Ben Lujan donates $1,500 to Sandra Jeff’s opponent
Posted by rnikolewski in News on May 16th, 2012
Sandra Jeff has earned a reputation in the last couple legislative sessions as being a maverick Democrat who sometimes votes with Republicans, most notably when it comes to trying to repeal the state law that grants driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.
Jeff is now running for a third term in the Roundhouse and is facing a challenger in the upcoming Democratic primary in House District 5 in the Four Corners region of the state that is largely made up of Native Americans and members of the Navajo Nation but Speaker of the House Ben Luján has contributed $1,500 to Jeff’s opponent — Charles Long.
Political retribution?
Speaker Luján says no. When asked by Capitol Report New Mexico why he gave $1,500 to Long, Luján said flatly, “Because he asked for it.”
In a phone interview, the Speaker said, “I appreciated the fact that [Long] felt I might be able to help him … and that he had confidence in me to help him spread his message … I haven’t heard from Sandra Jeff at all.”
Does that mean that if Rep. Jeff had called and asked for a donation, Luján would have given her one as well?
“I might have done it,” Luján said.
Jeff had not heard about the $1,500 donation until told of it Wednesday (May 16) by Capitol Report New Mexico.
“That’s a political sin,” she said by cellphone while campaigning in the district, “especially for a legislative leader to do this.”
“I respected his leadership,” Jeff went on to say, “but I guess he does not respect my representation.”
At the same time, Jeff says she’s not that surprised by the donation. “I’m not going to be bullied by the leadership,” she said.
Capitol Report New Mexico left a message for Long, who has raised $1,850 counting the Luján contribution in this election cycle, but so far we have not heard back. If and when Long contacts us, we’ll post a reaction. Currently the secretary-treasurer of the Becenti Chapter in Crownpoint, Long has been an active member if Navajo Nation politics.
Jeff has raised $2,850 in the most recent campaign reporting period and $5,120 in the first reporting period, according to the Secretary of State’s website.
“The people are finally listening,” Jeff said about her campaign thus far. “They want a new breed [of politician]. It’s no longer a party line. Look at what’s happening in Washington DC. People don’t want that party line thinking … I think that’s a positive sign.”
There is no Republican entered in the race so the Long-Jeff Democratic Party primary will essentially determine who heads to the Roundhouse.
Back in the 2011 legislative session, Jeff was one of the first Democrats to publicly side with Republican Gov. Susana Martinez and Democrat-turned-Independent Rep. Andy Nuñez of Hatch in calling for ending the driver’s license law for illegal immigrants in New Mexico. Jeff took the House floor and accused Lujan’s chief of staff, Regis Pecos, of yelling at her in a private meeting, ”saying I’m making a fool of myself” with her vote. Pecos denied that, telling Capitol Report New Mexico at the time, ”I would never do that to any member of the House.”
In that same session, Jeff also criticized the state officials associated with the movie industry for not doing enough to hire Native Americans in film productions around the state.
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By the way, in our brief phone interview with Speaker Luján, we asked him about his health.
Luján is stepping down from the legislature as he battles Stage 4 lung cancer.
“I feel kind of the same way [as he did during the legislative session],” he said. “Everything is leveling off, remaining stable.”
The 76-year-old Luján said he’s going to the UNM Cancer Center in Albuquerque Thursday (May 16) for another round of chemotherapy treatment. “We’re still hoping the chemo will help,” he said.
NM politics: “It’s good vs. evil” one side says, “he’s fat,” says the other
Posted by rnikolewski in News on May 15th, 2012
Pat Lyons, Public Regulation Commissioner
I missed this morning’s PRC meeting (April 15) because I had a doctor’s appointment in Albuquerque but now I wish I had gone.
Public Regulation Commission meetings have been lively ones, even predating the series of Jerome Block Jr. controversies that erupted last year and they’ve gotten livelier in the last week or so.
That’s because a former PRC employee named Martin de la Garza and the PRC’s current chairman Pat Lyons have developed a real animosity towards each other.
