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SANTA FE — Sunshine Week forecast: partly sunny.
The Senate Tuesday afternoon passed a bill that would “shine a little sunshine” on contributions from contractors to political candidates. State Sen. Dede Feldman, D-Albuquerque, used the word “sunshine” several times in talking about the bill, which now heads to an uncertain future in the House.
The bill would require companies and individuals who want to do business with the state to report all of the contributions they’ve made during the two years prior to their response to a request for proposals. The law would apply to contributions over $250 and to contracts worth $50,000 and more.
A state law already prohibits contractors from giving money during the “pendency period,” which is when the state is deciding which firm will receive a particular contract.
A floor amendment introduced by Feldman tightened the bill to include donations to “an organization controlled by or affiliated with a public officer, and from which that officer derives a direct benefit.”
If a contractor failed to properly disclose its donations it could risk losing the contract.
“Private contractors who seek business from New Mexico should not give even the appearance of influencing our decisions up here,” said state Sen. Eric Griego, D-Albuquerque, who had introduced a bill banning all contributions from state contractors. Griego’s bill didn’t make it out of committee.
“I believe that a full ban would have been a much more serious measure. I think that would have been the cleanest way, but that clearly was not the will of the committee. … This is at least the very minimum that we could have done,” Griego said.
Griego referred to the Senate Rules Committee, which spent weeks coming up with a compromise between two similar bills introduced by Feldman and Sen. Sue Wilson Beffort, R-Sandia Park.
“I’ll tell you what this bill gets you that an outright ban won’t get you — and that is passage through the Senate Rules Committee,” said Feldman to a chorus of laughter.
Referring to the failure of a previous, less comprehensive bill, state Sen. Jerry Ortiz y Pino, D-Albuquerque, said: “This bill does cover every state office, and I think we have a second chance today to go on record and say… that the New Mexico state Senate does not believe in a culture … that includes the concept of pay-to-play. We reject it,” Ortiz y Pino said.
“[This bill] would draw some very bright lines and shine some sunshine so that we cannot be accused of pay-to-play,” Feldman said in closing. “I received many phone calls in the past several months asking me: What kind of place is New Mexico? This will shine even more sunshine on the practice of giving campaign contributions and its relation to state contracts.”
Democratic Sens. Tim Jennings, Michael Sanchez, George Munoz and Phil Griego voted against the bill, as did Republican Sens. Caroll Leavell, Gay Kernan, Vernon Asbill, Steven Neville, Kent Cravens, Stuart Ingle and Mark Boitano.
