{"id":631903,"date":"2018-10-05T08:07:28","date_gmt":"2018-10-05T14:07:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=631903"},"modified":"2018-10-07T19:53:36","modified_gmt":"2018-10-08T01:53:36","slug":"lyons-fundraising-raises-ethical-legal-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/10\/lyons-fundraising-raises-ethical-legal-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"Lyons&#8217; fundraising raises ethical, legal questions"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_627462\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-627462\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Lyons-771x512-771x512.jpg\" alt=\"Patrick Lyons\" width=\"771\" height=\"512\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Lyons-771x512.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Lyons-771x512-336x223.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Lyons-771x512-768x510.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Elizabeth Miller \/ New Mexico In Depth<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Patrick Lyons<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A campaign fundraising <a href=\"http:\/\/nmindepth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Lyons-campaign-letter-768x1031.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">letter<\/a> that public land commissioner candidate Patrick Lyons sent ranchers who lease land from the State Land Office is raising legal and ethical questions a month before voters decide whether to return him to the job he held for eight years.<\/p>\n<p>Should Lyons win the seat this November, he will be in charge of renegotiating leases with companies seeking to renew those agreements. About\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmindepth.com\/2018\/09\/18\/industry-showers-campaign-funds-on-lyons-who-may-be-their-future-landlord\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">30 percent<\/a>\u00a0of the money Lyons has raised so far in his run has come from lessees, according to a review of campaign finance records.<\/p>\n<p>A copy of <a href=\"http:\/\/nmindepth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Lyons-campaign-letter-768x1031.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the letter<\/a> was shared with New Mexico In Depth and is addressed \u201cdear agricultural lessee.\u201d It goes on to describe Lyons\u2019 record as a rancher and farmer, and as previous land commissioner.<\/p>\n<p>It then states, \u201cI am running for Commissioner of Public Lands in 2018 and need your help to get elected so that the agricultural lessees have a voice at the State Land Office.\u201d The letter asks the reader to consider donating $100 to $1,000 before concluding, \u201cLet\u2019s make sure agriculture has a voice in the Land Office.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lyons used a list from his previous time in office to reach out to ranchers, and didn\u2019t duplicate the effort for the oil and gas industry.<\/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:\/\/nmindepth.com\/2018\/10\/03\/patrick-lyons-fundraising-for-public-land-commissioner-campaign-raises-legal-and-ethical-questions\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New Mexico In Depth<\/a>. Sign up for\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmindepth.us6.list-manage.com\/subscribe?u=1d2ab093d81b992e50978b363&amp;id=9294743d38\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">their newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve been in agriculture all my life, for three generations. Yeah, we know lots of farmers and ranchers around the state \u2014 that\u2019s my base. Of course you\u2019re going to get a hold of them,\u201d he says. Of 3,700 letters sent out, he says he got about a 1 percent return. \u201cSo it didn\u2019t work at all. It barely paid for itself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>State law is fuzzy about whether or not such solicitations for contributions violate campaign finance laws. Secretary of State\u2019s staff pointed to the Election Code, which prohibits candidates from knowingly soliciting funds from industries they would be regulating, but the statute doesn\u2019t clearly include lessees in the definition of a regulated entity. No one has filed a complaint, so the office has had no cause to review the situation.<\/p>\n<p>The State Land Office reviews competitive bids for five-year leases and establishes fees for livestock grazing and cropland based on current grazing rates, beef cattle prices and livestock production costs. A formula implemented in 1988 is used as a guide, and the Land Office\u2019s Agricultural Leasing Bureau staff and district resource managers are also available to advise the commissioner and assist lessees in completing applications. The office is also in charge of the renewal process for current lessees.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe grazing formula is set already,\u201d Lyons says. \u201cWe can\u2019t mess with that anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He also encouraged a close look at contributions to his Democratic opponent Stephanie Garcia Richard: \u201cShe\u2019s got $5,500 from the NEA \u2014 everybody wants to be influenced.\u201d Four of the five top donors to the former public school teacher\u2019s campaign are affiliated with education.<\/p>\n<p>Ethical government advocates point to a gray area in the wording of Lyons\u2019 campaign letter, which was sent in late 2017.