It’s so bad that Lyons is asking fellow commissioners to take a restraining order against de la Garza while de la Garza accuses Lyons of acting like a bully.
At a hearing last week, de la Garza made a long statement during the public comment period and we’ll let Milan Simonich of the Texas-New Mexico Newspapers Partnership pick it up from there:
De la Garza had walked through a swinging gate to the commissioners’ table while the business portion of a meeting was under way.
Lyons, 58, told de la Garza four times to leave the area. When de la Garza did not obey, Lyons grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved him. “We don’t have a sergeant at arms or any security. As the chairman, I was in fear for the safety of the other commissioners,” Lyons said.
Martin de la Garza
At today’s meeting, Simonich tells us that Lyons called for the commission to get a restraining order against de la Garza but two other commissioners — Jason Marks and Doug Howe – said that they don’t think de la Garza is creating a clear and present danger to call for something so drastic.
The bad blood between Lyons and de la Garza is clear to see:
Asked if he regretted putting his hands on de la Garza, Lyons said he merely acted as a protector.
“Once I grabbed him, all I could think of was how fat he was,” Lyons said.
For his part, de la Garza said Lyons was unprofessional.
“He treated me like an animal,” de la Garza said. He called his ongoing confrontations with Lyons “good versus evil.”
Click here to read Simonich’s entire story.
De la Garza has a history with the commission and often appears at the agency’s twice weekly meetings, giving speeches that tend to ramble.
This isn’t the first time that the commission has tried to silence de la Garza.
As we here at Capitol Report New Mexico reported in late 2010, the PRC at the time tried to prevent de la Garza from appearing at public meetings but District Court Judge Raymond Z. Ortiz slapped down the commission, saying the “allegations made by PRC employees regarding Mr. de la Garza’s behavior are not credible.”
Why does de la Garza appear at so many PRC meetings?
He’s angry at the agency that fired him in 2009, saying that de la Garza — who was a civil engineer at the PRC – took $5,000 from a utility company. De la Garza says he was let go because he was a whistleblower.
He has since taken his civil case to court.
Update: KOAT-TV was at Tuesday’s meeting and filed this report: http://www.koat.com/news/new-mexico/Lyons-speaks-on-PRC-incident/-/9153762/13410998/-/crpo6s/-/index.html
State to take over Sunland Park finances; millions allegedly misspent, including money for hookers and campaign video
Posted by rnikolewski in News on May 14th, 2012
Sunland Park mayor pro tem Daniel Salinas (far left) and city manager Jaime Aguilera (front right) in court, 2/27/12. Courtesy: KVIA-TV
New Mexico state auditor Hector Balderas says fraud is so severe in the border town of Sunland Park that the state should take over and run things for now and New Mexico’s secretary for the Department of Finance and Administration has suspended two Sunland Park employees, charging them with mismanagement of public funds.
Late Monday afternoon (May 14), Balderas released a statement announcing that after looking over the results of a special audit, ”I strongly recommend that the Secretary of Finance and Administration take aggressive action to restore the confidence of the city’s citizens in its financial operations.”
Moments later, DFA Secretary Tom Clifford announced the suspensions of the city’s finance director Helen Gonzalez and purchasing agent Neryza Rivera and said that “in accordance with New Mexico statute, DFA will assume the duties of those two officials.”
In a brief interview with Balderas, the state auditor told Capitol Report New Mexico, “I believe they’ll [DFA] take these findings very seriously” and said he could not say for sure when a state agency had to take over running the fiscal responsibilities of a New Mexico municipality.
“We are not here to make long-term policy decisions for the community,” Clifford said in a news release. “Our goal is to establish a properly functioning system of checks and balances to prevent future waste, abuse and mismanagement of public funds.”
