I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
What does heavy metal music pioneer Iron Maiden have in common with Ben Lujan, speaker of the New Mexico House of Representatives?
The Santa Fe Reporter’s SFReeper blog provides the answer to that admittedly bizarre question with a nice post yesterday — complete with a hilarious photoshopped shot of Speaker Lujan to boot.
It turns out that Premier Distributing — exclusive supplier of Budweiser in the Land of Enchantment — is giving plenty of gifts to lawmakers (mostly cases of beer) and the lawmakers are accepting.
SFR staff writer Dave Maass leafed through the gift disclosure form recently filed by Premier Distributing, reported the above-mentioned largess, and also stumbled upon this juicy detail:
[Speaker Ben] Lujan accepted two tickets to the May 25th Iron Maiden show at the Journal Pavilion. The tickets were worth a total of $110.
(Hence the photoshopped image of Speaker Lujan, which I suspect will not endear Maass to Lujan.)
Two years ago, the New Mexico Legislature made some headway on ethics reform in the wake of a earlier corruption scandal. In a recent post, NMI’s Heath Haussamen gives the political history:
In 2007, following the scandal at the state treasurer’s office, momentum built for reform. The Legislature and governor approved a gift ban, an expansion of the public financing system and changes to the governmental conduct act but rejected other reforms including contribution limits and the ethics commission.
That gift ban, though, allows for cases of beer and concert tickets — anything up to $250 in value. Yet another loophole is that only gifts from “restricted donors” are prohibited. Lobbyists and people seeking to do business with state agencies would obviously make that list. But I’m guessing the list of unrestricted donors would have at least a couple debatable characters among them.
Possible fodder for enacting a tougher gift ban during this year’s legislative session? We shall see.
