{"id":37687,"date":"2012-03-06T13:40:22","date_gmt":"2012-03-06T20:40:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=37687"},"modified":"2012-03-06T13:40:33","modified_gmt":"2012-03-06T20:40:33","slug":"sen-jennings-should-be-ashamed-of-himself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2012\/03\/sen-jennings-should-be-ashamed-of-himself\/","title":{"rendered":"Sen. Jennings should be ashamed of himself"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Heath

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

Senate President Pro Tem Tim Jennings apparently doesn\u2019t understand that using government resources to campaign is never appropriate.<\/h4>\n

Using government resources to campaign is never appropriate.<\/p>\n

Using government resources to campaign is never appropriate.<\/p>\n

Using government resources to campaign is never appropriate.<\/p>\n

You might get annoyed at having to read that statement three times, but I\u2019m not repeating it for you. I\u2019m repeating it for Senate President Pro Tem Tim Jennings<\/a>, who had a staffer in his government office, which is funded by your money, send out his 2012 re-election campaign announcement on Monday.<\/p>\n

Jennings, a Roswell Democrat, has served in the Senate since 1979, but he somehow still doesn\u2019t get it. It\u2019s not OK to use public money to promote your campaign. Ever.<\/p>\n

Ever. Ever. Ever.<\/p>\n

The e-mail came from the staffer\u2019s @nmlegis.gov address, and was signed at the end this way:<\/p>\n

Senator Timothy Z. Jennings<\/p>\n

Office of the\u00a0President Pro Tem<\/p>\n

Room 105, State Capitol Building<\/p>\n

Santa Fe, NM\u00a0\u00a0 87501<\/p>\n

Phone:\u00a0 986-4733<\/p>\n

Fax:\u00a0 986-4409<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Government staffer. Government e-mail address. Government office. Government phone number. Government fax number. There\u2019s no question that Jennings used public money to promote his political career.<\/p>\n

A slippery slope the Legislature shouldn\u2019t tolerate<\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had to write this column many times (here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here<\/a> are examples), and I get more annoyed each time. What will it take for public officials to learn that it\u2019s not OK to use government resources to campaign?<\/p>\n

This is a slippery slope that, at the bottom, ends up with government employees using their public positions to push people to illegally vote<\/a> to keep their bosses in office.<\/p>\n

Yes, that\u2019s a bit of a leap. But seriously, using public money to campaign is never OK, whether it\u2019s for something small like sending out a news release or something that, in practicality, is much more serious. Even the little violations contribute to a culture that tolerates more serious abuses of taxpayer money.<\/p>\n

It might help if lawmakers approved the creation of an independent ethics commission designed to educate them and other state officials on how to act ethically and punish violators. Short of that, it might help if the Legislature\u2019s Ethics Committee<\/a> got off its butt and did something, like formally telling Jennings that what he did isn\u2019t OK.<\/p>\n

Oh wait, that\u2019s right. Jennings is a member of that committee. See the problem?<\/p>\n

Jennings should be ashamed of himself. And the Legislature should quit tolerating such abuses.<\/p>\n

Haussamen bio<\/a>\u00a0\u2502\u00a0Commentary archives<\/a>\u00a0\u2502\u00a0Feed<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senate President Pro Tem Tim Jennings apparently doesn\u2019t understand that using government resources to campaign is never appropriate.<\/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":[156,109,107],"class_list":["post-37687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-haussamen-columns","tag-2012-election","tag-ethics-reform","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37687","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=37687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37687\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}