Balderas said he’s “deeply troubled by the severity of the audit’s findings,” which confirmed that former mayor pro tem Daniel Salinas spent more than $42,000 from the city’s Border Crossing Fund to “pay for prostitutes for Salinas and the City’s former Public Information Officer, Arturo Alba, during a trip to Mexico” as well as paying for a Salinas campaign video and paying a private investigator who made a videotape that Balderas’ office says was used to extort Salinas’ opponent in the town’s mayoral election in March.
Other charges in the news release recount large amounts of misspent public money:
*Sunland Park violated the Procurement Code by hiring Frank Coppler – a Santa Fe attorney — as city attorney without following a competitive sealed bid process. The city has paid Coppler $481,378 in legal fees;
*The city violated competitive sealed bid requirements of the Procurement Code in its award of a $2.4 milion contract to Enviro Systems Management Consultants (EMC), a firm based in Santa Teresa. The money used was from the Border Crossing Fund;
*The city violated state law in fiscal year 2010 by exceeding its approved budgeted expenditures for the Joint Utility Fund in the amount of $769,882;
*Former city manager Jaime Aguilera and former mayor pro tem Salinas were responsible for reducing customers’ utility billings and accounts in violation of the state law and the New Mexico Constitution. One bill was reduced from $767.00 to $195.80. Auditors found no evidence that the city manager reduced the bills based on criteria approved by the city council; and
*In July 2010, the city council also forgave approximately $200,000 in utility bills for residential customers in violation of the Anti-Donation Clause and state law
“We knew it would be bad,” Balderas told Capitol Report New Mexico, adding that “we’re deeply saddened for the people of Sunland Park. We’re barely getting started [with the financial investigations].”
Gov. Susana Martinez, who appeared in a joint news conference with Balderas and Clifford two months ago to talk about the early stages of the audit, released this statement late Monday afternoon:
“… we will continue to work together to methodically and diligently ensure the proper expenditure of taxpayer dollars in Sunland Park. The extraordinary level of financial mismanagement in Sunland Park is unacceptable; protecting public funds will be our highest priority.”
Balderas says a second, more detailed audit is already underway and complimented Sunland Park’s current mayor pro tem Isabel Santos for waiving what could have been a 5-day delay in Monday’s initial audit to the public.
Has the current city council been helpful to the state auditor’s office thus far?
“They have been cooperative,” Balderas said.
The problems in Sunland Park are political as well as financial and have left an embarrassing mark on the town of some 14,000 located in the southeastern portion of the state near the borders of Texas and Mexico.
On Monday, the city council was supposed to once again debate appointing a new mayor after the state attorney general’s office ruled the council had violated the state’s Open Meetings Act when it appointed 24-year-old Javier Perea to assume mayoral duties. The attorney general’s office ruled that the meeting room was too small to accomodate other potential candidates.
The council decided to postpone its Monday meeting to choose either Perea or Gerardo Hernandez as mayor, possibly because of the impending announcements from auditor Balderas and DFA Secretary Clifford.
In March, the voters in Sunland Park elected Daniel Salinas as mayor. But Salinas could not be sworn in since he was facing extortion charges stemming from allegations he had tried to blackmail Hernandez with a videotape showing Hernandez receiving a lap-dance from a topless woman.
Salinas denies any wrongdoing but has been charged with 33 felonies — most recently 9 counts of fraud and receiving kickbacks filed earlier this month.
The town’s previous mayor, Martin Resendiz, made national headlines by admitting he was drunk when he signed city contracts.
Changes to the “pit rule” debated, decision due by the end of the week
Posted by rnikolewski in News on May 14th, 2012
Oil Conservation Commission hearing on the "pit rule," 5/14/12
For environmentalists, the “pit rule” that passed in 2008 is a common sense measure ensuring that oil and gas producers don’t damage groundwater and/or the land in New Mexico when they drill.
But for the oil and gas industry, the rules are full of unnecessary regulations that drive up their costs and hobbles the state’s economy in the Four Corners and the Oil Patch.
It’s Round 2 for the two sides and the Oil Conservation Division is hearing arguments all week long in Santa Fe.
