We Have a Winner

Someone identified only as "John" had the correct answer to the sex-scandal blog contest question, "What was the last major American sex scandal involving a woman of Argentine descent?"

Says John,

"I remember it as if it happened yesterday. She was Annabelle Battistella, aka Fanne Fox, `The Argentine Firecracker.' And the politician: Congressman Wilbur Mills of Arkansas, Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.

I remember it well, the story of a powerful Congressman and a D.C. stripper. I also remember the press conference when a shamed Wilbur appeared with his wife and beloved horse, Mr. Ed ... Oh wait, that was something else. But here's the Washington Post version of the Wilbur Mills/Fanne Fox story CLICK HERE.

So John, if indeed that is your real name, send me an e-mail at sterrell(at)sfnewmexican.com and I'll send you your CD.

Honorable Mention: The lovely and talented Mark Bralley actually was the first to have the corrrect answer. But he e-mailed it me instead of answering it in the comment section of this blog as per contest rules. Sorry Mark, but as an ex cop you gotta know you have to follow procedure. But I still respect your knowledge of political history.

Sex Scandal Contest

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has confessed he was hiking in the Appalachians after all, but having an affair with a woman in Argentina. Read the Associated Press story HERE

So let's have a little contest.

What was the last major American sex scandal involving a woman of Argentine descent. First person to give me the correct name of the woman and the politician involved -- in the comments section of this blog -- gets a free CD of Picnic Time for Potatoheads. Second prize is two copies (just kidding, just kidding!)

XXXXXXXXX

Speaking of national scandals, just when you thought it was safe to stop loathing Richard Nixon .... (CLICK HERE)

Foy Expands Whisteblower Suit

Former state Educational Retirement Board investment officer Frank Foy has expanded his "pay-to-play" lawsuit to include local investment broker Marc Correra, his father Anthony Correra, former Bill Richardson pal Guy Riordan and several of those involved in the New York investment scandal, including the indicted Hank Morris

Foy has in a lawsuit claimed that former Richardson chief of staff Dave Contarino, State Investment Officer Gary Bland and ERB director Bruce Malott pressured the ERB and SIC to make investments totalling $90 million with a Chicago company called Vanderbilt. The investments went bad -- though Marc Correra made a couple of million in finders fees on the deals.

This new turn of events should be interesting for Albuquerque lawyer Sam Bregman. He represents Malott's accounting firm, named as a defendant in this case, as well as Marc Correra in another matter.

Kate Nash is covering a press conference, which should be strarting about now. Meanwhile, below are the latest filings in the case. (I don't know why it shows an error sign. There should be no trouble downloading or reading the documents):

Corrected Austin Amended Complaint w Exhibits-Errata Corrections Made as FILED

Tainted Contributions for Charity

Here's my story about Lt. Gov. Diane Denish giving the campaign contributions from Smiley Gallegos and Bob Strumor to a yet-to-be-decided charity. Gallegos and Strummor were among those indicted this month in the Region III Housing Authority investigation.

This practice of politicians donating suddenly toxic contributions to charity has become so common in the state I wouldn't be surprised if there are charitable organizations that are starting to get dependant on it.

One weird thing about Denish's announcement, it actually came by way of a press release from her chief of staff Josh Rosen shortly after 10:30 p.m. Friday.

That's right -- after 10:30 p.m. Friday. I've heard of the Friday night news dump, but this is ridiculous. The Albuquerque TV stations were all done with their news programs, and newspapers were way too close to deadline to be reading press releases from the lieutenant governor's office. As for myself, I was a quarter way through my Santa Fe Opry shift on KSFR.

Denish's political director Steve Fitzer assured me today that sending the press release out so late was not part of some strategy to avoid the news cycle. Rosen, he said, was tied up with meetings all day. Still seems weird though.

Traveling With the Legislature

Over the last month or so I've been looking at 2008 travel vouchers for New Mexico legislators. You can read my story in today's New Mexican HERE.

