{"id":4146,"date":"2009-01-19T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-19T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/01\/donors-giving-to-guvs-nonprofit-in-secret\/"},"modified":"2009-01-19T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-19T16:00:00","slug":"donors-giving-to-guvs-nonprofit-in-secret","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/01\/donors-giving-to-guvs-nonprofit-in-secret\/","title":{"rendered":"Donors giving to guv’s nonprofit in secret"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

We\u2019ve all spent time reading (or on the case of many journalists, writing) about the money that flowed from campaign contributors to Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a> in the last few years, and the (coincidental or not) awarding of state contracts to those contributors, often around the same time the contributions were made.<\/p>\n

But I didn\u2019t know until I read about it on Sunday in the Albuquerque Journal that the governor had also set up a way for donors to give money to a cause of his without the public ever knowing it.<\/p>\n

In an article you can read by clicking here<\/a>, the Journal\u2019s Colleen Heild reports on the Moving America Forward Foundation<\/a>, a nonprofit formed by Richardson that has taken in at least $1.7 million in donations and doesn\u2019t have to tell us who gave any of it.<\/p>\n

Who are the donors? Do any of them do business with the state? We don\u2019t really know. To date, the nonprofit hasn\u2019t disclosed its donor list and, as the Journal reports, \u201cBecause the foundation was formed as a \u2018public charity,\u2019 it is not legally required to publicly disclose individual contributors or say exactly how those tax-deductible contributions were spent.\u201d The Journal said Internet searches revealed the sources of about $80,000 of the cash — far short of the at least $1.7 million the foundation has raised.<\/p>\n

A Richardson political action committee with the same name, on the other hand, had to disclose everything.<\/p>\n

The Journal reminds us of the context of all of this.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt all plays out against the backdrop of an ongoing federal pay-to-play investigation<\/a> that derailed Gov. Bill Richardson\u2019s nomination for U.S. commerce secretary,\u201d the article states.<\/p>\n

The Moving America Forward PAC is one of two at the center of that investigation. Both PACs were run by Amanda Cooper, a member of Richardson\u2019s inner circle who was also his deputy campaign manager when he ran for president. She\u2019s listed on IRS documents as being a paid board consultant for the nonprofit. When asked who its donors are, her response to the Journal was, \u201cI can\u2019t comment on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

What I can provide on this site are the nonprofit\u2019s 990 filings with the IRS for the most recent years. Click here<\/a> to read the 2007 report, here<\/a> to read the 2006 report and here<\/a> to read the 2005 report. The 2008 report hasn\u2019t yet been filed, which is why it\u2019s not clear whether the nonprofit has raised more than the $1.7 million it reported at the end of 2007.<\/p>\n

Now the obvious question: How are we supposed to know that any action taken by the Richardson administration has integrity when we don\u2019t know who Richardson\u2019s nonprofit is secretly taking money from, especially in the context of allegations that he engages in pay-to-play politics?<\/p>\n

The answer: We can\u2019t. Faithful readers of this site are probably already familiar with my concerns about secret donors<\/a> affecting public policy.<\/p>\n

More on GRIPgate<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s more. The Santa Fe New Mexican<\/a> has the goods on Vanderbilt Capital Advisors, the firm at the center of the second pay-to-play allegation dogging the Richardson administration (the one revealed in a lawsuit from a former state employee<\/a>). The article details the company\u2019s past run-in with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the SEC\u2019s current inquiry into the company\u2019s dealings in New Mexico.<\/p>\n

The New Mexican also has a story<\/a> that includes information about a Los Angeles-based public relations firm that won a $140,000 annual state contract in 2006 and whose employees contributed almost $10,000 to Richardson\u2019s presidential campaign in 2007.<\/p>\n

And the Santa Fe Reporter has a blog posting<\/a> about another bank, Northern Trust, that has handled billions of dollars in state assets since being hired in 2003. Meanwhile, the company and its executives have given $20,000 to Richardson\u2019s gubernatorial campaign, $15,500 to his 2008 presidential campaign and $10,000 to \u00a1Si Se Puede! Boston 2004, the second PAC, along with Moving America Forward, at the center of the federal investigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe it would be easier to just start naming banks that do business with the state that didn\u2019t give to the Guv,\u201d the Reporter\u2019s blog states.<\/p>\n

While you\u2019re at it, you can click here<\/a> to read the Wall Street Journal article adding to body of reporting highlighting the calls for ethics reform in New Mexico. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019ve all spent time reading (or on the case of many journalists, writing) about the money that flowed from campaign contributors to Gov. Bill Richardson in the last few years, and the (coincidental or not) awarding of state contracts to those contributors, often around the same time the contributions were made. But I didn\u2019t know […]<\/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-4146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4146","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=4146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}