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.
The public financing bill sponsored by Sen. Eric Griego, SB 165, “sits in committee” as the Senate Rules Committee ended this morning’s meeting.
A motion to table the bill by Senate Minority Leader Stuart Ingle, R-Portales, ended with a tie vote between the six senators who heard the bill. Sen. Michael Sanchez, D-Belen, left the committee meeting right before the discussion of the bill began, so was not there to break the tie vote. And Sen. Tim Jennings, D-Roswell, wasn’t present for the committee meeting.
Griego explained that the bill takes a systemic approach to addressing ethics and campaign contribution issues. “It gets at the heart of what the problem is,” he said, “[which is] the undue influence of money in politics.”
Modeled on Albuquerque’s clean elections system, Griego explained, the bill would create a voluntary system to provide public grants to those who choose to forgo “dialing for dollars,” and only solicit private contributions up to $100 per person.
Joining Griego to promote the bill, Steve Allen of Common Cause New Mexico said the bill gets at the core of ethics reform and is probably the “single most important” bill among the various ethics reform measures proposed this year.
“But it’s not a silver bullet,” Allen told to the Independent after the meeting. “For it to work correctly we would also need campaign contribution limits because otherwise we’d have the danger of a privately financed candidate wiping out the other candidates.”
Nonetheless, it’s “game-changing legislation,” Allen continued, because it takes most private money out of elections and it also expands free speech.
“The Supreme Court has said over and over that these kinds of public financing systems expand political dialogue around elections,” Allen said. “But the single most important reason to pass it is the need to eliminate actual or perceived corruption. Most public officials are honest, hard-working people who are trying to do the best they can, but the public’s perception of government is just as important for the health of our democracy.”
Others who gave testimony in support of the bill were Cathy Campbell of the League of Women Voters, Terri Cole of the Greater Albuquerque Chamber Commerce, Matt Brix of the Center for Civic Policy, and representatives of the attorney general and the secretary of state.
Every person who spoke in favor of the bill, including Griego, expressed trepidation about the current economic crunch faced by the state.
But, he explained, Albuquerque’s experience with implementing a similar public financing system showed that developing such a system requires a significant amount of lead time. For this reason the legislature should adopt the measure now so that it’s ready to go in 2012, which is the first year it would be used. By then, he said, everyone hopes the economic climate will be much improved.
As it stands, the bill’s not dead, it’s just in limbo.
