the governor\u2019s knowledge and approval.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThe governor has stated that he is confident the state is in good hands with the lieutenant governor when he is out of state, and he appreciates their ability to work together as a team,\u201d Henningsen said.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

It\u2019s notable that letting Denish put people in influential positions probably helps build support for her 2010 gubernatorial run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Bill Richardson\u2019s staffers have repeatedly insisted that, even though he\u2019s been out of the state most of the time since the Legislature quit working a couple of months ago, he\u2019s still running the government. That\u2019s why two news releases sent out by the office of Lt. Gov. Diane Denish late Thursday caught my attention. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1777","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=1777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1777\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}