{"id":25302,"date":"2011-01-21T11:20:47","date_gmt":"2011-01-21T18:20:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=25302"},"modified":"2011-01-24T08:46:48","modified_gmt":"2011-01-24T15:46:48","slug":"cervantes-says-he%e2%80%99ll-keep-fighting-corruption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2011\/01\/cervantes-says-he%e2%80%99ll-keep-fighting-corruption\/","title":{"rendered":"Cervantes says he\u2019ll keep fighting corruption"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Rep. Joseph Cervantes (Photo by Heath Haussamen)<\/p><\/div>\n

Rep. Joseph Cervantes<\/a>, D-Las Cruces, says the \u201cculture of corruption\u201d in Santa Fe is real and has existed for decades.<\/p>\n

He says his unsuccessful attempt to become speaker<\/a> was motivated by his desire to change the culture in Santa Fe. Cervantes\u2019 comments about corruption, which came during an interview on the radio program News New Mexico<\/a>, were among the strongest I\u2019ve heard him make publicly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s horrible,\u201d Cervantes said. \u201c\u2026 There\u2019s a great deal of pay to play.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to be plain deaf, dumb and blind not to see it,\u201d he added. \u201c\u2026 It\u2019s a culture of corruption that has existed for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cervantes said he believes \u201cmost Democrats reject corruption\u2026 unethical conduct, play to play,\u201d and the reason Susana Martinez<\/a> won last year\u2019s gubernatorial race is because she \u201cso soundly rejected those things.\u201d<\/p>\n

As one of the most active reformers in the Legislature, Cervantes said he\u2019s ready to reach across the aisle and work with the Republican Martinez to combat corruption. He said he believes the governor is not part of the systemic corruption in state government.<\/p>\n

Cervantes said there has been \u201cslow progress\u201d in changing the culture in Santa Fe in recent years. He specifically mentioned legislation he pushed to open legislative conference committees<\/a> to the public, and the Fraud Against Taxpayers Act<\/a>, which gives citizens, including government employees, protection and financial incentive to expose government officials and contractors who defraud taxpayers.<\/p>\n

Committed to making \u2018the big changes in Santa Fe\u2019<\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

Cervantes told News New Mexico that he thinks Speaker Ben Luj\u00e1n made a \u201cterrible mistake\u201d by removing Rep. Andy Nu\u00f1ez<\/a> from the position of chairman of the Agriculture and Water Resources Committee \u201cfor punitive reasons.\u201d During the wide-ranging interview, he said such leadership is different \u201cthan what I hoped to bring to Santa Fe\u201d as speaker.<\/p>\n

Cervantes briefly entered the 2008 2nd Congressional District race in December 2007, but dropped out after citing family considerations<\/a>. Asked today about his future plans, he said he made a commitment then to be an active father to his three daughters and husband to his wife \u2013 which means staying in New Mexico, at least for now.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve committed myself to try to make the big changes in Santa Fe instead of Washington for now,\u201d Cervantes said.<\/p>\n

But he gave no hints about whether he might run for higher office in Santa Fe in the near future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rep. Joseph Cervantes made strong comments today about the prevalence of corruption in Santa Fe, and he said he will continue working to combat it.<\/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":[114,107],"class_list":["post-25302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-public-corruption","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25302","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=25302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25302\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}