Cocoposts

Senator Scrum

The Albuquerque Journal covers Senator Shannon Robinson's use of tax money for his rugby obsession.

The quest for success hasn't come cheap for University of New Mexico rugby and its politically connected coach, who appears to have free reign over the program even though he isn't a university employee.     Sen. Shannon Robinson, D-Albuquerque, is the unpaid volunteer coach who also prides himself on being one of UNM's patron saints when it comes to legislative appropriations.

Why Do We Need Ethics Commission?

Eli Lee on Clearly New Mexico answers why we need an independent state ethics commission.  Shorter Eli:  Manny Aragon.

Indeed, are we to believe that since 1992 not one member of the Legislature has had a conflict of interest or used influence inappropriately? Must questions of misconduct rise to the level of a state or federal indictment and prosecution before they are addressed?

Consider the case of former Senate President Pro Tem Manny Aragon, who currently awaits trial on corruption charges in the courthouse construction scandal. He, of course, will have his day in court. But given the seriousness of the charges, and the testimony already in the record that suggests this was the manner in which he routinely conducted legislative business, how is it that no one stepped forward to file a prior ethics complaint? The conclusion is obvious: Given Aragon's immense power, his colleagues would never sit in judgment against him for fear of retribution. So why bother?

Sin Verguenza

While I was away the Albuquerque Journal noted UNM pays a damn good salary for Marc Saavedra to not drink while carrying on his "government relations" work that appears to consist largely of  running up huge bar tabs. 

UNM circles the wagons and defensively notes that everybody does it this way. 

You are focusing on Mr. Saavedra, but he is doing the same job in the same way as others performing government relations duties at public institutions. While entertaining, he is conducting business and advancing the work of the university ...

Collecting a six-figure salary for entertaining people at the Q Bar and calling it "government relations" is a good indicator of nothing good.               

Water Rules Repealed

Albuquerque Journal says the Water Authority repealed the new water conservation rules.   

Cadigan linked the ordinance's repeal to one "special interest group"— builders— complaining about costs.  "They are not entitled to a special process because they are home building lobbyists," he said.

Oh, but they do so believe they are entitled.

(Bernalillo County Commissioner) Cummins stressed at the meeting that the board and builders believe in conservation, but the changes were not passed in the "traditional" way, with builders giving comment before the bill was drafted.  "I think the tenor of compromise is different than the tenor of starting with a clean slate," Cummins said of the repeal.

Tenor of compromise and the traditional way? 

I'm picturing a tradition of grandfathering -  exempting entire subdivisions from new requirements and calling it compromise. 

Fragmenting resource and land use regulation, in this case through multiple agencies with overlapping jurisdictions, maximizes short term real estate market and builder profits and hinders true community building.   Some tradition.      

KKOB and Republicans

The Albuquerque Journal tells only parts of the story.  They tell about Republicans complaining to KKOB and a news anchor quitting.   

Laura MacCallum, afternoon drive-time news anchor for KKOB (770-AM) radio, abruptly quit last week after station management pulled a story she produced concerning the Republican Party delegate nominating convention in Bernalillo County.    The story was broadcast three times last Wednesday, prompting complaints from the state Republican Party and one of its campaigns.

The end - thus illustrating the point of who calls the shots in our little town.      

::Stares at empty lawn where afternoon daily once rested.  Heaves huge sigh::.

Dennis Domrzalski's blog coverage is complete.  Sometimes completely over the top, but complete.   

By the week’s end, Wilson’s campaign admitted that it had paid the convention entrance fees for five people. But it was too late. They had already shot themselves in the head.  The would-be empire and Wilson’s campaign behaved like the power-obsessed elitists they are, and it backfired. The blogosphere hit back. The gatekeepers in the traditional media were blown away.

It isn’t all bad, though, for the non-answering Cheshire and the GOP smear-job operatives. With their abusive, sleazy and self-destructive tactics they’ve proven themselves worthy.  Worthy of jobs in Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Blogger-on-fire but his misogyny wafts through to my monitor like strong cheese.    

Here is Dennis with Nicole in the Eye on New Mexico part two segment  in which Republican Pat Rogers puts on a pathetic display attempting to insult and discredit former Governor Dave Cargo.  Cargo first dared to made noise about Heather Wilson's campaign tactics.  Pat attempts to administer party punishment and Cargo is having none of it. 

Does Pat not remind you of the other "Mr. Rogers" in a weird-scary way?               

Alligator Ethics

Banner from DCF for my post about an alligator.   

