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DA’s office isn’t keeping a schedule for Martinez
Susana Martinez
Martinez isn’t saying how she’s keeping track of job-related appointments. Sunshine experts disagree on whether, if she keeps them on a personal calendar, it’s a public record.
The Third Judicial District Attorney’s Office in Las Cruces says it’s not maintaining a calendar or schedule for District Attorney Susana Martinez, who’s spent a lot of time in recent months on the campaign trail in her quest to become governor.
Las Crucen Ernie Bean recently filed a records request with the office for Martinez’s schedule for the month of March. Chief Deputy District Attorney Susan Riedel, the office’s records custodian, responded by writing that the office “does not maintain a calendar or schedule” for Martinez.
Does that mean Martinez is keeping track of appointments and events related to her work as district attorney on her own, using equipment or resources not belonging to the district attorney’s office, or that no one is keeping a schedule of Martinez’s job-related work?
Martinez declined to answer that question.
Nothing in state law requires Martinez’s office to maintain a calendar or schedule of her appointments. If her office did maintain such a schedule, it would be a public document under the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act.
How is Martinez keeping track of appointments?
Martinez’s schedule has been the subject of some controversy in Las Cruces, where there’s been discussion about how much time the Republican gubernatorial candidate is spending working in a job Doña Ana County taxpayers are paying her $109,603 to do this fiscal year.
Clearly, running for governor has consumed a great deal of Martinez’s time in recent months and has frequently taken her to other parts of the state for campaign events. But there’s no question that Martinez has continued to do work as district attorney even while she’s been running for governor:
• Martinez spoke at a child abuse awareness event in Las Cruces earlier this month.
• Last month, Martinez held a news conference to announce that no charges would be filed against two police officers involved in a shooting death, which I’ve recently written about.
• Martinez has been involved in the ongoing investigation concerning Las Cruces City Manager Terrence Moore.
The question is how Martinez is keeping track of her job-related appointments and events.
A public records question
The Attorney General’s Office and the head of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government (FOG) disagree about whether, if Martinez is keeping track of her job-related appointments on her own using equipment or resources not owned by her office, such a schedule would be a public record.
Phil Sisneros, the AG’s spokesman, said such a schedule would not be a public record, but he cautioned that he was speaking generally, not about any specific situation.
“It is our position that personal calendars and schedules are more like notes a public employee keeps for his or her own use, even if they include business appointments,” Sisneros said.
He said that contrasts with the AG’s belief that messages public officials send using personal e-mail accounts are public records if they relate to public business. That’s because, Sisneros said, such e-mails “are created or maintained for or on behalf of the public body,” unlike the personal calendars and schedules he said some employees keep for their own use.
On the other hand, FOG’s executive director, Sarah Welsh, said if Martinez is keeping a personal calendar that includes appointments and events related to her job, it’s a public record. Appointments not relating to her job can be redacted before it’s released, she said.
Welsh said the public records act “applies to all documents regardless of physical form or characteristics that are used, created, etc. by any public body and relate to public business.”
“If this is the primary way that she keeps track of her public work, that’s clearly a public record,” Welsh said.
Sisneros said there’s no case law to settle the legal question.
‘Basic oversight’
As to the disagreement with the AG, Welsh said her organization tends to interpret the public records act “more broadly and aggressively in favor of openness than the AG does in some of these things.”
“We err on the side of openness and say if it deals with public business it’s a public record,” Welsh said.
That’s the legal argument, she said. Welsh’s policy argument is that Martinez should release whatever information she has about her public appointments and events.
“That’s just basic oversight of what a public official is doing,” Welsh said. “… Governors have virtually no expectation of privacy. Everything they do, 24/7, is subject to public scrutiny. That’s one of the hazards of the job, and that’s probably one reason why so few people want it.”
“Bottom line, anyone who wants to hold that position better get used to questions like these,” Welsh said.
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Ramirez: Thanks for the clarification. You are totally right, we should have been interested long ago.
PoliticalGuy:
I should have worded it this way: “we are NOW concerned about elected officials and how they spend their time.”
We should have been concerned about this many years ago (like 8). As I said before it has become an issue now that Susana is a viable candidate. Apparently Denish has been busy making appearances on state tax dollars. She’s running for Governor too…
cantinados, I filed such a records request with Denish’s office yesterday. We’ll see what they say.
Why aren’t we asking Diane Denish the same question, difference is she (Denish) is campaigning on the taxpayer dollar. Don’t throw rocks in the perverbial “glass house”. Let’s do an IPRA on Denish and see how that turns out!
I did not protest Richardson’s run for president and stated at the time, “As long as the great state of New Mexico continues to function, I do not care how Richardson spends his time as the elected governor.” And I meant it.
The same for Martinez. She has about 50 deputy DAs who handle the case load and her job is to manage their manager, the second in command. How much time per day does that take? There is not a fixed number. Also, after so many years Susana might go on a ’round the world cruise and nothing of significance change in the DA’s office because she has trained the Assistant DAs and the command and control mechanism.
