{"id":6027,"date":"2009-09-11T10:00:14","date_gmt":"2009-09-11T16:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=6027"},"modified":"2009-09-13T23:07:49","modified_gmt":"2009-09-14T05:07:49","slug":"denish-is-%e2%80%98willing-to-lead-the-charge%e2%80%99-for-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/09\/denish-is-%e2%80%98willing-to-lead-the-charge%e2%80%99-for-reform\/","title":{"rendered":"Denish is \u2018willing to lead the charge\u2019 for reform"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Lt.

Lt. Gov. Diane Denish (Photo by Heath Haussamen)<\/p><\/div>\n

In 2001, then-state Democratic Party Chairwoman Diane Denish<\/a> took a stand against a proposal to open legislative conference committees to the public.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 some aspects of politics, like sausage, are best made unseen if we\u2019re to stomach the contents,\u201d Denish wrote in an op-ed.<\/p>\n

Now that Denish is the lieutenant governor and the Democrats\u2019 likely nominee for governor next year, she\u2019s talking a lot about ethics reform and transparency. On the flip side, Republicans have been hammering her on her past position on conference committees and other issues in an attempt to tie her to corruption scandals<\/a> that have plagued Democrats in recent years.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow that she is in campaign mode, Diane Denish is singing a different tune,\u201d state GOP Chairman Harvey Yates Jr. said in a recent news release<\/a>. \u201cThat is just too much sausage for the people to stomach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do\u00f1a Ana County District Attorney Susana Martinez, a declared GOP candidate, authored a commentary<\/a> published Wednesday on this site in which she wrote that she disagreed with Denish\u2019s 2001 stance and believes \u201cSunlight is the best disinfectant.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview Thursday in Las Cruces, Denish said she has \u201cchanged my attitude\u201d and now also supports opening conference committees to the public — something the Legislature and governor approved earlier this year. She said she had never been an elected official and had not \u201creally seen how the process works\u201d when she took the stance against opening the meetings eight years ago.<\/p>\n

Denish also said people should want to be represented by officials who are willing to change their positions when they learn a better way.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want people who are stuck in the past,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Focused on the future<\/h3>\n

Focusing on the future — rather than the past problems that have plagued state government — appears to be at the core of Denish\u2019s campaign. Denish said she\u2019s optimistic about what lies ahead for New Mexico and is currently focused on working to improve the state, not winning the 2010 governor\u2019s race. She said she\u2019s especially excited about the potential benefit to New Mexico of the national move toward energy independence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got some great things happening in New Mexico,\u201d said Denish, who was in Las Cruces to speak at several events, including a symposium on improving graduation rates. \u201cWe\u2019re well positioned to lead, especially in the new energy economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the attacks have been coming relentlessly from the state GOP and Republicans vying for the right to take her on next year. In formally entering the race earlier this week, former state GOP Chairman Allen Weh said<\/a> the \u201cRichardson-Denish administration has turned our state around for the worst\u201d and complained about Democratic corruption.<\/p>\n

And Martinez, in the same commentary referenced earlier, questioned a statement Denish made in response to the recent news that there would be no charges filed following an investigation into allegations of pay to play<\/a> in the Richardson administration.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026this is good news for the people of New Mexico,\u201d Denish said<\/a> at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood news for the people of New Mexico or good news for Denish? The fact that there is a distinction between those two questions tells us how far state government has fallen,\u201d Martinez wrote.<\/p>\n

During Thursday\u2019s interview, Denish explained her comment by saying she believes \u201cpeople breathed a sigh of relief\u201d upon learning that the probe was over because investigators \u201cfound no legal wrongdoing and it was fully investigated.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt brought some closure to that,\u201d Denish said.<\/p>\n

Denish also pointed out the rest of the statement she released in response to the end of the investigation: \u201cWe need strong ethics reform to make state government more open and accountable and I will continue to lead that fight,\u201d she said at the time.<\/p>\n

\u2018Voters and New Mexicans want stronger laws\u2019<\/h3>\n

Trying to tie Denish to her party\u2019s corruption scandals is a smart move, but it may be more about winning a GOP primary than it is about the general election, New Mexico pollster and analyst Brian Sanderoff said. He has seen polling numbers suggesting that Republicans are more concerned about corruption than Democrats.<\/p>\n

Still, Sanderoff noted that corruption scandals involving Democrats have been frequently in the news in New Mexico for years, so he expects it to be \u201cone of many issues\u201d on the minds of voters in the general election next November.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a good issue for the primary, and it could be a good issue in the general,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Weh has said GOP polling reveals that corruption is the third most important issue to voters, behind the economy and education.<\/p>\n

Like the GOP, Denish apparently understands that voters are concerned about corruption. She recently proposed<\/a> the creation of an independent ethics commission to help educate public officials about ethical conduct and then hold them accountable to those standards. The proposal has been discussed for years — long before Denish made her own proposal — but never gained traction in the Senate.<\/p>\n

Denish\u2019s commission would have the authority to issue subpoenas and punish unethical behavior. Asked how she\u2019ll get it passed, considering that the Senate has rejected proposals to create less powerful commissions in the past, Denish said lawmakers who oppose it will have to explain themselves to their constituents.<\/p>\n

\u201cVoters and New Mexicans want stronger laws,\u201d she said. \u201cIt will take some very hard work. \u2026 I\u2019m willing to lead the charge.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Focusing on the future — rather than the past problems that have plagued state government — appears to be at the core of Diane Denish\u2019s gubernatorial campaign. But the GOP continues to attempt to tie the Democrat to corruption that has plagued her party in recent years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[108,106,109,107],"class_list":["post-6027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-2010-election","tag-diane-denish","tag-ethics-reform","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6027","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=6027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6027\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}