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 House passed its own stab at reforming the State Investment Council (SIC) Sunday.
The 68 to 0 vote occurred quickly and without much fanfare on the House floor, and follows by two days the Senate’s passage of its own more aggressive reform bill.
The House’s action sets up a scenario where the Legislature has dueling SIC reform bills and increases the potential for back-room maneuvering and haggling to see who gets credit for reforming an agency at the center of an ongoing scandal.
The vote on the House bill came during Sunday’s floor session, when House Speaker Ben Lujan, D-Santa Fe, amended a bill mostly dealing with who sits on the investment council, turning it into legislation that substantially changes how the State Investment Council is governed.
Lujan’s explanation of the bill and the members’ vote on it occurred in minutes.
In many ways, the amended House legislation appears to mirror the Senate’s reform bill. It would de-centralize authority at the SIC, removing power from the State Investment Officer and giving it to the State Investment Council.
But there are differences.
While the Senate version removes the governor from the State Investment Council, the governor remains on the board in Lujan’s version.
And where the Senate version requires a certain level of investment expertise among some SIC members, the House version doesn’t include that requirement, according to a quick read of the 20-page bill.
The two bills appear in agreement in several areas, however. Both the Senate and House bills:
The efforts to reform the SIC come after the state investment agency has moved to the center of a growing investment scandal with ties to New York and California. It also is the subject of a federal Securities and Exchange Commission probe and a federal criminal investigation into pay-to-play allegations.
Many lawmakers during this year’s 30-day legislative session have lamented the lack of experience that many SIC members had in the arcane world of investments, and how the agency’s authority was centralized in former State Investment Officer Gary Bland’s hands.
That is why the move in both bills to remove hiring and firing powers from the State Investment Officer, and give it to the State Investment Council, gets to the heart of the Legislature reform efforts, several lawmakers have said.
The move toward de-centralizing authority in both bills came after revelations that Bland made decisions on advisers and outside managers during his tenure without the State Investment Council’s knowledge.
Bland, the former State Investment Officer, resigned in October after New Mexico’s former investment adviser pleaded guilty to securities fraud in New York. As part of the plea deal, Saul Meyer of Aldus Equity admitted to pushing certain deals to New Mexico’s two investment agencies — the SIC and Educational Retirement Board —because politically connected individuals here recommended them.
Meyer didn’t name names. But Bland, who helped in hiring Meyer, appeared to be close to two people well known by now to those following New Mexico’s investment scandal: Marc Correra and Anthony Correra.
Marc Correra shared $22 million in fees over half a dozen years, according to spreadsheets provided by both the SIC and ERB. The huge amount of fees has provoked outrage from state lawmakers and others in recent months, fueled in part by some investments that have failed, costing the state more than $100 million by conservative estimates.
Marc Correra is the son of Anthony Correra, a friend of Richardson who was involved in the hiring of Bland, the former top staff member at the State Investment Council.
The elder Correra appears to have had a role in the hiring of Bland becoming the state investment officer.
No one in law enforcement has accused either Correra of wrongdoing. And Marc Correra’s attorneys in the past have said he worked hard to earn the fees he was paid.
