{"id":5688,"date":"2009-09-01T14:50:26","date_gmt":"2009-09-01T20:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=5688"},"modified":"2009-09-24T22:34:29","modified_gmt":"2009-09-25T04:34:29","slug":"don%e2%80%99t-use-government-resources-to-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/09\/don%e2%80%99t-use-government-resources-to-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t use government resources to campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Heath

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

Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano<\/a> stepped into a firestorm today when his office sent out a news release<\/a> and a message on Twitter<\/a> announcing his endorsement of his undersheriff to replace him in next year\u2019s election.<\/p>\n

The news release was sent by an employee of Solano\u2019s office from her government e-mail account. It listed Solano and his undersheriff — Robert Garcia — as contacts and included their government phone numbers and e-mail addresses. The release contained official letterhead from the Santa Fe County Sheriff\u2019s Department.<\/p>\n

And the tweet was sent using the sheriff\u2019s department official account<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re using taxpayer $ for political activity,\u201d Santa Fe Reporter Editor Julia Goldberg tweeted<\/a> after the endorsement went out over Twitter.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026seems inappropriate if not illegal,\u201d SFR\u2019s Dave Maass tweeted<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I joined the conversation<\/a>, as did the New Mexico Independent\u2019s Marjorie Childress<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Solano, also a Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor<\/a>, has been defending his actions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am endorsing him as the sheriff. I am an elected official. it is different than a reg gov. employee,\u201d he tweeted<\/a>. He later said he understood the concerns being expressed.<\/p>\n

Check it out, but you\u2019ll first need to follow @GregSolano<\/a> on twitter.<\/p>\n

A black-and-white situation<\/h3>\n

And now, on to my point: I\u2019ve written this before about the governor<\/a>, an Albuquerque city councilor<\/a> and the Clovis mayor<\/a>: Don\u2019t use government resources to campaign. It\u2019s not appropriate.<\/p>\n

In acting in his official capacity, Solano was essentially issuing an endorsement on behalf of the Santa Fe County Sheriff\u2019s Department, not on behalf of himself. And government agencies aren\u2019t to tell voters who voters should pick to run those agencies.<\/p>\n

This is a simple, clear-cut, black-and-white situation.<\/p>\n

To his credit, Solano was the first candidate for lieutenant governor to unveil an ethics-reform plan<\/a>, and he\u2019s been challenging the other candidates<\/a> to follow suit. Good for him. And to his credit, he\u2019s been very willing to discuss this endorsement situation in full view of the public on Twitter. Some would have instead gone into hiding.<\/p>\n

But realizing that it\u2019s not appropriate to use government employees, e-mail accounts and resources to campaign is basic stuff. Come on\u2026<\/p>\n

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

Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano stepped into a firestorm today when his office sent out an official news release and tweet announcing his endorsement of his undersheriff to replace him in next year\u2019s election.<\/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":[108,107],"class_list":["post-5688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-haussamen-columns","tag-2010-election","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5688","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=5688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5688\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}