{"id":2784,"date":"2008-01-25T12:45:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-25T18:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/01\/guv-rejects-ethics-proposals-from-ag-and-cervantes\/"},"modified":"2008-01-25T12:45:00","modified_gmt":"2008-01-25T18:45:00","slug":"guv-rejects-ethics-proposals-from-ag-and-cervantes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/01\/guv-rejects-ethics-proposals-from-ag-and-cervantes\/","title":{"rendered":"Guv rejects ethics proposals from AG and Cervantes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a> won\u2019t allow discussion during the current legislative session on four ethics bills being jointly proposed by Attorney General Gary King<\/a> and state Rep. Joseph Cervantes<\/a>, D-Las Cruces. <\/p>\n

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

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the governor said Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> has yet to decide whether to allow consideration of another bill Cervantes wants to sponsor that would open legislative conference committees to the public.<\/p>\n

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

\"\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

\n

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

\n

King and Cervantes jointly asked the governor to allow deliberation on four bills:<\/p>\n

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

\u2022 A wide-ranging proposal that would increase the criminal penalties for public corruption crimes, campaign reporting violations and other violations related to ethics in government.<\/p>\n

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

\u2022 A bill that would amend the Inspection of Public Records Act<\/a> to make clear that e-mail and fax are valid, written methods of requesting public records.<\/p>\n

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

\"\"<\/a>\u2022 A bill that would create criminal penalties for violations of the public records act equal to the penalties for violations of the Open Meetings Act<\/a>. Under the proposal, a violation would be a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $500.<\/p>\n

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

\u2022 A bill that would require a person bidding on a contract with a state public institution of higher education to disclose whether he or she has donated money to the institution through its non-profit charitable foundations.<\/p>\n

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

The last three proposals stem in part from a controversy last year<\/a> involving the use of private donor money at New Mexico State University to help boost the compensation of the president and former basketball coach, and the university\u2019s response to attempts by me and a newspaper reporter to obtain records related to the situation.<\/p>\n

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

Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said the proposals weren\u2019t considered by the governor\u2019s ethics task force or any interim committee so they won\u2019t be considered during the current session.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cAs you know, the governor wanted to narrow the focus of this session to allow legislators time to concentrate on health care and the budget,\u201d Gallegos said. \u201cThese other ethics issues can be considered in the 60-day session (in 2009).\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Phil Sisneros, spokesman for the attorney general, said the office\u2019s \u201cethics legislation package isn\u2019t going away. If it cannot be advanced this session we will bring it back next session.\u201d<\/p>\n

The King\/Cervantes bills aren\u2019t the only pieces of proposed ethics legislation that Richardson, who controls the agenda in 30-day sessions, has rejected. You can read about Richardson<\/st1:city>\u2019s decision to disallow ethics-reform bills proposed by Senate Minority Whip Leonard Lee Rawson<\/a> of Las Cruces<\/st1:city><\/st1:place> from the Las Cruces Sun-News<\/a> and Santa Fe New Mexican<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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

Opening conference committees<\/span><\/p>\n

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

The House approved Cervantes\u2019 proposal<\/a> to open conference committees in 2007, but the Senate twice killed bills that would open conference committees by one vote, and the proposal died. In addition to Cervantes\u2019 request to allow discussion on his bill this year, the governor has yet to decide whether he will allow deliberation on a similar bill<\/a> already introduced by Sen. Joe Carraro<\/a>, R-Albuquerque.<\/p>\n

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

Though it has been introduced, that bill also can\u2019t be considered unless the governor allows it.<\/p>\n

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

Gallegos said the governor is meeting with the New Mexico Press Association<\/a>, a vocal proponent of the proposal to open conference committees, next week, and will decide after that whether to allow consideration of the proposal.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cWhile the press association has been vocal, it has not been able to convince legislators to support the idea,\u201d Gallegos said. \u201c\u2026The governor has told its members in the past that they need to help convince legislators to move on this.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Cervantes noted that the proposal was endorsed by Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>\u2019s ethics task force, which included several lawmakers. Cervantes has said in the past he believes some legislative leaders are resistant to opening conference committees because they want to keep other lawmakers in the dark about their deliberations.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cThe task force endorsed this initiative, and it\u2019s something I\u2019ve been working on for several sessions,\u201d Cervantes said. \u201cI hope the press association will be persuasive.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Bill Richardson won\u2019t allow discussion during the current legislative session on four ethics bills being jointly proposed by Attorney General Gary King and state Rep. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the governor said Richardson has yet to decide whether to allow consideration of another bill Cervantes wants to sponsor that would […]<\/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-2784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2784","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=2784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2784\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}