McCamley, Hall battle for seat on PRC

Former Republican state legislator Ben Hall and former Democratic Doña Ana County commissioner Bill McCamley both want to clean up the powerful and scandal-plagued state Public Regulation Commission (PRC), which regulates the state’s electrical, natural gas, and water utilities and insurance industry. Both men told The Independent this week that if elected to the PRC, they would not meet with corporate lobbyists while hearing cases about companies’ rates or interfere with bureau chiefs’ staff hiring decisions.

The November general election will decide which of the two men replaces outgoing District 5 Commissioner Sandy Jones, who has argued the PRC is unfairly maligned in the press.

Jones made headlines last year for hiring convicted embezzler Elizabeth Martin as his executive assistant at $72,000 a year. The sprawling District 5 covers southeastern New Mexico, including Socorro, Catron, Grants, Hidalgo, Luna and Sierra counties, and most of Doña Ana County.

Both McCamley and Hall told The Independent they want to see increased PRC scrutiny of utility and insurance companies’ rate hikes, and increased accountability at the PRC’s semi-autonomous Division of Insurance. But the candidates differed on how they would achieve those goals. McCamley, 32, believes a systematic overhaul of Commission structure may be necessary. Hall, 73, says reform boils down to personal integrity and commissioners taking decision-making power away from staffers.

Hall refuses public debates

Hall has refused to hold public debates with McCamley, saying he can interact with the public and tell voters about the issues and his experience through his website and speeches.

“I am very disappointed in my opponent,” McCamley told The Independent. “I think people need to see the candidates together to find out where they stand and how effective they are as communicators. If you’re not an effective communicator, especially at a place like the PRC, I don’t think you’re going to be effective.”

Ethics front and center for McCamley

Bill McCamley

Both candidates emphasize the need for ethical reform at the PRC, but they offered very different solutions to the problem.

“Ethical issues with any elected board create a lack of trust between the people and elected officials,” McCamley told The Independent. “When there are these problems, democracy breaks down because regular folks have a hard time trusting elected officials to do what they’re elected to do — like standing up to corporations and working on complicated issues like health insurance.”

McCamley called for the creation of an independent “blue ribbon” task force that would identify how best to “strengthen barriers” between regulated industry and the Commission to reduce opportunities for unethical behavior.

“(Ethics) training is a good start but we need to establish rules about how and when people can meet folks, dealing with lobbyists — those types of issues,” McCamley said. “One criticism I’ve heard of the PRC is that it is such a below-the-radar board that it’s easy to have big corporations have their lobbyists build relationships and friendships with those on the board – and a lot of times, I think there’s a risk that decisions are made based on those friendships. When I was elected to the Doña Ana County Commission, there were similar issues. The first thing I did was rewrite the ethics policy. … That signified that we were making a new beginning. We weren’t going to let the ethic of the past affect what we’re doing now.”

“That allows you to move forward on more policy issues,” McCamley said.

McCamley sat on a statewide Ethics Task Force in 2007, representing local governments. He also served in 2009 on the state board of Common Cause.

Commissioners should lead by example, Hall says

But Hall, a retired Ruidoso general contractor and former Republican state legislator, expressed skepticism that structural changes or training could correct a commissioner’s ethical lapses.

Instead, commissioners must lead by example, he said.

“You’re not going to force ethics on anybody,” he told The Independent Wednesday. “You could fill up the law books and you won’t change an unethical person’s reality. Look at Washington, D.C.”

Hall would, however, call for a review of the PRC’s Utilities and Insurance divisions’ regulations, he said.

Ben Hall

“Those need to be reviewed by commissioners and their staff,” Hall said. “Some rules came along that I don’t know where they came from. They’re just inserted in there by the companies themselves. Most people don’t know this, but an insurance company has a right to increase your premium as they please, on your home, vehicles, health insurance, based on your credit ratings. There are a lot of people barely getting by. I don’t think it’s right that insurance companies should be able to change premiums based on credit ratings; you pay insurance up front, so there’s no credit involved. That’s damn sure wrong.”

One leading property insurance company in the state netted $29 million last year from credit rating-based premium adjustments, Hall alleged.

Contrasting views on proposed restructuring of the PRC

The PRC regulates the state’s electrical, natural gas, and water utilities, insurance industry, licenses ambulances and taxi cabs, and administers the state Fire Marshal’s office — for the moment, at least.

Legislators are exploring the possibility of dismembering the PRC, moving the Transportation Bureau and Fire Marshall’s office, and the Commission’s semi-autonomous and controversial Division of Insurance, to other executive-branch agencies.

Hall thinks that’s a bad idea.

“If you got a good group of commissioners up there trying to do the right thing, you could convince the Legislature to leave us alone for a while and let us try to clean it up ourselves,” Hall said. “But if the PRC doesn’t straighten up, legislators will do away with ‘em or take their punches away and maybe have the Governor appoint the Commission instead of it being elected.”

The semi-autonomous superintendent of insurance should run the insurance division on a day-to-day basis, Hall said.

“But when it comes to a rate change of any kind, that needs to be done by elected officials,” Hall said. “It should at least be discussed with the Commission.”

McCamley’s proposed restructuring task force would not reflexively reject the legislative proposals, he said, but would carefully consider all options.

“I propose a six-month restructuring task force,” McCamley said. “However we can find a way to make the insurance division accountable to the public, I would support. That could be by making the superintendent of insurance directly responsible to the PRC; right now that person can only be fired ‘for cause.’ Or we could make the PRC responsible for setting rates like they do for utilities. Or it can be by moving it (the insurance division) out. I don’t think what we have right now is strong enough. One person is pretty much appointed and left alone. And that’s not working. If you make that person (the Superintendent of Insurance) elected, at least you make them accountable to the public.”

Candidates would not interfere with hiring decisions

A persistent problem at the PRC involves commissioners’ interference with staff hiring decisions, staffers and managers have told The Independent.

Both McCamley and Hall pledged not to involve themselves with staff hiring decisions beyond their personal executive assistants.

“You got bureau chiefs and a chief of staff,” Hall said. “They know what kind of people they need. It’s not for me to drag in a bunch of names. As long as I don’t find out there’s nepotism going on, I won’t meddle in it.”

However, Hall believes PRC staffers are too powerful and commissioners need to take a larger role in reviewing staff decisions.

“Commissioners inadvertently gave authority away to the staff,” Hall said. “They went to play golf and said, ‘here, bureau chief, you make this decision.’”