Lawyers for the industry and their witnesses say they’re not looking to completely overturn the pit rule but want “revisions and modifications to the pit rule to make the rules easier to understand,” attorney William F. Carr said in his opening statement Monday morning (May 14).
But Eric Jantz, the lead attorney for environmental interests, says the commission “can’t make changes unless there’s a rational basis” for revision and that oil and gas producers are ”socializing the risk and privatizing the benefits” should they get their way.
The decision could have ramifications for the state, which receives about one-third of its revenue from oil and gas severance taxes each year.
Back in 2008, the commission passed the pit rule by a unanimous 3-0 vote. At that time, the administration of then-Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, supported the rule’s adoption.
This time, there are two new members of the division – Greg Bloom, who was appointed by the commissioner of the State Land Office, Ray Powell, who opposes many of the suggested changes; and Robert Balch, who was appointed by the secretary of the state’s Environmental Department.
The current division director – Jami Bailey – was appointed by Gov. Susana Martinez, a Republican who has criticized the pit rule as written. Bailey served in the division that voted on the pit rule in ’08.
This week’s hearings are scheduled to run through Friday (May 18). It takes a majority of the commission members to adopt any changes.
The regulation is called the “pit rule” because it requires producers to deposit the waste and mud that’s extracted from the earth during drilling to be placed in a pit lined with protective coating. In some cases, operators also have to build enclosed tanks to hold produced water and chemicals. The rules also ban pits if they’re close to water wells and require oil and gas producers to haul the waste materials to a different site for disposal.
“We’ve lived with the rule for four years,” Bruce Gantner of ConocoPhillips testified Monday. “We’re not trying to abolish the rule … we want to make it simpler and easier to comply with.”
During a break, Gwen Lachelt of the Oil and Gas Accountability Project said it’s “essential” for the state to uphold the pit rules as written in 2008. If her side loses this week, will she take her case to court?
“Absolutely,” she said.
Back in 2010, Capitol Report New Mexico put together this video explaining the pros and cons of the pit rule. It runs just under 7 minutes:
Susana in Newsweek: Romney as well as Obama wrong on illegal immigration debate
Posted by rnikolewski in News on May 14th, 2012
Susana Martinez is featured prominently in this week’s edition of Newsweek as the national magazine that in 2010 merged with the politically liberal website The Daily Beast runs a generally positive profile of the New Mexico governor.
There’s also this photo accompanying the article — the nearly obligatory shot taken of every New Mexico politician, where they’re photographed wearing blue jeans with majestic mountains in the background:
Photo by Jesse Chehak for Newsweek
The article goes over some biographical stuff that’s familiar to those who follow politics in the state, although there is a poignant story about the governor’s sister Lettie, who’s been disabled since birth, and how raising Lettie influenced Martinez’ decision not to have children of her own (“In a way, I saw myself as already having raised a child,” she tells reporter Andrew Romano).
But one of the most interesting things the article brings up is Martinez’ take on the debate about how the US should handle the problem of illegal immigration. During a GOP presidential debate in January, Mitt Romney said, “the answer is self-deportation,” while Barack Obama made an appeal to Latino voters a couple months ago in which he promised to tackle immigration reform – after the November election (“My hope is that, after this election, the Latino community will have sent a strong message that they want a bipartisan effort to pass comprehensive immigration reform.”)
From the Newsweek article:
As we sit down at a local Starbucks, I ask about immigration. It’s a topic she has been reluctant to discuss since winning the Republican primary in 2010, so what comes next is surprising: a battle plan that contradicts nearly everything the GOP has been doing and saying since 2007, Romney’s “self-deportation” strategy included. “‘Self-deport?’ What the heck does that mean?” Martinez snaps. “I have no doubt Hispanics have been alienated during this campaign. But now there’s an opportunity for Gov. Romney to have a sincere conversation about what we can do and why.”
