{"id":1939,"date":"2007-07-06T08:35:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-06T14:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/07\/king-investigates-pnm-lobbyist-loan-to-richardson\/"},"modified":"2007-07-06T08:35:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-06T14:35:00","slug":"king-investigates-pnm-lobbyist-loan-to-richardson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/07\/king-investigates-pnm-lobbyist-loan-to-richardson\/","title":{"rendered":"King investigates PNM lobbyist loan to Richardson"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Attorney General Gary King<\/a> is investigating whether it was legal for a state utility company to lend a lobbyist to Gov. Bill Richardson\u2019s office for several months around this year\u2019s legislative session, the Albuquerque Journal<\/a> is reporting. <\/p>\n

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

Regardless, the move creates an appearance that Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> is too close to the utility company and gave the corporation too much access to government.<\/p>\n

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

The lobbyist, Art Hull, who works for Public Service Company of New Mexico<\/a>, was loaned to the governor from mid-November to April, the Journal reported. During that time, PNM continued to pay his salary.<\/p>\n

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

\"\"<\/a>The group Break The Grip<\/a>, which aims to end corporate influence in state government, alleged in a letter to King that the governor\u2019s office had \u201cmade an illegal donation of state facilities to PNM\u201d by letting Hull work there, the newspaper reported.<\/p>\n

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

The group was started by Ben Luce, an advocate of alternative energy who, until recently, supported many of Gov. Bill Richardson\u2019s<\/a> moves related to clean energy and the environment.<\/p>\n

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

The governor\u2019s office and PNM told the newspaper the agreement was legal. Richardson<\/st1:city> spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said Hull<\/st1:city> did not have his own office at the capitol, but didn\u2019t know whether Hull<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> used the office\u2019s computer or phones.<\/p>\n

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

He did, however, say Hull<\/st1:city><\/st1:place> could have used them if he needed them, and said Luce is \u201cmaking the assumption that PNM got something out of this.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Of course PNM got something out of it. Why else would the company loan its lobbyist to the governor during the legislative session? Even if the benefit wasn\u2019t financial, PNM gained immensely by building an even friendlier relationship with the governor and learning, first-hand, about the inner workings of the governor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

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

King told the Journal his office will consider whether it\u2019s legal to lend a corporate executive to a government office; if so, what duties that executive can perform; and whether the arrangement violated the state constitution\u2019s anti-donation clause, which prohibits government from giving donations to private entities.<\/p>\n

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

Such arrangements aren\u2019t unheard of, but are rare, the Journal reported. PNM last loaned an employee to the governor\u2019s office in the 1980s.<\/p>\n

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

Of course PNM gains from the loan<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Gallegos defended the action in part by pointing out that Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> has two on-loan staffers from Los Alamos National Laboratories and one from Sandia Labs. Both are policy advisers.<\/p>\n

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

Not the same. Not at all. The fact that Gallegos even made the comparison is quite revealing.<\/p>\n

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

Governments loan each other employees all the time. The state auditor\u2019s office has a fraud examiner on loan from LANL for two years. The employee gets to learn about state government and bring back new ideas about how to improve systems at the federal lab, and the state auditor\u2019s office gets to benefit from his expertise.<\/p>\n

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

Such loans take place because both sides benefit. Inherent in the comparison is the fact that Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>\u2019s office benefited from the PNM loan, but so did PNM. That\u2019s where the anti-donation clause comes into play.<\/p>\n

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

Also keep in mind that lawmakers passed a number of Richardson<\/st1:city> bills this year that the governor cites on the campaign trail in calling New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> the \u201cclean energy state,\u201d including one that created the Renewable Energy Transmission Authority. It will help promote production of renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, by financing the construction of transmission lines.<\/p>\n

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

Guess who stands to gain the most from that state-funded infrastructure in the future? There\u2019s a good chance that the answer is PNM.<\/p>\n

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

Gallegos said Hull<\/st1:city> acted as a liaison between Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>\u2019s office and Republican legislators on a number of issues and attended some strategy sessions on ethics reform and minimum wage \u2013 but was not involved in energy issues.<\/p>\n

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

There was an exception. He could pass messages between lawmakers and the governor on the transmission authority bill, Gallegos told the Journal. But he couldn\u2019t lobby for the bill.<\/p>\n

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

Let me get this straight. The guy gets to pass private messages about the transmission authority bill between the governor and lawmakers \u2013 including many who were skeptics of the proposal \u2013 and, though his company and the governor\u2019s office both want the legislation approved and he\u2019s a professional lobbyist, he\u2019s not going to lobby?<\/p>\n

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

Here\u2019s another one that stinks. The appearance of impropriety seems to have an almost constant presence at the Roundhouse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Attorney General Gary King is investigating whether it was legal for a state utility company to lend a lobbyist to Gov. Bill Richardson\u2019s office for several months around this year\u2019s legislative session, the Albuquerque Journal is reporting. Regardless, the move creates an appearance that Richardson is too close to the utility company and gave the […]<\/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-1939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1939","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=1939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1939\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}