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.
So far the New Mexico Finance Authority has refused to make public the subpoena the agency has received from federal prosecutors as part of an ongoing federal investigation into allegations of pay-to-play government.
Lawmakers heard this week from the agency’s board chairman Stephen Flance why the agency has taken that position.
“When the Justice Department sends you a letter saying you are requested to not disclose the existence of the subpoena. I am going to pay attention to that,” Flance told lawmakers Wednesday during a meeting of the legislative New Mexico Finance Authority Oversight Committee. “They also said premature disclosure could affect the outcome of the investigation.”
It appears that NMFA, like other state agencies, is siding with the feds in the balancing act that pits the prosecutors’ request — note: it’s a request — against the state’s inspection of public records act.
While the NMFA — and other New Mexico state agencies — have sided with the feds against the release of public records, state agencies in other states have not always chosen that path during a federal investigation. In Connecticut, the governor’s office in 2004 made subpoenas available to the press despite a request from the U.S. Attorney’s Office that the subpoenas not be made public. I know because I was one of the reporters covering that story.
Ultimately the governor of that state, John Rowland, pleaded guilty to corruption and spent roughly 10 months in federal prison.
Subpoenas often can offer a glimpse into what prosecutors are looking for by the records they request. Those records can be anything from financial records to e-mails from and to specific individuals.
NMFA of course isn’t the only New Mexico agency to not turn over subpoenas from federal prosecutors. The New Mexico State Investment Council and the Educational Retirement Board have refused requests to make subpoenas public. The Independent has asked the ERB to reconsider its denial of the two subpoenas it has received based on a letter the agency’s chairman sent asking that the subpoenas be released.
At the same time the office of Gov. Bill Richardson made public a subpoena it had received earlier this year.