Naturally, Martinez has some suggestions. First, Republicans should remind Latinos that Obama pledged to pass comprehensive immigration reform by the end of his initial year in office, but “didn’t even have the courage to try.” Next, the GOP should outflank the president–on the left–by proposing its own comprehensive plan. “I absolutely advocate for comprehensive immigration reform,” Martinez says, , sipping a caramel macchiato. “Republicans want to be tough and say, ‘Illegals, you’re gone.’ But the answer is a lot more complex than that.” Martinez envisions an approach “with multiple levels”: increased border security; deportation for criminals; a guest-worker program for people who want “to go freely back and forth across the border to work”; a DREAM Act-style pathway to citizenship, through the military or college, for children brought here illegally by their parents; and a visa (coupled with a “penalty” or a “tagback”) that allows rest of the illegal population to remain in the U.S. while they follow standard naturalization procedures.
Martinez’s point is not that Republicans should peddle so-called “amnesty.” In New Mexico, she’s taken a lot of heat from Latinos for repeatedly pushing to repeal a state law that allows illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses; she also opposes a standalone DREAM Act, arguing that politicians can’t “fix [immigration] by saying, ‘Here’s the DREAM Act and we’re done. It has to be part of a larger plan.” She simply believes that a more pragmatic approach will help Republicans in the long run, particularly if it’s paired with the sort of issues-based appeal that inspired her to switch parties and a more aggressive campaign to recruit Hispanic candidates for local office. Maybe then the GOP can finally do what she did in her first statewide contest: approach the magic 40-percent mark among Latino voters. That alone would be enough to swing a presidential election.
You can read the entire Newsweek article by clicking here.
Hat tip to Steve Terrell of the Santa Fe New Mexican for alerting me to the Newsweek piece.
California’s debt nearly twice as bad as estimated
Posted by rnikolewski in News on May 13th, 2012
California Gov. Jerry Brown takes to YouTube to explain his state's $16 billion debt, 5/12/12
How bad was your weekend? Safe to say it wasn’t as bad as California’s.
From the Los Angeles Times:
California’s projected budget deficit has ballooned to $16 billion, much larger than the $9.2 billion estimated in January, Gov. Jerry Brown said, and he warned of more painful spending cuts.
“We will have to go much further, and make cuts far greater, than I asked for at the beginning of the year,” Brown said in a video posted Saturday on YouTube. He plans to detail his revised spending plan in the Capitol on Monday.
The deficits have worsened due to a couple factors. First, the state hasn’t received the amount of tax revenue it expected (not surprising, considering the tax climate for businesses there) and second, the Democratically-controlled state legislature rejected many of the suggested cuts that Gov. Brown proposed.
All this brings to mind a conversation I had last year with Dr. Matt Mitchell of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.
Huge deficits are a reality many on the political left deny or say are exaggerated. Mitchell told me he suspects in the near future that Democratic Party governors are better suited to curb spending because whenever fiscally conservative governors call for serious spending cuts they are immediately attacked from the left:
In other words, if a Democrat — especially one initially supported by public sector unions — comes out and essentially says, “we have to make changes,” only then will the economic cold water get splashed in the face. It’s similar to the old political adage that “only Nixon could go to China.”
But changes are coming. Unlike the federal government, state governments cannot simply print more money to try to paper over the problem (and even that doesn’t work because it leads to inflation). And no amount of political rhetoric can change the demographic reality of an aging population that is significantly larger than the population behind it.
Oh, and Los Angeles taxpayers also received news this weekend that the cost of the city allowing and then eventually evicting Occupy Los Angeles protesters cost $4.7 million – some $2 million more than estimated.
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Click here to read the entire LA Times story.
More controversy at the Torrance County Commission
Posted by rnikolewski in News on May 11th, 2012
Torrance County Commission, courtesy: KOB-TV
First the Torrance County Commission angered open government advocates by trying to restrict and even ban cameras from their public meetings.
Then there were questions about whether one commissioner who also worked at the Department of Transportation should be allowed to remain.
