{"id":4276,"date":"2009-02-24T11:19:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-24T17:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/02\/guv-says-gripgate-isnt-why-he-skipped-meeting\/"},"modified":"2009-02-24T11:19:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-24T17:19:00","slug":"guv-says-gripgate-isnt-why-he-skipped-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/02\/guv-says-gripgate-isnt-why-he-skipped-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"Guv says GRIPgate isn&#8217;t why he skipped meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_IabUCQmoheQ\/SaQskFBy83I\/AAAAAAAAK7A\/CyMQ4FgMFiU\/s1600-h\/Richardson,+Bill.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 120px; height: 160px;\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_IabUCQmoheQ\/SaQskFBy83I\/AAAAAAAAK7A\/CyMQ4FgMFiU\/s200\/Richardson,+Bill.jpg\" alt=\"\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306415259285910386\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The governor\u2019s office says an ongoing federal probe into allegations of pay to pay isn\u2019t the reason <a href=\"http:\/\/governor.state.nm.us\/\" target=\"_blank\">Bill Richardson<\/a> skipped a weekend meeting of the <a href=\"http:\/\/haussamen.blogspot.com\/2009\/02\/guv-skips-dc-meeting-with-obama.html\">National Governors Association<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\u201cThe governor felt that he needed to be here in New Mexico because of the possibility of a vote on domestic partnerships and because lawmakers were working on budget issues over the weekend,\u201d said Alarie Ray-Garcia, Richardson\u2019s deputy communications director.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2009\/02\/21\/AR2009022101682.html\" target=\"_blank\">Washington Post<\/a> has noted that two prominent governors &#8212; Richardson and Alaska\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/gov.state.ak.us\/\" target=\"_blank\">Sarah Palin<\/a> &#8212; skipped the weekend of meetings in Washington related to the stimulus package, which included a black-tie dinner at the White House and a meeting with President <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\">Barack Obama<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">And the Post noted the context of Richardson\u2019s absence: The governor \u201cwithdrew in January as Obama\u2019s commerce secretary nominee amid a federal \u2018pay to play\u2019 investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Richardson has a history of traveling out of state while the Legislature is in session and insisting that he can keep track of the business being in conducted in Santa Fe via phone and through staffers who remain at the Roundhouse.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">In fact, in March 2007, when he was running for president, Richardson called lawmakers into special session for an agenda that included domestic partner benefits, and then left the state to attend a fundraiser in California. That caused a lot of angry feelings among lawmakers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The governor\u2019s office says an ongoing federal probe into allegations of pay to pay isn\u2019t the reason Bill Richardson skipped a weekend meeting of the National Governors Association. \u201cThe governor felt that he needed to be here in New Mexico because of the possibility of a vote on domestic partnerships and because lawmakers were working [&hellip;]<\/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-4276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4276","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=4276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}