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI didn\u2019t see anything that specifically said, \u2018You do this for me, and I\u2019ll do this for you,\u2019\u201d says Kathleen Sabo, with New Mexico Ethics Watch. \u201cBut I do think there\u2019s a litmus test and that test is, if you\u2019re a public official, and you or someone else asks, \u2018Hey is this crossing an ethical line?\u2019 then it\u2019s something to take a look at.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She points to Santa Fe County sheriff candidate Manuel Anaya, who announced he would return $1,300 in donations to his campaign from people he\u2019d investigated in his work at the state Public Regulation Commission transportation division after questions were raised about those donations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe very fact that [Lyons has] targeted lessees and reminded them of his record \u2014 which he\u2019s entitled to do \u2014 how does that look? We all have to be the judge,\u201d Sabo says. \u201cThe voters will judge whether that met their ethical standards or didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lyons, a current public regulation commissioner, would be returning to an office he held from 2003 to 2010. He\u2019s been known to return campaign contributions before to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest.<\/p>\n<p>At the end of his last term as land commissioner, Attorney General Hector Balderas, who was then the state auditor, released an audit that accused the office of losing millions of dollars for the state land trust and the New Mexico Supreme Court overruled a land-swap Lyons orchestrated. The deal involved two private ranchers securing state trust lands as the sole bidders in separate auctions. At least one of those companies, UU Bar Ranch, maintains an active grazing lease on state trust lands. Lyons insists he never lost money on a deal and did everything above board.<\/p>\n<p>In 2003, Lyons returned a $1,000 campaign contribution from Brad Kelley, owner of UU Bar Ranch, when talks started around a land swap. Lyons said then he wanted to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest.<\/p>\n<p>In 2006, Lyons also faced questions about intervening in a lawsuit involving a landowner, Mike Machenbier of the Four Daughters Ranch, and the Isleta Pueblo. Machenbier had donated to his campaign before, during and after his lawsuit. Lyons argued that the state needed to intervene in the lawsuit, which concerned an access road, to preserve the state\u2019s access to its own lands. Machenbier still has active grazing leases with the State Land Office, and donated $2,000 to Lyons\u2019 campaign this year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t recall 12 years back,\u201d Lyons said when asked for details. \u201cBut if it happens again, we\u2019ll do it again. We\u2019ve got to make sure we\u2019re not unduly influenced \u2014 and we\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Prior to joining the Legislature, former state Sen. Dede Feldman worked as press secretary for a Democratic land commissioner candidate in 1998. She recalls checking campaign contributions to his opponent and found ranchers and oil and gas dominated the list.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not new. This goes on,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s what the land office is considered to be \u2014 sort of a resting ground for all the concerns of ranchers, oil and gas guys, and just as the [Public Regulation Commission] is the locus for all the policies having to do with telecommunications and public utilities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But the PRC has specific rules banning contributions from regulated entities, while land commissioner elections don\u2019t have that specificity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s no statutory regulation on it,\u201d Lyons says of the letters sent. \u201cThese people want to make sure they keep their way of making a living alive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But others think the practice of land commissioner candidates soliciting lessees warrants a closer look.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s something that I think we are going to have to explore legislation on again in the future, just because the appearance of that conflict of interest is something that continues to drive the voters\u2019 perception of our political system and should be addressed,\u201d Executive Director of Common Cause Heather Ferguson said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRegardless of whether or not there is any quid pro quo, there\u2019s just a perception issue that there\u2019s a conflict of interest there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A fundraising letter the land commissioner candidate sent ranchers who lease land from the State Land Office pledges to give them &#8216;a voice.&#8217;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":627462,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[2238,705,3705,107],"class_list":["post-631903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2018-election","tag-money-in-politics","tag-pat-lyons","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631903","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=631903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}