{"id":3041,"date":"2008-03-31T08:23:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-31T14:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/03\/articles-give-insight-into-lobbying-and-the-legislature\/"},"modified":"2008-03-31T08:23:00","modified_gmt":"2008-03-31T14:23:00","slug":"articles-give-insight-into-lobbying-and-the-legislature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/03\/articles-give-insight-into-lobbying-and-the-legislature\/","title":{"rendered":"Articles give insight into lobbying and the Legislature"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the last couple of months, the Albuquerque Journal<\/a> has focused on the top lobbyist for the University of New Mexico<\/a>, who is also the son of a powerful state lawmaker. That has produced a couple of interesting articles that give some insight into the way things work in Santa Fe<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>.<\/p>\n

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

A Feb. 10 article<\/a> focused on Marc Saavedra\u2019s $45,000 salary boost from March 2007 to February 2008. That was a 50 percent increase, from $90,000 to almost $135,000. During that same time, the average UNM employee\u2019s salary jumped 7 percent.<\/p>\n

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

The article contained a gem of a quote from UNM Executive Vice President David Harris.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cI don\u2019t believe that,\u201d he said when told Saavedra received the first of two raises \u2013 from $90,000 to $125,000 \u2013 in June 2007. \u201cI don\u2019t think he received a $35,000 increase.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

But the son of Rep. Henry \u201cKiki\u201d Saavedra<\/a>, D-Albuquerque and chair of the House Appropriations and Finance Committee, did receive the pay boost.<\/p>\n

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

The younger Saavedra said the first and biggest raise was to bring his salary in line with that of his predecessor, who had been making just over $110,000 annually, and was also due in part to UNM\u2019s success lobbying for funding from the Legislature<\/a>. The second raise was apparently given when Saavedra took on additional supervisory duties, according to the article.<\/p>\n

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

Both raises came after Saavedra\u2019s August 2006 arrest for aggravated drunken driving, the Journal revealed in February. He was on unpaid leave and required to have an ignition interlock device to drive.<\/p>\n

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

Examining the DWI<\/span><\/p>\n

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

On Sunday, the Journal unveiled a second article<\/a> examining Saavedra\u2019s DWI. After he was arrested, he signed a \u201cLast Chance Agreement\u201d in which he agreed to not consume alcohol as long as he worked for UNM. He pleaded guilty to the DWI charge and received a deferred sentence.<\/p>\n

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

But Saavedra, while agreeing to consume no alcohol, has spent at least $1,500 of UNM money on alcohol for those he was lobbying. Some of the tabs obtained by the Journal reveal the purchase of quite a bit of alcohol while listing only a few people present, but there may have been others drinking without a record of their doing it. Two dozen receipts Saavedra submitted to UNM for reimbursement weren\u2019t itemized, so it\u2019s not possible to know if or how much alcohol was served in those instances. And there are questions about whether some receipts were submitted for reimbursement in a timely manner.<\/p>\n

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

Saavedra also, days after his arrest and while he was ordered to stay out of liquor establishments, met with some lawmakers and others at the Alley Cantina in Taos<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>. You can buy food there, in addition to alcohol, so Saavedra\u2019s attorney told the Journal his client\u2019s visit was not a violation of the conditions of his release. The executive director of the DWI<\/st1:placename> Resource<\/st1:placename> Center<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:place>, however, told the Journal she believes Saavedra did violate the conditions of his release.<\/p>\n

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

To top it off, one event at a Las Cruces<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> bar included a Public Regulation Commission member who told the Journal he was surprised the event showed up on an expense report because he thought it was a social event, not a business meeting.<\/p>\n

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

The bigger picture<\/span><\/p>\n

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

There are a lot of questions about the way Saavedra does business being raised by the Journal articles. But there\u2019s a bigger picture here. KRQE-TV<\/a> in Albuquerque<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> aired a story recently about government agencies across the state spending millions of dollars to lobby the Legislature for funding.<\/p>\n

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

The KRQE story includes a list of state agencies and local governments and how much they\u2019re paying lobbyists. While much of the money UNM spends on lobbyists comes from private endowments, most governments are using taxpayer money to lobby the Legislature for more taxpayer money. The City of Las Cruces<\/a>, for example, paid lobbyist Ray Davenport $52,500 in 2007, according to the KRQE database.<\/p>\n

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

Of course, such investment often reaps rewards, or governments wouldn\u2019t spend so much money doing it. But it\u2019s important that the public know about it, and about connections like Marc Saavedra\u2019s. He\u2019s essentially lobbying his father, the top appropriator in the House, for funding for a public university that employs him and over which his father has a great deal of power.<\/p>\n

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

Click here<\/a> for the KRQE database of government agencies that employ lobbyists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the last couple of months, the Albuquerque Journal has focused on the top lobbyist for the University of New Mexico, who is also the son of a powerful state lawmaker. That has produced a couple of interesting articles that give some insight into the way things work in Santa Fe. A Feb. 10 article […]<\/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-3041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3041","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=3041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3041\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}