Colorado Ethics Law Prevails

Denver Post Editorial:

In a refreshing outbreak of common sense, the Colorado Supreme Court on Monday restored the voter-approved Amendment 41 ethics law — ruling that critics of the measure can't overturn the will of the people merely because they are afraid the ballot measure might be enforced in an unreasonable manner, if it ever were to be enforced. ...

The court, in a unanimous opinion written by Chief Justice Mary Mullarkey, [! ]  specifically avoided ruling on the underlying merits of the amendment Colorado voters approved in 2006 by a margin of 62.3 percent to 37.7 percent. Instead, the state high court simply ruled that the challenge to the law was premature — because "The amendment's ethics commission is not yet in existence, and it has not yet had the opportunity to implement the amendment."

Under the long-standing principle of "judicial restraint," courts don't waste their time writing term papers about hypothetical problems. They have enough to do resolving actual cases posing actual problems. For example, suppose you bought a new stereo and your neighbor sued you just because you might play it loudly at 3 a.m. and disturb his sleep.  It's hard to imagine a court would entertain such a frivolous suit in advance of any actual action on your part that infringed on your neighbor's rights. Yet, that's basically what a Denver district court did last year when it threw out Amendment 41 after plaintiffs, including a lobbyist, a legislator, a county commissioner, a university professor and others, challenged the ban on gifts as "overbroad and vague," and claimed it cast a "chilling effect" on their First Amendment rights.

Critics of the law made outlandish claims, including that it would prevent a university professor from receiving a Nobel prize or children of state employees from accepting scholarships. Such worst-case scenarios assume that anyone would file such absurd complaints in the first place and that the ethics commission would uphold them if they did.

But as the high court wisely noted Monday, Section 5 of the law establishes an independent ethics panel to hear complaints, issue findings, assess penalties and issue advisory opinions on ethics issues stemming from the measure. ...

Now, the ethics commission needs to get to work and translate the will of the people into reasonable and enforceable ethics rules that will help restore public confidence in state and local government.

In Colorado, at least. 

 

A Message to Nader

[there are] only two kinds of deadly sins in the field of politics: lack of objectivity and--often but not always identical with it--irresponsibility. Vanity, the need personally to stand in the foreground as clearly as possible, strongly tempts the politician to commit one or both of these sins. 

Daily Kos - from Max Weber, Politics as a Vocation.

 Now watch this video.

 

 

Kiss Senator Cisco

Full-on body hugs and kisses to State Senator Cisco McSorley.   

The SunCal tax increment development district (TIDD) bill is dead after his 45 minute fillabuster and vote appeal in the final moments of the session.   Sources say the bill was tabled after his talk and then raised again by Senator Michael Sanchez in the final minutes before noon.  Cisco appealed the voice vote and the clock took care of the rest.  Sine Die.

I wanna know who voted for that bill too, though that wasn't the point. 

At stake was the approval of $629 million in tax-paid bonds for one corporation - for one developer, about 13 lobbyists and a bunch of real and wanna-be land profiteers.  Mental daggers to Cisco from them.    

Some of these old school powers-that-be tried to get got Mike Murphy to run against Cisco awhile  back.  He would have worked out better for them.  You remember Murphy - he has since been indicted for his role in cash-skimming schemes on government construction projects.    Ethics schmethics.

Alligators

Political blogger Joe Monahan's obvious efforts to favor his "alligator" insider friends in his fabled land of "La Politica" has set the local blogosphere on fire.
At issue is ethics reform at the Roundhouse. According to Joe's reptiles, proposed reforms are asking for too much too fast and Joe carries the message - scolding proponents with a slap of the gator tail.

From Democracy for New Mexico: "Ethics: Aren't You Sick of the Unnamed Alligators?"

"(T)those who reap the benefits of unfettered campaign "contributions" and don't want anyone looking into ethics allegations with a law with teeth don't want anything passed at all. And if the citizenry gets too loud, they may surrender some tiny piece of turf but never all the pieces that would create a real wall against corruption. "Alligators" are like that."

Clearly New Mexico offers a clear perspective: "ETHICS FIGHT: Is Monahan just a shill for little birdies and alligators?"

From M-Pyre: "Memo to Alligators: Shine your light on Gravy Train Ethics"

"Let’s be clear: failure of ethics legislation lies at the feet of state legislators who refuse to give up their gravy train. The public overwhelmingly favors ethics legislation. Albuquerque Journal polls in 2007 indicated a whopping 88% of Democrats, in fact, favored the three priorities included in the bills this session."

Time to drain Monahan's swamp. We need ethics reform.

Cross-posted on Duke City Fix.