{"id":25560,"date":"2011-01-31T09:08:20","date_gmt":"2011-01-31T16:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=25560"},"modified":"2011-02-01T07:10:58","modified_gmt":"2011-02-01T14:10:58","slug":"what-about-misdeeds-that-aren%e2%80%99t-crimes-guv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2011\/01\/what-about-misdeeds-that-aren%e2%80%99t-crimes-guv\/","title":{"rendered":"What about misdeeds that aren\u2019t crimes, guv?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Heath Haussamen<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cCorruption is a crime, not an ethical dilemma,\u201d Gov. Susana Martinez<\/a> said during her recent State of the State Address. And she has some strong ideas for combating corruption-related crime.<\/p>\n

But what about misdeeds that aren\u2019t crimes? There are all sorts of shenanigans in government that aren\u2019t and maybe shouldn\u2019t be prosecuted as crimes \u2013 and Martinez\u2019s plan for cleaning up state government is sorely lacking when it comes to addressing such issues.<\/p>\n

For example, when Martinez was the district attorney in Do\u00f1a Ana County, an annual audit found that her office wasn\u2019t withholding taxes from the pay of employees who used state-owned vehicles to commute to work. The IRS requires such withholdings, because the use of government vehicles for commuting is a form of compensation.<\/p>\n

After the audit identified the problem, the situation was corrected.<\/p>\n

Was this corruption? No evidence has been presented to suggest that. Should it have been prosecuted as a crime? No. But should Martinez and her office have known better? Absolutely.<\/p>\n

Still, I\u2019ll call this failure a simple mistake \u2013 one that an auditor caught, so, in this case, the system worked.<\/p>\n

But dozens of government agencies in New Mexico don\u2019t complete required annual audits, in violation of a state law that has no teeth. It\u2019s one of many holes in the system that allows unethical activity to continue undetected.<\/p>\n

Tolerance of unethical behavior that doesn\u2019t rise to the level of criminal activity allows mischief to fester, and it eventually grows into the culture of corruption that has made headlines so often in recent years.<\/p>\n

And Martinez has laid out no plan for structural reforms to stop such mischief. She simply says she won\u2019t tolerate it in her administration.<\/p>\n

Even if she lives up to that pledge, there\u2019s a big problem with such logic: Martinez will be in office, at most, eight years. What if the next governor, like so many who have come before, does tolerate, or even engages in misdeeds that don\u2019t rise to the level of crimes?<\/p>\n

In addition, what about all the government agencies that aren\u2019t under Martinez\u2019s control?<\/p>\n

State police unit would help<\/h3>\n

Martinez\u2019s primary proposal this legislative session to combat corruption is her plan to create a state police unit assigned to investigate public corruption.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a fantastic idea. I covered an issue years ago in which the state auditor referred a special audit of Do\u00f1a Ana County government to law enforcement. After being passed around \u2013 Martinez had to give it up because of a conflict of interest \u2013 the state police and First Judicial District Attorney essentially did nothing with it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The state auditor had identified a procurement code violation his office thought might have been intentional. That issue was never thoroughly investigated because the probe didn\u2019t find its way into the hands of anyone who asked the deeper question: Why would county commissioners have intentionally violated the procurement code to steer a contract to a certain architect<\/a>?<\/p>\n

A state police unit focused on asking such questions \u2013 and trained to investigate such issues \u2013 might have been very helpful in the case of the Do\u00f1a Ana County procurement code violation.<\/p>\n

More is needed<\/h3>\n

But Martinez knows from her experience as district attorney that there are misdeeds that aren\u2019t criminal but still require attention. When scandals tainted the judiciary in Do\u00f1a Ana County years ago<\/a>, Martinez worked with the state\u2019s Judicial Standards Commission<\/a> to help clean things up.<\/p>\n

Among the judges who left the bench during that time were one accused of sexual harassment<\/a> and another who had run-ins with a court interpreter<\/a> who beat her sister out for a court contract. Those aren\u2019t criminal issues. But there were certainly ethical problems.<\/p>\n

Thank goodness the Judicial Standards Commission exists to help clean up the judiciary.<\/p>\n

And yet Martinez opposes the creation of a similar ethics commission<\/a> to keep an eye on the executive and legislative branches, saying it would be nothing more than \u201cpoliticians appointing other politicians to review the conduct of politicians.\u201d In addition, her proposed budget would leave the state auditor \u2013 an official charged with weeding out ethical misdeeds \u2013 with less funding next year<\/a> than his office has this year. That further reduces the auditor\u2019s influence to pressure state agencies that aren\u2019t completing annual audits.<\/p>\n

In other words, Martinez has proposed no structural changes to help weed out misdeeds that aren\u2019t criminal. Just trust her, she says. She won\u2019t tolerate shenanigans.<\/p>\n

Imagine if the last governor had said that. Martinez would have joined many of us in laughing out loud.<\/p>\n

Not good enough, governor. The state needs structural reforms \u2013 not just good intentions.<\/p>\n

Haussamen bio<\/a> \u2502\u00a0Commentary archives<\/a> \u2502\u00a0Feed<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Susana Martinez has proposed no structural reforms to stop unethical behavior that doesn\u2019t rise to the level of criminal activity. She needs to: Such mischief eventually grows into the culture of corruption that has made headlines so often in recent years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,10],"tags":[142,109,107],"class_list":["post-25560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-haussamen-columns","tag-crime","tag-ethics-reform","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25560","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=25560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25560\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}