Now there’s yet another controversy for the commission that represents 16,000 residents in the county located within the metropolitan area of Albuquerque: over a financial investigation conducted by State Auditor Hector Balderas.
Commissioners on Wednesday (May 9) voted to draft a letter complaining that Balderas has talked to the media about his audit of the county before he talked to the commission itself — something the commissioners say is a violation of state policy.
Balderas has fired back, saying the commission is simply try to obstruct the investigation into some $700,000 of county contracts that ended up going to a single vendor.
As reported by KOB-TV, commissioner Lonnie Freyburger said Balders “is in violation of [state] policy [by talking to the media about details of the audit] and I would like for the county to send a letter of complaint to the state auditor that we don’t like it.”
Balderas responds by saying he has not released any details of the investigation and the audit hasn’t been completed.
“They are using their official power to hire lawyers to jam the audit and its improper use of public dollars,” Balderas told KOB-TV. “They should not be asking any lawyers to engage in obstructing an audit, especially when it’s required by state law.”
Freyburger has been in the center of the debate about cameras at commission hearings and he’s also been questioned about whether he should even serve on the commission at all.
As we reported last month, Freyburger — who was employed by the state Department of Transportation — appeared to be in conflict with the State Personnel Act and the State Personnel Board Rule relating to classified state employees and their ability to hold public or political office.
Since then, the Mountain View Telegraph reported that Freyburger has retired from his DOT position and showed a reporter from the Telegraph a 2011 e-mail from the DOT human resources director saying that “it is allowable” for employees to serve in public office as long as they recuse themselves from voting on matters that could be a conflict of interest — something that appears to directly contradict state personnel rules.
The Telegraph reports an investigation is underway by the DOT. Freyburger — who has served on the commission for more than a year — told the newspaper that although he retired from the DOT he will “pursue legal alternatives.”
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To see the KOB-TV report about the flap between the commissioners and Balderas, click here.
And to get some background on the controversy over cameras at commission hearings, click here.
State senator defends ALEC, the conservative group the left loves to hate
Posted by rnikolewski in News on May 11th, 2012
If you want to get someone on the political left riled up, just mention the word “ALEC.”
No, not Alec Baldwin or Alec Guinness but the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
It’s a political group that’s been around for nearly 40 years that tries to push conservative policies. On its website ALEC says the organization is made up of ”state lawmakers who shared a common belief in limited government, free markets, federalism, and individual liberty.”
Liberal groups have called ALEC “reactionary and racist” and in this election year, the attacks from the left have intensified as critics of ALEC have pressured corporations and state legislators to resign their memberships.
And it’s happening here in New Mexico.
Early this year, a well-documented dustup in a Santa Fe restaurant left a woman who was a guest of a Roundhouse legislator with an eye injury after some Occupy Santa Fe protesters burst into a dinner hosted by ALEC.
Now as primary elections for state House and Senate races heat up, Democratic primary opponents are calling on fellow Democrats who have attended ALEC functions to disavow the group.
Sen. William Payne (R-Albuquerque)
“I don’t think [ALEC] needs to be defended,” Sen. Bill Payne (R-Albuquerque) said in a recent interview with Capitol Report New Mexico, adding, “I think it’s been hijacked and used as a foil by some far left groups to hang a lot of baggage on because they need something during the election cycle to energize their base.”
The left’s base has been energized, in particular due to the Trayvon Martin case and the “stand your ground law” that ALEC supported and helped pass in Florida. ALEC legislation has also backed voter ID laws, a hot-button issue for Democrats who think such laws keep minorities and likely Democratic voters away from the polls.
A liberal group called Color of Change – headed by Van Jones, the former Obama administration official who eventually resigned over a flap involving 9/11 — put on a full-court press, threatening to boycott the products of corporations with connections to ALEC unless they resigned from from the organization.
The campaign has worked. At most recent count 14 companies have stepped down from ALEC.
