As the numbers in the Secretary of State’s office stands as of this writing, Pearce is leading 52.9 percent to 47.1 percent for Teague.

Director Sharon Maloof is retiring at the end of May, the governor’s office said Friday.

Maloof, a political appointee, had come under fire for being the most highly paid museum director in the state—for a museum that did not have a building or other employees. The museum’s only other employee is a part-timer whose contract is up on June 30, 2010, the governor’s office said.

“While the Museum has hosted a number of screenings and educational events it is imperative that we concentrate our resources on the core mission of developing our film production industry, including supporting the local independent film making community,” Richardson said in a press release issued by his office.

KRQE investigative reporter Larry Barker covered Maloof’s job in a February story about Gov. Richardson’s pledge to cut jobs:

The film museum is perhaps New Mexico’s most unusual cultural property. It’s not in the phone book, and there are no exhibits, no visitors and no staff. In fact, there’s no museum.

What they do have, however, is an executive director. Last year, the governor put Maloof in charge of a staff of none at a nonexistent museum paying her $88,000 a year. Maloof became the highest-paid museum director in the state system administered by Cultural Affairs Secretary Stuart Ashman, a member of Richardson’s cabinet.

Yet Ashman was not involved in establishing Maloof’s salary.

“That’s set by the (human-resources) director in the governor’s office,” he told News 13.

So why would legislators fund a museum director’s job for a nonexistent museum? Well, they didn’t.

The Legislature decided not to fund the position, but the executive branch decided to do it anyway.

“That’s right,” Ashman said.

And that money shuffle doesn’t sit well with the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

“The resources that are being used by the Office of Cultural Affairs need to be dedicated to the museums,” Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, said. “They don’t need to be dedicated to this unauthorized position that absolutely has no facility.”

Last month Ashman cut Maloof’s salary to $55,000.

But Colleen Heild of the Albuquerque Journal may have identified one of the “exempt” employees – political appointees — who lost her job: Janice Spence.

Heild tells us that Spence was the only exempt employee at the Department of Cultural Affairs in January. But within two weeks, Spence landed a classified job at the same agency. She took a $33,000 pay cut, but she gained security. An exempt employee serves at the pleasure of the governor. But a classified employee has protections of the state personnel system. One of those protections: they can’t get fired without cause.

State officials refused to say whether Spence was one of the 59 exempt employees who lost their jobs last month. But the timing of events gives one pause.

Here’s an excerpt from Heild’s story:

Cultural Affairs spokesman Doug Svetnicka wouldn’t say Tuesday whether Spence was one of the 59 exempt or appointed employees whose jobs were to be eliminated effective Jan. 8.

His office did produce a personnel action form, in response to a Journal records request, that shows Spence’s exempt job as special assistant to Ashman was to be discontinued Jan. 9 — the day after the effective date for layoffs announced by Richardson’s office.

“I’m not going to say that she’s one of the 59. I’ll let that document speak for itself,” Svetnicka said.

So far the Richardson administration so far has said it does not have a list of the 59 appointees who were let go despite being asked by numerous media outlets.

That means that names of those let go likely will continue to dribble out over the next several months, and I’m betting there will be similar revelations for some of those employees: once a political appointee, they’re now in a classified position.

That will create a drumbeat of bad press for the governor.

KRQE investigative reporter Larry Barker, meanwhile, took a swipe at the governor today, quoting unidentified sources as saying the Richardson administration puts “inexperienced appointees” into agencies and pays them big bucks.

Barker also quoted Senators John Ryan and John Arthur Smith as saying the practice hurts state agencies.

Among the appointees Barker profiles is former Richardson spokesman Pahl Shipley, who makes $95,000. He is head of media relations for the New Mexico Film Office.

On Afghanistan, Lujan said it was “unfortunate” that former Vice President Dick Cheney came out so strongly against Obama’s action in Afghanistan. Lujan referenced the George W. Bush administration rationale for going to war in Iraq, saying, “They took us into war Iraq saying there were weapons of mass destruction and we found out that there were not.”