In what the Albuquerque Journal characterizes as a “legal food fight,” the state auditor and attorney general are fighting over a subpoena the auditor calls a “hyper-aggressive” fishing expedition by the AG.

The backdrop: State-government scandals that are currently consuming headlines and, of course, politics.

The Saturday Journal article details what began with an AG probe into complaints about State Auditor Hector Balderas received by a fraud hotline set up by his own office. It’s a probe that apparently has expanded to include a request for a host of documents from the auditor’s office, including all tips sent to the fraud hotline, personnel files and “copies of all electronic communications” including e-mails, text messages, faxes, attachments and embedded files, the Journal article quotes the subpoena as stating.

The subpoena was released by the auditor’s office in response to a public records request, along with the auditor’s response to it.

Balderas was quoted by the Journal as saying it was he who turned complaints made to the fraud hotline against him over to the AG in order to avoid a conflict of interest. The AG then made the broad request in the subpoena, to which the auditor’s office responded that it “is not prepared to allow the (attorney general) to rummage through its files.”

“Setting aside the legal objections to the subpoena, it is particularly disconcerting that the subpoena reflects a hostile attitude on the part of the Attorney General’s Office that has derailed the efforts at mutual cooperation,” the Journal quoted the letter as stating.

The political context

The political context is this: Though neither may actually run, the chatter is widespread that Attorney General Gary King might challenge Lt. Gov. Diane Denish for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2010, and that Balderas might run alongside Denish for lieutenant governor.

For the record, Balderas has told me he is interested in becoming lieutenant governor, while King last told me in 2007 that he was likely to run for re-election in 2010 instead of seeking the state’s highest office.

But there’s another potential political angle to this story. Balderas has been a much more aggressive state auditor than any other in recent memory. He has worked to increase the influence of his office by using its previously little-utilized subpoena power in special audits, hiring criminal investigators and developing the fraud hotline.

Such investigatory power has most often been left to the AG, but Balderas has been involved in high-profile probes of the housing authority scandal and the dealings of the land office — situations also being investigated by the AG.

Another state official under investigation

At any rate, what’s going on here is a legal standoff: The AG wants a bunch of information and has issued a subpoena for it. The auditor says the AG can’t have some of the information he seeks. As is customary, the AG’s office didn’t comment, beyond saying that the AG “has the authority to investigate other agencies,” the Journal article states.

The bottom line: Add Balderas to the list of state officials under investigation, even if the allegations against him appear to be less serious than those leveled against some others, including the governor. According to the Journal article, the allegations include that “an auditor’s office employee baby-sat Balderas’ children on state time and that the agency had made improper purchases.”

Balderas, the Journal article states, “says the allegations are bogus and that he has provided documents to the AG showing that to be the case.”