{"id":22006,"date":"2010-09-29T08:10:38","date_gmt":"2010-09-29T14:10:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=22006"},"modified":"2011-10-10T11:26:03","modified_gmt":"2011-10-10T17:26:03","slug":"mccamley-says-choice-is-a-reformer-or-more-of-the-same","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/09\/mccamley-says-choice-is-a-reformer-or-more-of-the-same\/","title":{"rendered":"McCamley says choice is a reformer or more of the same"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Bill McCamley<\/p><\/div>\n

District 5 Public Regulation candidate\u00a0Bill McCamley<\/a> says there\u2019s a \u201cfairly obvious\u201d contrast between him and his opponent when it comes to ethics.<\/p>\n

McCamley, a Democrat, said he \u201cpersonally rewrote\u201d portions of the Do\u00f1a Ana County ethics ordinance when he was a county commissioner \u201cto put barriers between commissioners and special interests.\u201d He worked on reforming the county\u2019s election system. He served on the governor\u2019s ethics reform task force in 2007. He was a Common Cause Board member in 2009.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have experience and passion when it comes to this issue,\u201d McCamley said during a recent interview.<\/p>\n

By contrast, McCamley said his opponent, Republican Ben Hall<\/a>, had a record when he served in the state Legislature in the late 1980s and early 1990s of \u201cvoting for big corporations, insurance companies and banks.\u201d For example, he said Hall voted against forcing insurance companies to cover mammograms.<\/p>\n

McCamley also pointed to court records that show Hall has been sued a number of times for failing to pay taxes as evidence that Hall doesn\u2019t follow the rules.<\/p>\n

And in a recent article<\/a> published by the New Mexico Independent, Hall was quoted as saying that he\u2019s skeptical that structural reforms can help clean up the scandal-plagued PRC. Instead, Hall was quoted as saying, commissioners must lead by example.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said that we don\u2019t need structural changes for ethics,\u201d McCamley said. \u201c\u2026 Maybe the reason for that is he likes to represent big corporations and special interests.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ethics reform<\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

With the PRC having faced so many ethical problems \u2013 even now, a current commissioner is under indictment<\/a> for misusing the state\u2019s public financing system \u2013 McCamley wants to contrast the race as being between a reformer and more of the same.<\/p>\n

McCamley said the PRC needs to increase accountability and transparency and \u201cstrengthen barriers between the commission and staff and special interests.\u201d<\/p>\n

As an example of something that needs to change, McCamley cited the money involved in the PNM rate increase case. He said the company has budgeted $2.4 million for legal representation in the case, while the AG has one lawyer and $100,000 to represent \u201cthe people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not exactly equitable,\u201d McCamley said. \u201cThose are the sorts of systematic processes we need to examine to make sure that we hold these companies accountable. \u2026 The basic job of the PRC is to represent the little guy against big corporations.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCamley also wants to make the insurance superintendent \u2013 \u201cprobably the most powerful appointed position in the state\u201d \u2013 more accountable. How? He\u2019s not sure, but he knows that there is currently \u201cno direct accountability in that office.\u201d<\/p>\n

He has two ideas. One is to make the office a statewide elected position. The other is to give the PRC authority to approve decisions made by the insurance superintendent before they become official.<\/p>\n

\u201cEither way, there\u2019s some accountability to the people,\u201d McCamley said.<\/p>\n

McCamley wants to expand webcasting. The PRC already streams audio<\/a> of its meetings online, but he wants to include video, and to archive webcasts so people can watch them whenever they have time.<\/p>\n

He also wants to consider changing the PRC\u2019s meeting schedule to give commissioners more time to spend in their districts. Currently, the commission meets Tuesday and Thursday of each week. He plans to propose that the PRC meet Monday-Thursday one week and not at all the next week so commissioners \u2013 especially those who represent districts far from Santa Fe \u2013 have more time for constituent services.<\/p>\n

Other items on McCamley\u2019s agenda<\/h3>\n

Ethics reform isn\u2019t the only item on McCamley\u2019s agenda. He hopes to help expand the use of wind, solar and other alternative energy sources. He wants to look at adding distance education courses for people training to be volunteer firefighters so they don\u2019t have to spend as much time at the state\u2019s fire academy in Socorro.<\/p>\n

And McCamley wants to consider streamlining some state services. He said the state needs to examine duplicate services in different offices to determine whether they are needed. For example, businesses have to register with the PRC and secretary of state, but he said perhaps they don\u2019t need to do both.<\/p>\n

McCamley pointed out that he tried to debate many of these issues with Hall, but Hall refused<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would hope that people would choose someone who has the courage to have these public conversations,\u201d McCamley said. \u201cIf you can\u2019t have that dialogue, you can\u2019t stand up to the big folks.\u201d<\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve disclosed in the past, I\u2019m friends with McCamley. Click <\/em>here<\/em><\/a> to read more about that.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

District 5 Public Regulation candidate Bill McCamley says there\u2019s a \u201cfairly obvious\u201d contrast between him and his opponent when it comes to ethics. He wants to contrast the race as being between a reformer and more of the same.<\/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":[108,109,107],"class_list":["post-22006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-2010-election","tag-ethics-reform","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22006","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=22006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22006\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}