Responding to the pressure, ALEC released a statement last month saying it would refrain from taking part in “non-economic issues” and concentrate “on initiatives that spur competitiveness and innovation and put more Americans back to work” – something it says is its primary reason for being.
While Sen. Payne — who inherited a state co-chair position with ALEC after fellow Republican state Sen. Kent Cravens retired from the Roundhouse – vigorously defends the organization, he agrees that ALEC should concentrate on economic policy. “I’ve had this conversation, saying, ‘stick to the core function of ALEC,’” Payne said, “which is a business-oriented, economic prosperity-type of organization and try not to get distracted by these other issues.”
Despite the pivot, the political left has turned membership in ALEC into something that’s radioactive.
For example, at least two current Democratic state senators — John Sapien and George Muñoz, who are both facing primaries within their own parties – - have withdrawn from having any association with ALEC after two state Democrats sent out a news release blasting the organization.
Sen. Sapien is an independent agent with State Farm Insurance, which is a member of ALEC, and after Sapien’s primary opponent, Ben Rodefer, demanded Sapien “immediately repudiate both ALEC and his previous support for ALEC-type bills,” Sapien responded by issuing a news release saying, “the suggested solutions to issues in which ALEC has supported are not right for New Mexico.”
Sen. Muñoz not only resigned from ALEC but said in a news release that he’s “calling on his fellow legislatures [sic] to withdraw support of ALEC.”
Another criticism of ALEC is that it proposes draft legislation for state lawmakers to adopt. “I’m a member of the Uniform Law Commission,” Payne said. “And what they do is write uniform laws that states can adopt to make divorces easier, business transactions, [etc.]. Now you can say that’s nefarious: ‘Someone’s writing these laws, trying to get you to pass them’ … but that’s on the right and left. There are hundreds of organizations that do that.”
In the recent anti-fracking ordinance passed in Las Vegas, New Mexico, the Albuquerque Journal pointed out that the measure was crafted with the help the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund of Mercerberg, Pa., a liberal non-profit that also has drafted model ordinances to try to overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling.
Another accusation is that ALEC is a “shadowy” organization backed by rich corporate interests that are difficult to track. “They’re actually a pretty straight-forward organization,” Payne said. “They don’t hide anything. Nothing they do passes into law unless it’s debated in legislatures.”
The organization has received financial support by the Koch brothers of Koch Industries, a favorite target of liberal ire but, “I’d like to meet the Koch brothers,” Payne said with a laugh. ”They’ve been hung out as some sort of bogeyman out there …. I’ve never met them or know what they supposedly do or don’t do” while adding that billionaire George Soros is famous for investing millions of dollars into left-wing and Democratic Party issues.
But whether one believes the attacks are fair or unfair, with so many statewide Democrats disavowing ALEC, can the organization survive here in New Mexico?
“It’s always been a bi-partisan organization,” Payne said. “Some members dropping out, that’s unfortunate. I suspect that after the election we’ll get some members rejoining. It’ll survive. It’s a voluntary thing, no legislator needs to be in it. If they don’t want to be in it, no one coerces them to … there’s never been any pressure to join or not join.”
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Here’s more on the ALEC debate.
From the left, click here to read criticism of the organization from the Center for Media and Democracy.
And from the right, click here to read a defense of ALEC from the Wall Street Journal editorial board.
Keith Russell Judd likes our Top 10 List
Posted by rnikolewski in News on May 10th, 2012
Keith Russell Judd, convict and presidential candidate
It’s been said that truth is stranger than fiction.
So is the Internet.
One day after we posted a story about Keith Russell Judd, the prison inmate in Texas who managed to get on the ballot in the Democratic primary in West Virginia alongside President Obama and receive more than 40 percent of the vote, we posted a tongue in cheek Top 10 list for possible campaign slogans for the guy serving a 17-and-a-half-year sentence for making threats at the University of New Mexico.
This morning we received an entry on our comments section in New Mexico Watchdog, the site that carries content we post on Capitol Report New Mexico.
