{"id":314,"date":"2006-06-22T11:45:00","date_gmt":"2006-06-22T17:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/06\/governor%e2%80%99s-campaign-not-his-office-spokesman-should-handle-re-election-issues\/"},"modified":"2006-06-22T11:45:00","modified_gmt":"2006-06-22T17:45:00","slug":"governor%e2%80%99s-campaign-not-his-office-spokesman-should-handle-re-election-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/06\/governor%e2%80%99s-campaign-not-his-office-spokesman-should-handle-re-election-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"Governor\u2019s campaign, not his office spokesman, should handle re-election issues"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Gov. Bill Richardson\u2019s government press office is under fire for issuing a campaign statement about the Republican\u2019s selection of John Dendahl to run against him in November. <\/p>\n

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

On Saturday, Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> spokesman Pahl Shipley, whose salary is paid by taxpayers, sent out an official governor\u2019s office news release calling Dendahl \u201ca candidate who embraces division and negativity, and who is completely out of touch with what matters most to New Mexicans.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

The release was sent from Shipley\u2019s state government e-mail address, with a subject line that read \u201cGovernor\u2019s Office issues statement regarding John Dendahl.\u201d It was in the same format as other news releases from that office, which is funded by tax dollars.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

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

Dendahl responded Tuesday by sending a letter to Richardson<\/st1:city><\/st1:place> questioning Shipley\u2019s actions, according to the Albuquerque Journal<\/a>. He said Shipley acted improperly and asked Richardson<\/st1:city><\/st1:place> to clarify the role of state workers in his campaign.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

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

Shipley told the Journal his actions were \u201ccompletely appropriate,\u201d and said the news release was done on his own time and computer.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

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

State personnel guidelines prohibit state workers from engaging in political activity while on duty.<\/p>\n

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

I don\u2019t believe Shipley had bad intentions. He may not have thought he was on duty, but in practice, he was. He sent out an official news release of the governor\u2019s office. He was doing official work for the state of New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> and its taxpayers, but used his position to attack the governor\u2019s challenger in the upcoming election.<\/p>\n

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

<\/span>It\u2019s that darned appearance of impropriety I\u2019ve written about in the past.<\/p>\n

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

Last week I criticized lame duck Public Regulation Commissioner E. Shirley Baca for having a PRC staffer create an official meeting attendance record, on PRC letterhead, so Baca could respond to a campaign attack.<\/p>\n

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

Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>\u2019s re-election organization has many staffers and several million dollars. I think it can afford to hire its own press people. Future campaign statements should be sent out by the campaign, not public employees.<\/o:p><\/span> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Bill Richardson\u2019s government press office is under fire for issuing a campaign statement about the Republican\u2019s selection of John Dendahl to run against him in November. On Saturday, Richardson spokesman Pahl Shipley, whose salary is paid by taxpayers, sent out an official governor\u2019s office news release calling Dendahl \u201ca candidate who embraces division and […]<\/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-314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314","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=314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}