{"id":36307,"date":"2012-02-07T12:46:00","date_gmt":"2012-02-07T19:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=36307"},"modified":"2012-02-07T12:46:10","modified_gmt":"2012-02-07T19:46:10","slug":"vote-against-anti-corruption-bill-could-be-a-campaign-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2012\/02\/vote-against-anti-corruption-bill-could-be-a-campaign-issue\/","title":{"rendered":"Vote against anti-corruption bill could be a campaign issue"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_35606\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 600px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-35606\" title=\"Roundhouse\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/Roundhouse.jpg\" alt=\"The Roundhouse in Santa Fe\" width=\"600\" height=\"322\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/Roundhouse.jpg 600w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/Roundhouse-336x180.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/Roundhouse-300x161.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Roundhouse in Santa Fe (Photo by Heath Haussamen)<\/p><\/div>\n<h4>GOP hints that votes against tougher penalties for public corruption will be used against Democrats in November<\/h4>\n<p>A weekend vote on a bill that would toughen penalties for public corruption could have political consequences for those who opposed the legislation, The Santa Fe New Mexican <a href=\"http:\/\/www.santafenewmexican.com\/Local%20News\/2012-legislature-Bill-to-battle-corruption-gets-little-local-ba\" target=\"_blank\">is reporting<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>From the newspaper:<!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cThe House on Saturday voted 41-26 to pass House Bill 111, which would increase criminal penalties when a crime is committed by a public official. It also would mean that officials convicted of crimes \u2013 such as embezzlement, bribery and making false vouchers \u2013 could lose part of their state pensions and would not be allowed to become lobbyists.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot long after the two-hour debate on the bill, the state Republican Party emailed a news release with an all-capital-letters subject line that shouted: \u2018TWENTY-SIX DEMOCRATS VOTE AGAINST ANTI-CORRUPTION BILL.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGOP Executive Director Bryan Watkins said in the release, \u2018It appears some Democrats will run for re-election on the platform of giving driver\u2019s licenses to illegal immigrants and taxpayer-funded pensions to corrupt public officials. Republicans look forward to that debate.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe no votes included most of the Santa Fe area\u2019s House delegation: House Speaker Ben Luj\u00e1n of Namb\u00e9, Rep. Luciano \u2018Lucky\u2019 Varela and Rep. Jim Trujillo.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What\u2019s the issue? From the newspaper:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cBoth Varela and Trujillo said they were concerned that the bill would mean low-level state employees could be prosecuted. It could happen to any clerk who issued a check because he was ordered to by a corrupt boss, Varela said. \u2018There\u2019s nothing to protect him.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>But the bill\u2019s sponsor, Rep. Nate Gentry, R-Albuquerque, said this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201c\u2018If a janitor is ripping off $1,000 worth of supplies a month, why shouldn\u2019t he be held to the same standards as a principal (engaged in similar crime)?\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Read the full article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.santafenewmexican.com\/Local%20News\/2012-legislature-Bill-to-battle-corruption-gets-little-local-ba\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>. You can also check out the legislation <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmlegis.gov\/lcs\/_session.aspx?chamber=H&amp;legtype=B&amp;legno=%20111&amp;year=12\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> and see how each member voted <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmlegis.gov\/Sessions\/12%20regular\/votes\/HB0111HVOTE.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A weekend vote on a bill that would toughen penalties for public corruption could have political consequences for those who opposed the legislation, The Santa Fe New Mexican is reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[156,142,109,114,107],"class_list":["post-36307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2012-election","tag-crime","tag-ethics-reform","tag-public-corruption","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36307","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=36307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36307\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}