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AG, guv will push ethics reform during session
King, in a news release, announced what he is calling an “ambitious legislative agenda” that includes enacting campaign contribution limits, creating a state ethics commission, enacting a whistleblower protection law, giving the AG jurisdiction to prosecute public corruption, expanding the state governmental and conduct acts to apply to local governments, and prohibiting legislators from becoming lobbyists for one year after they leave office.
Perhaps referring to the current climate of scandal — in addition to the federal grand jury probe of the Richardson administration, King is about to take the drawn-out criminal investigation into the state’s housing authority system before a grand jury — King said he’s ready to move forward with the reforms.
“I know this is an ambitious package of ethics proposals, but I sense there is keen interest among many legislators to move forward aggressively this year with major new ethics legislation,” King said in the release. “I certainly intend to work hard to help ensure their success, and I believe these bills will enjoy broad public support.”
Several hours after King put out his news release earlier today, Richardson sent out his own news release stating that he “welcomes” King’s support of the reform proposals.
“I look forward to working with the attorney general and lawmakers to once and for all pass a comprehensive ethics reform package,” Richardson said in the release. “I’ve proudly signed the ethics bills that have made it to my desk in recent years. This year, I look forward to signing those important reforms that, in past years, have failed by only a few votes.”
Richardson has convened two ethics task forces in recent years to study and propose reforms, but some lawmakers have accused him of not putting his full weight behind the proposals. Richardson, in his release, said he’s asking lawmakers to pass several ethics reform proposals this year, including an ethics commission, campaign contribution limits and the one-year ban on legislators becoming lobbyists.
In 2007, following the scandal in the state treasurer’s office, momentum built for reform. The Legislature and governor approved a gift ban, an expansion of the public financing system and changes to the governmental conduct act but rejected other reforms including contribution limits and the ethics commission.
In 2008, ethics reform appeared dead on arrival in the Legislature, and nothing significant was approved, but many had begun to speculate that the current investigation of the governor’s administration might help give the reforms a new boost in the 60-day session that begins Jan. 20.
CDR Financial Products was paid almost $1.5 million in 2004 advising the New Mexico Finance Authority on interest-rate swaps and restructuring escrow funds for $1.6 billion in bonds related to the transportation project dubbed GRIP, or Governor Richardson’s Investment Partnership. Meanwhile, in 2003 and 2004, the company gave $75,000 to Richardson’s political action committee Si Se Puede!, and the company’s head, David Rubin, gave $25,000 to Moving America Forward, another Richardson PAC.
No information released publicly has directly linked Richardson to the probe, but the investigation centers around whether staffers in Richardson’s office influenced the hiring of CDR.
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JC: For the first time ever, I concur with the entirety of your thoughts.
Thinker:
Thanks for the hat-tip and at same time glad you recognize the mess we are all in.
The muni issue I have occasionally attempted to stir-a-bit is, unfortunately not new — it's been around for many decades and has always been the apple that caused societal rot. (look at the Rust-Bucket states and their debt loads). The only new-ness is the scale of the game and how muni's are often tied (bundled) into (backed by) theoretical sure-bet prime real-estate mortgages (insurance co's like AIG). In other words lot's of hands were/are in the till or under the table continuing to Make Off with the goods leaving behind eventual ruin. Now that real-estate value has dropped into a potentially bottomless pit muni's are becoming harder to finance, especially those being refinanced. Those that are getting financed (with today's low interest rate) may have all kinds of baggage tied to them, as well as higher front-end load & back-end retirement fees.
Issuing municipal bonds for so-called infrastructure needs (water, sewer, roads, schools, etc., etc., etc.) is merely laying down the plastic and hoping that all goes well in the future so the bet-debt(s) can be re-paid and not have to be re-financed again and again. just like millions of people who used their homes as ATM's.
Serious diggin is required to find out how deep this cess-pool actually is; but don't expect help because airing dirty laundry does not bode well for the constant issuance of these muni's or those promoting this debt upon future generations.
The murky and abstract world of “High Finance” not being my cup of tea, I have had to work very hard to try and understand this CDR stuff, as well as figure out what the bigger picture is here. (Hat tip to Joseph Cummins: good NYT article. Also, FYI: the Santa Fe New Mexican has a wealth of stuff not just on the front pages but in their writer’s blogs–check out some of the comments posted there, too!)
At this point, it seems to me that we have a decade or more long effort on the part of several big financial firms to conspire to rig bids and price fix. Part of this included the “necessary cost” donating relatively tiny sums (in comparison to their profits off the contracts) to the PAC’s and campaigns of the sucker politicians in the states and localities where they were doing business. While some idiots were stupid enough to allow themselves to be outright bribed, they were usually low-level local pols, lacking the sophistication and savvy of bigger profile politicians who mostly didn’t cross the legal–not necessarily ethical–line. The banks and financial firms acted like professional con artists who worked every angle to get what they wanted: over payment for their services, and friendly faces in all the high places needed to continue their scam.
I suspect we will find Richardson did not personally cross the necessary legal lines here for him to be facing any prosecution. He’s not as dumb or as sociopathic as the Blago-style politicians of the world. The irony is that he who seems to be the master of the legal “pay-to-play” may have actually been a victim, not only of CDR but of some closely associated unscrupulous folks who were REALLY responsible for pulling off this dea–and got paid nicely for it!
Carter Bundy’s post below nails it as usual on these issues. Once again, we’re such a bunch a chumps here in the Land of Enchantment for failing to demand transparency from our government and politicians. This story is far, far bigger than the New Mexico aspect of it.
This article (http://cafr1.com/FTM.html) may be of interest relating to past/present ethics (Governor, CDR & muni's).
Re: ethics reform
Anything short of transparent and honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence
is only a step in the right direction.
If surveyed, a majority of New Mexicans would opt to end the culture of corruption in New Mexico government.
Yet we find ourselves begging them for any small part of what we deserve.
If public servants had any intention of ever holding themselves honestly accountable for their public service
it would have been done a long time ago.
Corruption and incompetence will not be ended by those who benefit from tolerating and enabling them.
The terms of public inservitude are the prerogative of the public, not of the servant.
Should anyone care if Gary King or Bill Richardson push for ethics reform?
Gary King refuses to prosecute the State Land Commissioner in the biggest “pay to play” political scandal in this states history, but refuses to, likely because his cousin Jerry King works there and is likely knee deep in the scandal.
And the Governor, well, again who cares!!!
Logic is a lost language…
Perhaps Gary and Bill Richardson may as well hire Henry Kissinger to be the lobbyist for their ethics package!