{"id":2391,"date":"2007-10-17T07:55:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-17T13:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/10\/cleaning-house-part-1-low-hanging-fruit\/"},"modified":"2009-08-22T14:10:33","modified_gmt":"2009-08-22T20:10:33","slug":"cleaning-house-part-1-low-hanging-fruit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/10\/cleaning-house-part-1-low-hanging-fruit\/","title":{"rendered":"Cleaning House, Part 1: Low-hanging fruit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By Carter Bundy<\/span> <\/p>\n

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

\n

Ethics reform is like playoff baseball. It\u2019s complicated, surprising and long. In reviewing the recent recommendations of the Governor\u2019s Task Force on Ethics Reform<\/a>, there are really three sets of issues: campaign financing, transparency and legislator income.<\/p>\n

\n

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

Each of the three topics deserves its own column, so let\u2019s start with the low-hanging fruit: legislator income.<\/p>\n

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

Give \u2018em a break: Time for legislator pay<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Here\u2019s the best-kept secret in New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> politics: Many of our state legislators work nearly year-round, full-time, at representing their districts. You\u2019ve got one or two months of having to be in Santa Fe<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> literally almost every day. That\u2019s just the tip of the iceberg, though.<\/p>\n

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

Outside of the session, you\u2019ve got at least a few full-time weeks before the session when you prepare your bills and brush up on issues. There are months of meetings with interest groups to discuss why new legislation is essential or needs to be killed. There are hundreds of capital outlay requests to prioritize with your constituents and local governments. Constituents deserve service from their legislators 24\/7, and, as any legislator will tell you, they expect it.<\/p>\n

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

There is important interim committee work that is conducted in meetings held all over the state. Particularly for committees that meet three days a month, like the Legislative Finance Committee<\/a> or Legislative Education Study Committee<\/a>, you have to dedicate a week once you include travel to Hobbs<\/st1:city> or Farmington<\/st1:city><\/st1:place>. Some legislators literally meet 15-20 weekdays in a month, depending on their committee assignments.<\/p>\n

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

And that\u2019s just the substantive side. On top of all that, there are campaigns every two years in the House and every four years in the Senate. The campaigns require a year of fundraising, signature-gathering, door-knocking, phone-banking, neighborhood association meetings, parades, filings, sign distribution, filling out questionnaires, attending debates and candidate forums, meeting with print journalists, radio and TV interviews\u2026 phew, the list is as long as an American League playoff game!<\/p>\n

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

This is all supposed to be done by someone who needs to support a family? Good luck with that.<\/p>\n

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

The ethics task force is right: Pay our legislators. It\u2019s a drop in the bucket, it will reward those who do the hard work of democracy, and it will deepen the candidate talent pool. We have many excellent legislators in both parties, but the burden they face financially and time-wise is absurd.<\/p>\n

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

How about this for a bonus: Tie legislator pay directly to average New Mexican household income. There\u2019s all the incentive you need to make sure average folks\u2019 concerns are taken care of. And maybe some average folks could even consider getting involved themselves.<\/p>\n

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

Feeding the hand that feeds you<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Even with this year\u2019s gift limits, lobbyists currently buy all kinds of gifts for legislators, particularly meals and drinks. If you\u2019re a taxpayer, wouldn\u2019t you rather know that legislators are going to vote on a union bill, or a corporate bill, or tax breaks, or capital outlay, without being literally fed by the people asking for their support that evening?<\/p>\n

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

On the other hand, as several senators asked during this year\u2019s debate in the Legislature, if legislators aren\u2019t getting paid, and they\u2019re foregoing any reasonable chance of working a full-time job, how are they going to afford eating in Santa Fe every day and night for 30 or 60 days?<\/p>\n

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

(Of course, that\u2019s a question that opponents of Santa Fe<\/st1:city>\u2019s living wage might want to ask on behalf of people who actually live in Santa Fe<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> year-round, but that doesn\u2019t make it any less fair a question for legislators).<\/p>\n

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

Here\u2019s how: Legislator salaries are one part of the equation, but so is a basic committee budget during the session and interim to ensure that our hard-working legislators can eat \u2013 without the slightest appearance of impropriety.<\/p>\n

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

Don\u2019t eat and drink, but be merry<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Last year, I was in Sacramento<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> helping with one of our member trainings. We hosted a big reception for legislators and members. Great chance for legislators to hear not from me, or even our union\u2019s elected leaders, but from rank-and-file men and women.<\/p>\n

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

What made the event interesting was that while legislators were listening to the people who make the city and state work \u2013 solid waste guys, public safety officers, child abuse investigators, DOT workers, librarians and many more \u2013 it was the workers who were scarfing down the appetizers and sodas (OK, they weren\u2019t all sodas), not the electeds.<\/p>\n

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

California<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> has a very strict gift law \u2013 $25 per year if I recall correctly, inclusive of all meals and drinks. To stay on the good side of the rule, every single legislator simply drank water. Agua. L\u2019eau. That\u2019s it. From the tap, and I don\u2019t mean the fun kind of tap.<\/p>\n

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

You might think it was a downer for legislators, but I remember more than a few of them commenting that they were proud to be part of the new system. They were there to meet with workers, citizens, taxpayers, constituents, and that was all. It was representative government at its best.<\/p>\n

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

I don\u2019t think most New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> legislators are swayed by food, drink and gifts, but wouldn\u2019t it be nice if the average New Mexican had no doubts at all? <\/p>\n

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

The California<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> legislators didn\u2019t want for food that night. Because they\u2019re salaried, they were able to dine that evening somewhere else, knowing it was their own hard work and the voting taxpayers to whom they owed the pleasure. Sometimes California<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> gets it right.<\/p>\n

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

Bundy is the political and legislative director for AFSCME<\/a> in New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>. The opinions in his column are personal and do not necessarily reflect any official AFSCME position. You can learn more about him by clicking here<\/a>. Contact him at carterbundy@yahoo.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Carter Bundy Ethics reform is like playoff baseball. It\u2019s complicated, surprising and long. In reviewing the recent recommendations of the Governor\u2019s Task Force on Ethics Reform, there are really three sets of issues: campaign financing, transparency and legislator income. Each of the three topics deserves its own column, so let\u2019s start with the low-hanging […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bundy-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2391","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2391\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}