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Denish’s office won’t release her schedule
Lt. Gov. Diane Denish (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
The office of Lt. Gov. Diane Denish says the public doesn’t have any business knowing about Denish’s job-related appointments, except for public appearances.
Last week, NMPolitics.net requested a copy of Denish’s calendar or schedule for a 30-day period. Denish’s chief of staff, Joshua Rosen, denied the request on Friday.
Rosen said his office doesn’t keep an “official” calendar of the lieutenant governor’s appointments and isn’t releasing notes or documentation related to her schedule, except to point to news releases that announce public appearances.
“Diane’s public events are announced so that New Mexicans can come see her in their communities,” Rosen wrote in an e-mail. “Her private appointments are not maintained in the state email system and, per direction from the Attorney General, this document is not subject to IPRA (the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act). Therefore the Office of the Lt. Governor has no records responsive to your request.”
I asked Rosen to clarify if he was saying the office keeps no calendar for Denish or just that it’s not subject to IPRA. He said the office “schedules events relating to state business” but “does not maintain an official calendar.”
Last week, NMPolitics.net reported that the Third Judicial District Attorney’s Office in Las Cruces is 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.
Martinez declined to say whether she’s keeping her own calendar using equipment not owned by her government office or if no one is keeping a schedule of her work-related appointments. The Attorney General’s Office said such a personal calendar isn’t a public record subject to IPRA.
AG said employee ‘notes’ of appointments aren’t public
Denish’s office does send notices to the media when Denish is appearing in public. But Denish has all sorts of other meetings related to her job, such as appointments with constituents and other elected officials.
Though his office schedules such appointments for Denish, Rosen is contending that documentation of those appointments is not public.
Phil Sisneros, the AG’s spokesman, said last week that the AG believes “personal calendars and schedules are more like notes a public employee keeps for his or her own use, even if they include business appointments,” and are not public records.
But Sisneros didn’t say whether the same applies when employees of a government office schedule appointments for an elected official, as is the case with Denish. That’s because I was asking only about personal calendars, like the calendar Martinez may be keeping.
I’ve e-mailed Sisneros to ask whether an elected official’s schedule, when maintained by that official’s office, is a public record or also considered more like ‘notes’ for personal use. I’ll let you know what response I receive.
‘Governors have virtually no expectation of privacy’
The executive director of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, Sarah Welsh, speaking last week about the Martinez situation, 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.”
She said if Martinez is keeping a personal calendar and it’s “the primary way that she keeps track of her public work, that’s clearly a public record.”
Welsh could not be reached for comment on Friday or over the weekend about the situation with Denish. But Welsh also said, speaking about Martinez, that from a policy perspective the district attorney 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.”
Like Martinez, Denish has spent a great deal of time in recent months away from the office and running for governor.
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Ched, you would also want to know about every single schedule change, every unannounced drop-in, etc. Have you ever worked in an office? Ever tried to keep a log of your entire day in 15-minute increments? I guess there are some folks who do that on Twitter and such, but it requires an intense preoccupation with one’s person that I think would be a major distraction from the job one was hired to do.
And yes, you have to throw in teachers, they are public emplowees too. Someone someday will decide they have a ‘right’ to know the daily details on ALL public employees.
So pick the ones you want to pester, and put them in a bill. Brother, when I was working as a secretary in the Roundhouse in 2007, it would have driven me to distraction to have to write down everything I was doing every minute of the day. And it would have been even worse to be forced to keep track of what the TWO legislators I was serving were doing.
Wedum,
Do you really suppose that there is not already a daily log? do you really believe that she does not keep a calendar? Even she isn’t claiming there’s no calendar, just that there is no “official” calendar. That “distinction” is simply a mechanism to skirt the law.
If the, ethically redacted, schedule were kept online, there would be no need for any extra employees. It would hardly take an hour a day to save the information to two places instead of one.
There is nothing “ridiculous” about wondering what your servant is doing all (work)day.
What have teachers got to do with Denish? How about one question at a time? And, who said anything about transcripts?
I am not sure that we need a bill to authorize us to ask legitimate questions about our power, our resources, and about their public service. I think the First Amendment covers it.
Nor do we need a bill to expect politicians and public servants to answer legitimate questions candidly, forthrightly and honestly.
There is a line between the truth that should be made public, and the truth that should not be made public. The line exists for good and ethical reasons.
The current line needs to be sharpened and moved in the direction of full disclose.
Denish is keeping her, ethically redacted, calendar a secret for a reason; a reason other than defending the public interests.
For those who want all public officials to keep a daily log of everything they do, consider the implications. This takes time. For the higher officials, answering all the requests for such a schedule takes time. So the result would be hiring an extra staff member for the governor, lieutenant governor, department heads, district attorneys etc, and re-writing the job descriptions for every public employee to include up to an hour a day reserved for logging and distributing their daily work schedule.
So this means increasing taxes to pay for the extra employees and the extra time. You sure you want to do this?
If we want a ‘meaner and leaner’ budget, I think this is a ridiculous idea. You want teachers to do this too? You want transcripts of all conversations too? Let the news people get together and make up a list of all the people whose daily work schedule they want to have available and then ask their state rep or senator to turn it into a bill, WITH funding.
So … what does Susana Martinez have in common with Diane Denish?
This is a perfect example of the problem with transparency.
Their perspective is that the truth belongs to them, unless you can prove (in court) that it does not.
The opposite perspective that the truth about our power, our resources, our politicians and public servants, and their public service, belongs to the people unless they can prove that it does not.
There is little to no relief for this problem under the law they wrote for themselves.
That is why we need to elect people that won’t play games with the truth, just because the law allows them to.
And conversely, NOT re-elect those who do.