Same for Diane Dennish, after all these years her office probably runs like clockwork without her attention every second and does not need her to manage which pencils to buy and should they serve cake or cupcakes for someone’s birthday.
As an elected official should Richardson, Denish or Martinez’s daily activities be open to the public? Perhaps as long as it is the same for everyone? Exactly the same. The law should be the same on both sides of the political spectrum.
If Richardson had been forced to tell us his minute by minute actions all of his years in office we would not be having this debate about Diane or Susana’s time. Can’t have it one way for Republicans and one way for Democrats.
How about a new NM Constitutional amendment? Can’t run for a different office while holding office? The problem there like term limits is it assumes we, the voters, will not punish actions to which we disapprove.
Ramirez writes: “Let me get this straight, we are now concerned about elected officials and how they spend their time.”
Um, yeah. Because if she’s neglecting her duties to run for office 24/7, the people who pay her salary (that would be the voters of Dona Ana county, FYI) have a right to know, as do Republican primary voters.
Great post Ramirez. Besides Richardson and Denish, they should also look at AG Gary King’s schedule. It seems as though the guy is always over seas visiting his wife. I wonder how his schedule looks?
So why now has this become such a cause for concern? Let me get this straight, we are now concerned about elected officials and how they spend their time.
Ok, so we have put up with Richardson’s “jet-setting” for almost 8 years now. We have endured the indictment of two of our PRC commissioners, with one leading to a conviction.
We have a lieutenant governor that is miraculously appearing on various government boards getting free media attention at every turn, and we are blasting a DA who has done nothing but serve her constituents well in the past ten years or so.
A disgrace Hemingway? Hardly. What has been a disgrace is the way our state government has been run for the past 70 years; full of kick backs and back door deals.
Why don’t you blast Obama for using taxpayer money to fly all around the nation to stump for his fellow Dems. So before anyone points the finger, they should look at the doings of everyone else. Susana has become an easy target because she is a very serious contender to take on and beat Denish in November.
I think Ms. Martinez is one smart District Attorney if she can run that office off of her Blackberry and a lap top. Especially since much of the state has such iffy cell service. Perhaps she is using a satelite phone to make it all go smoothly. But in reality, I think she needs to spend more time in Las Cruces or take a leave of absence. She probably should have done this a while ago.
HandsOnDeck: I have seen that poll before and everyone could hear Doug screaming, “YES!!” to the top of his lungs when it came out. It was no blowout mark by any stretch of the imagination and remember, amongst GOP loyalists, Susana got 47% of the party faithful at the pre-primary while Doug, Alice, and Pete Jr. had to scramble to gather more signatures just to stay on the ballot and virtually dried up their donor spouts.
I have heard Doug speak on couple of occasions and on a few radio interviews. He strikes me as a schoolboy running for senior class president without ANY political experience to be governor. His recent jump to the bandwagon in suggesting that the Arizona Immigration Bill even hints at “racial profiling” shows that he is trying to win everybody over and saying anything to do so. The best thing Doug can do in his “novelty run” for the state’s highest elective office is siphon votes away from Allen Weh so Susana can prove she is the biggest threat.
Doug needs to cut his teeth HandsOnDeck. Tell him there’s a few city council races coming up.
ksparks:
Susana is the only real threat? Hmm that is interesting….Let me introduce you to something that would say different.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections2/election_2010/election_2010_governor_elections/new_mexico/election_2010_new_mexico_governor
The truth is, Doug Turner is the TRUE real threat to Diane Denish
It is a disgrace if Ms. Martinez is not keeping track of her job-related appointments and events versus her campaign activities. Law firms always keep track of time for clients. She should be doing the same.
Whether or not it is ‘legal’ is for the, guess who, lawyers to decide.
Whether or not it is ‘ethical’ that a candidate for public office divert wholesale amounts of their time to the electoral process without giving up a like amount of their publicly funded, full time pay is for the people to decide.
Given the choice, with full and complete disclosure (aka open government, aka transparency), it’s a no-brainer that people would say that it is unethical for Martinez to withhold her information in this scenario.
The other candidates on the Republican side are not publicly financed. There is no question about their ethics in this sense.
Diane Denish? She has been and will continue to use all forms of public ‘assets’ at her disposal as an incumbent… on top of her 3 Million Dollar war chest…. because she can. That doesn’t make it right by any stretch of the imagination!
She’s an administrator with a staff. Seems Diane Denish is doing the same exact thing, or will be after June in the Lt. Governor’s office. Everyone in a currently full time elective office who is seeking the same or higher office has done, is doing it, and will do it in the future. This is no different than any other elected official. People harping on this issue have nothing else to complain about because Susana is a REAL threat to Diane Denish and the current Richardson-Denish fiasco of the last eight years.
It’s no secret that she has been running her office from her Blackberry, and if I was her constituent, I’d have a hard time justifying that as a full-time job drawing a full-time salary.