Pay-to-play in the Land of Enchantment?

Flickr/Richard Soderberg

ALBUQUERQUE — “Pay-to-Play.”

It’s a catch-all phrase, much in the news these days, to describe the kind of corruption in which payment of some sort is made to a power-broker to make something happen.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s tape-recorded musings about how contributions to his campaign might be rewarded with an appointment to the U.S. Senate was a classic example from a city known for political graft.

Federal investigators are probing whether a similar deal was afoot here in New Mexico when a California company, CDR Financial Products, Inc., was awarded a state contract from the New Mexico Finance Authority in 2004 after two large contributions — totaling $100,000 — were made to Gov. Bill Richardson’s political action committees in 2003 and 2004. Last week, the investigation derailed Richardson’s nomination to be commerce secretary in the Obama administration.

Whatever the consequences for Richardson personally, his withdrawal from the commerce secretary post raises serious questions about how business is done in New Mexico. It’s not the first time that the shadow of corruption has hung over the state, but this story has the potential to be the most damaging because it could involve not just him, but people who worked for Richardson as well.

For years, I’ve heard people whisper about pay-to-play as a way of doing business with Richardson’s administration. Most of these people, though, have some kind of relationship with the state government and won’t kill the prospects of getting state contracts by complaining out loud about the political arm-twisters seeking large campaign contributions.

But University of New Mexico political science professor Lonna Atkeson told the Independent the perception that pay-to-play is rampant in New Mexico results from the way our government itself is set up, at all levels — local, state and federal.

“There’s a lot of pressure that stems from the design of our government itself for people to give. Even if the politician doesn’t demand it, maybe people think its expected that they’ll contribute. What they receive may not be what they want. So are they actually buying access or something else? It can create the appearance of corruption even when it doesn’t exist.”

Steve Allen, executive director of the good-government group Common Cause New Mexico, said, “The way it works is very subtle and, frankly, not illegal.”

“A politician notices who gives — and the contributors gain access,” he explained. “Politicians are more likely to return phone calls to their big contributors. Then, through the development of relationships with the politician and his staff, the contributor might be the beneficiary of favors.”

“Most politicians aren’t on the take,” he continued, “but when you have a state that has no contribution limits whatsoever, and you have companies able to fork out tens and in some cases hundreds of thousands of dollars, it invites conflict of interest that is not good for the politicians themselves, much less the public.”

Change we can believe in?

Flickr/Eyeliam

There are two ways to correct these systemic problems, Allen said: contribution limits and public financing mechanisms — which together would go a long way toward taking the money out of politics.

Currently, New Mexico is one of only five states that place no limits on contributions to political candidates or political action committees, so denying that favors are being traded for large contributions is made a lot easier than it otherwise would be.

The other four states without campaign contribution limits are Illinois, Oregon, Utah and Virginia.

Public financing laws, however, have made some headway in the past five years. Atkeson thinks this shows that many in New Mexico recognize the need to create safeguards against pay-to-play schemes.

In 2003, the Public Regulations Commission was placed under a publicly financed elections system. The state’s appellate judgeships were given public financing in 2007. Allen said the reasons for both of these changes were very clear cut — it was unseemly to have elected officials accept campaign contributions from those who also had direct business with them, or were regulated by them.

Additionally, Albuquerque has public financing for municipal elections, and Santa Fe will have such a system in place soon — the voters approved it last March.

Allen said while he doesn’t know who will be sponsoring it yet, a public financing bill will most likely be introduced during the 2009 legislative session for the big money races of New Mexico’s executive branch: the governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general and state land commissioner.

In addition, Rep. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, told the Independent that New Mexico doesn’t have enough “clear statutory direction” regarding elected officials and the awarding of state contracts.

“The line between what is acceptable and unacceptable is blurred to some people,” he said in an interview. “One of my objectives through legislation is to demarcate that line as clearly as possible.”

In 2007, Cervantes passed a bill that amended the Governmental Conduct Act to place more stringent restrictions on state employees when it came to the awarding of state contracts. That bill was signed into law by Richardson. He also gained approval of a “whistleblower” bill to protect and potentially reward people who come forward to expose corruption.

This year Cervantes will re-introduce bills to open conference committees to the public, and to create an ethics commission. He is also introducing a package of bills in collaboration with New Mexico Attorney General Gary King geared toward giving the public greater access to information about how government operates and to make government more transparent.

When it comes to the federal investigation underway, Richardson has strongly denied any wrongdoing by his administration, and said he fully expects the investigators to conclude the same in the end.

CDR Financial Inc. President David Rubin also vigorously denied that the contributions to Richardson were designed to gain the state contract. In a statement on the firm’s Web site, he said:

For the record, CDR has never practiced pay-for-play, on any playing field where we do business. With respect to the work we did for the New Mexico Finance Authority, we underwent a rigorous vetting process that involved multiple steps to ensure that CDR was, in fact, qualified for the job of assisting the state in managing its interest rate swap transactions…

It is true that I have made contributions to political causes and candidates in New Mexico — including contributions directly to Bill Richardson’s gubernatorial campaign and to organizations supporting voter registration drives and other aspects of the electoral process. That support was given with full compliance of state and federal laws…

Anyone who knows me knows that I have been an unabashed supporter of Democratic causes and public figures, especially those like Gov. Richardson, who support a liberal, inclusive agenda.

And an editorial in the Seattle Times sums up the “anger and frustration” of Richardson supporters, as well as the puzzlement that such a skilled politician could be “anywhere near a cheesy scandal that forced him to withdraw his name to be President-elect Obama’s commerce secretary.”

Well, in the end, maybe its simply due to the fact that he’s the governor of a state that is in serious need of ethics reform.