{"id":522007,"date":"2018-02-12T20:38:50","date_gmt":"2018-02-13T03:38:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=522007"},"modified":"2018-02-12T20:38:50","modified_gmt":"2018-02-13T03:38:50","slug":"background-check-flap-stalls-confirmation-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/02\/background-check-flap-stalls-confirmation-hearing\/","title":{"rendered":"Background check flap stalls confirmation hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_56542\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-56542\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-771x504.jpg\" alt=\"A statue outside the Roundhouse in Santa Fe.\" width=\"771\" height=\"504\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-771x504.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-336x220.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-768x502.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-1170x764.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Heath Haussamen \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A statue outside the Roundhouse in Santa Fe.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A senior Democratic lawmaker says Christopher Ruszkowski, secretary-designate of the state Public Education Department, has not consented to a background check, preventing the Senate from holding his confirmation hearing.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We require all teachers and administrators and others in the [education] field who deal with children in our public schools to be cleared, and we are still unable to do that with Mr. Ruszkowski,&#8221; Senate Rules Committee Chairwoman Linda Lopez, D-Albuquerque, said\u00a0<span class=\"aBn\" data-term=\"goog_1529496794\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Monday<\/span><\/span>\u00a0in a statement. &#8220;He is operating as Cabinet secretary without authority to do so.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Gov. Susana Martinez, a Republican, appointed Ruszkowski last summer.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article comes from\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.santafenewmexican.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Santa Fe New Mexican<\/a>. NMPolitics.net is paying for the rights to publish articles about the 2018 legislative session from the newspaper. Help us cover the cost by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/donate\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">making a donation to NMPolitics.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>But Lopez said the Martinez administration did not send formal notice to the Senate, which the state Constitution requires\u00a0<span class=\"aBn\" data-term=\"goog_1529496795\"><span class=\"aQJ\">within 30 days<\/span><\/span>\u00a0of appointment.<\/p>\n<p>The governor&#8217;s office countered that Ruszkowski underwent a rigorous background check before he was appointed as a deputy secretary in April 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Ironically, Lopez&#8217;s comments came the same day that the Senate Education Committee voted 5-3 to approve a bill that would require all school employees to undergo background and fingerprint checks &#8212; an action supported by the Public Education Department.<\/p>\n<p>Current state law allows school employees hired before 1999 to be &#8220;grandfathered&#8221; into the school system without undergoing a background check. The bill would ensure those employees undergo background checks, said Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto, D-Albuquerque, sponsor of the measure.<\/p>\n<p>Mike Lonergan, a spokesman for Martinez, dismissed Lopez&#8217;s comments about Ruszkowski being uncooperative as &#8220;nothing more than the latest in a long line of failed political games from Senate Democrats desperate to hide their inability to do their jobs.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The governor for years has accused Lopez of holding up the confirmation process for many appointees. Lonergan said the Senate Rules Committee has a backlog of more than 100 nominees to various boards and committees awaiting a hearing.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s clear Linda Lopez is unable to do her job no matter how much paperwork is done,&#8221; Lonergan said.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Senate Democrats clashed with the governor over Ruszkowski&#8217;s predecessor, too.<\/p>\n<p>The Senate finally confirmed Hanna Skandera as secretary of the Public Education Department in 2015 &#8212; after she had been in office for four years.<\/p>\n<p>It seemed for a moment as if Ruszkowski would avoid the controversies that surrounded Skandera&#8217;s time as secretary.<\/p>\n<p>But Lopez earlier in the legislative session called for Ruszkowski to resign <a href=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/01\/senator-calls-on-martinez-education-appointee-to-resign\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">over his comment about Manifest Destiny<\/a> being one of the founding principles of the country. Pueblo leaders assailed Ruszkowski for a poor grasp of history.<\/p>\n<p>With only three days remaining in the legislative session, it is unlikely that Ruszkowski would receive a confirmation hearing in the Rules Committee, even if he agreed to the background investigation.<\/p>\n<p><em>Contact Andrew Oxford at (505) 986-3093\u00a0or\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:aoxford@sfnewmexican.com\">aoxford@sfnewmexican.com<\/a>. Follow him on Twitter at <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/@andrewboxford\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@andrewboxford<\/a>.\u00a0Robert Nott contributed to this article.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A senior Democratic lawmaker says the secretary-designate of the state Public Education Department has not consented to a background check.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56542,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3634,125,107],"class_list":["post-522007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2018-legislative-session","tag-education","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522007","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=522007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}