{"id":1869,"date":"2007-06-20T20:50:00","date_gmt":"2007-06-21T02:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/06\/king-makes-his-own-ethics-reform-proposals\/"},"modified":"2007-06-20T20:50:00","modified_gmt":"2007-06-21T02:50:00","slug":"king-makes-his-own-ethics-reform-proposals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/06\/king-makes-his-own-ethics-reform-proposals\/","title":{"rendered":"King makes his own ethics reform proposals"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Attorney General Gary King<\/a> is proposing several changes in state law designed to help root out government corruption. <\/p>\n

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

The proposals come as Gov. Bill Richardson\u2019s ethics task force<\/a> is also considering a number of proposals in an effort to clean up government in New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>. The task force\u2019s next meeting is Wednesday in Santa Fe<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>.<\/p>\n

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

On Tuesday, King presented the proposals to the Legislative Interim Committee on Courts, Corrections and Justice<\/a>. According to a news release, King expects the proposals to be sponsored and debated during the 2008 session.<\/p>\n

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

King wants the Legislature and governor to:<\/p>\n

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

\u2022 Increase penalties for public corruption and automatically disqualify public officials from holding office after conviction.<\/p>\n

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

\u2022 Protect public employees from retaliation for reporting government corruption. The proposal would be in addition to a law that just took effect, sponsored this year by Rep. Joseph Cervantes<\/a>, D-Las Cruces, that gives citizens, including government employees and contractors, protection and incentive to expose government officials and contractors who defraud taxpayers.<\/p>\n

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

\u2022 Give the attorney general primary jurisdiction to prosecute statewide elected officials for public corruption. Currently, district attorneys get the first shot at such cases, and the attorney general can only take them if the district attorneys decline to prosecute or ask the attorney general to take over.<\/p>\n

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

\u2022 Amend the Governmental Conduct Act to apply to local governments. The act regulates the conduct of state employees and elected officials, and includes the bribery statute that applies to public officials. It was amended this year, also on a proposal from Cervantes, to require that public officials disclose, in cases of contracts and other business with the state, not only their own business but also that of spouses, children, parents and siblings. It also made the act apply to judges, who were previously exempt from its provision that prohibits bribery.<\/p>\n

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

\u2022 In cases of corruption, change the law so that the statute of limitations begins when the crimes are first investigated, not when they occurred.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cBy presenting these proposals now, it is my intent to give legislators more time to consider them and ask questions of my office before the regular session begins next year,\u201d King said in the release.<\/p>\n

\n

A prior version of this posting incorrectly stated that convicted felons can\u2019t vote in New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:State>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Attorney General Gary King is proposing several changes in state law designed to help root out government corruption. The proposals come as Gov. Bill Richardson\u2019s ethics task force is also considering a number of proposals in an effort to clean up government in New Mexico. The task force\u2019s next meeting is Wednesday in Santa Fe. […]<\/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-1869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1869","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=1869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1869\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}