Lo and behold, we got a response from Mr. Judd himself who listed our Top 10 list on his Facebook page:
Thanks, I guess.
But Keith, at least credit us on your page as having written the list in the first place!
What’s up with the lizard?
Posted by rnikolewski in News on May 9th, 2012
Dunes sagebrush lizard
In little more than a month, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has to decide whether to place the dunes sagebrush lizard on the federal government’s Endangered Species List.
It’s a decision that is sure to inflame oil and gas industry supporters in New Mexico and Texas if the lizard is approved while angering environmentalists if the listing is denied.
The Obama administration, sensitive to recent attacks from Republicans on soaring gas prices, seems to be trying to find a compromise. But will that satisfy either camp?
The issue is coming back to the forefront as the June 14 deadline nears and in recent days, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Fish and Wildlife Director Dan Ashe have been making the rounds with oil and gas industry officials in the Permian Basin, the site the three-inch reptile calls home amid the shinnery oak in the dry terrain that makes up West Texas and the Oil Patch of New Mexico.
Environmentalists say the lizard’s habitat needs to be protected and say the area involved “will have a negligible impact on land owners … even oil and natural gas producers,” Mark Salvo of WildEarth Guardians said in a phone interview with Capitol Report New Mexico.
But conservative legislators counter by saying that an endangered species listing could permanently harm the financial health of the area.
“Regardless of the claims of this radical environmentalist group, the economic uncertainty caused in the region by this factor alone will have a damaging economic effect,” a spokesman for Congressman Steve Pearce (R-New Mexico) said in an e-mail last year.
Even New Mexico Democrats have been trying to delay the listing as both US senators from New Mexico — Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall — earlier this year called on Interior and Fish and Wildlife to find an alternative — conservation agreements with oil and gas producers.
Interiror Secretary Ken Salazar
And that’s what Ashe and Salazar have been touting in stops in the Texas, New Mexico and Utah this week.
The conservation agreements agreed to by 29 oil and gas companies and 39 ranchers in New Mexico are designed to avoid disturbing the lizard’s habitat while still allowing for development. If given formal approval, landowners will receive assurances that no additional conservation steps above and beyond those contained in the agreement will be required.
Under conservation agreements, even if the lizard gets an endangered listing landowners could continue to develop oil and gas if they take steps to ensure the long-term health of lizard populations.
“We’re extremely supportive” of the program calling for conservation agreements, Wally Drangmeister of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association said in a phone interview Wednesday (May 9).
But in the tug of war between industry and environmentalists, if one side likes a proposal does that mean the other automatically hates it?
Salvo of WildEarth Guardians was guarded Wednesday, saying, “The dunes sagebrush lizard warrants listing under the [Endangered Species Act] … we won’t attempt to guess what decision will be made … we’re glad that the process is working.”
Salazar and Ashe certainly indicate that they think conservation agreements can be effective.
“I commend oil and gas operators in Texas and New Mexico for their voluntary participation in conservation agreements to protect this ancient landscape,” Salazar said at a meeting at a ConocoPhillips site in West Texas this week, “and I encourage their continued stewardship efforts as we pursue balanced energy development.”
To show that the Obama administration is not anti-industry, Salazar hailed a decision to OK a plan by Anadarko Petroleum Corp. to sink more than 3,500 natural gas wells in eastern Utah, after the company agreed to environmental safeguards that aim to protect the local air and water.
And in a conference call with reporters Wednesday Ashe talked about the buffer zones that conservation agreements call for as well as funding for research and protection (such as removing mesquite that harms shinnery oak and degrades the dunes sagebrush lizard’s habitat) that landowners are required to pay.
Is this one of those extremely rare instances where both industry and environmental groups get along?
“Some environmentalists will view [conservation agreements] as a reasonable compromise,” one industry supporter predicted, “while others might get angry” if the feds stop short of enforcing protection efforts to the highest degree.
Regardless, don’t be surprised if it all ends up in court.
