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.
For four years Gov. Bill Richardson and state lawmakers have wrestled over how to set up a state ethics commission, who would sit on it and who would appoint them. That an agreement has proved elusive is an understatement; the concept has proved deeply unpopular at the Capitol.
Democrat Diane Denish says she’ll appoint an independent ethics commission “on day one.” But Republican Susana Martinez says an ethics commission would amount to nothing more than window dressing.
“I’m very disappointed they failed to reach an agreement,” Gov. Bill Richardson said half an hour after the end of the session. “They were very close. It was nip and tuck.”
Under the proposal creating a State Ethics Commission a person filing a complaint and then going public could face a $26,000 fine and a year in jail. A public official, on the other hand, found to have violated the public trust would face a censure or public reprimand. The House voted 49 to 15 to pass an ethics commission bill after a relatively short debate in which Democrats swatted away several amendments from Republicans to strengthen the bill.
A person filing an ethics complaint and then going public would face much harsher penalties than a public official found to have violated the public trust under a State Ethics Commission proposal the Senate Finance Committee passed Tuesday.
Yesterday we wrote about competing bills to create a State Ethics Commission. Well, there’s a third sponsored by Sen. Dede Feldman, D-Albuquerque.
It’s different in that it would remove ethics enforcement from the Secretary of State’s office and…
Legislation that would create a first-ever New Mexico State Ethics Commission cleared its first legislative committee Tuesday.HB 43, sponsored by Rep. Mary Helen Garcia, passed the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee with minimal debate.
Limiting the money a contributor can give to political candidates and increasing the frequency of how often those candidates must report their campaign finances are a good start for reforming the state’s ethics laws, Gov. Bill Richardson said Thursday.…
The New Mexico House of Representatives passed a bill 64-0 this morning that will create an ethics commission to investigate complaints against public officials.
The legislation is one of several pieces of ethics reform that supporters are pushing for…
There’s at least one ethics-reform proposal that isn’t getting any discussion this year. In fact, some legislators, when asked about it, thought it already was part of state law. The proposal: require a campaign contributor to list his or her employer.