I found it interesting that three lawmakers who were defeated for re-election or didn't seek re-election still got a fair amount of out-of-state travel. Nothing illegal about that -- the Legislative Council voted unanimously to allow it. All three legislators in questions were officers of the national organizations putting on the events or members of committees for those organzations.

The lawmakers who go on these trips insist that the educational value is high and the state benefits from the information and ideas that are shared. Critics question why taxpayers should spend the money to "educate" lame-duck legislators who won't be coming back to next year's session.

There's some lists of who traveled the most, top destinations and travel costs for Santa Fe legislators (which wasn't very much) HERE

Smiley Not Smiling

UPDATED

An Albuquerque grand jury has indicted former Region III Housing Authority director Vincent "Smiley" Gallegos and others stemming from a long investigation related to misuse of bond money.

The seven counts for Gallegos include charges of fraud over $20,000 or in the alternate, embezzlement, fraudulent practices, sale of securities, money laundering and conspiracy.

Others indicted are Albuquerque bond lawyer Robert Strumor, David Hernandez and Dennis Kennedy. Hernandez and Kennedy are former Region III employees.

Gallegos is a former state legislator from Clovis. In 2006 Region III defaulted on $5 million in bonds it sold to the state.

State Republicans were quick to respond:

Today, Harvey Yates Jr., chairman of the Republican Party of New Mexico released the following statement concerning the grand jury indictment of former Democratic lawmaker and Region III Housing Authority Director Vincent “Smiley” Gallegos for his involvement in a scandal related to the state’s housing authority:

“This indictment reinforces a growing sentiment that we need to reverse the path on which this state is headed. For far too long, self-serving political insiders have exploited, at taxpayers’ expense, their positions for personal or political gain.”

Here's the indictments:

Smiley Indictment

Richardson Poll Numbers Creeping Up?

That's what KOB is reporting, citing their latest poll conducted by SurveyUSA.

After hitting an all-time low earlier this year, Governor Bill Richardson’s approval rating continues to climb, but it’s still below 50%.

Eyewitness News 4’s exclusive Survey USA poll finds that 48% of New Mexicans approve of the governor’s job performance. That’s up 2% from our last survey, conducted in late April.

47% of New Mexicans surveyed don’t think the governor is doing a good job and 5% are not sure.

I can't find the link to the new poll on SurveyUSA's site, but I've requested it, so watch this space.

Dem Poll Puts Denish Way Ahead of Wilson & Pearce

Like my former colleague Jonathan McDonald once wrote in an old Roundhouse Roundup column, "Polls taken by candidates' campaigns, of course, must be taken with enough salt to turn a bull moose into jerky." Same goes for polls commissioned by groups like the Democratic Governors Association or Republican Governors Association.

But, of course, such polls are fun to look at, so get out the salt and take a gander.

This poll, taken between May 31 and June 4 of 613 "likely voters" in the state, shows Lt. Gov. Diane Denish beating both Heather Wilson and Steve Pearce by a 57 to 35 percent margin. Democrat Denish leads both Anglos and Hispanics and men and women.

The poll, conducted by Harstad Strategic Research of Boulder, Colo. , says Denish is leading in the 1st Congressional District, which Wilson used to represent, by a 53 to 40 percent margin.

Keep in mind neither Wilson nor Pearce, also a former Republican Congressman, have declared they are running for governor. I haven't yet talked to Pearce, who lost the Senate race to Tom Udall last year, about 2010. Wilson has told me -- and several others -- she is seriously considering it.

Here's the poll memo:
DGA POLL

Roundhouse Roundup: Palling Around WIth Social Networkers

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 18, 2009

I normally don't read a fraction of the spam e-mail I get in my work account, but somehow I got sucked into one with the subject line, "Special Report: The Dark Side of Social Networking." It's plugging a piece written by a cyberterrorism expert named David Gewirtz, who, in a photo with the e-mail, looks a little sinister himself with his sunglasses, beard and stern expression.

Most of the points mentioned in the ad go along the usual Internet warnings. Don't post pictures or statements on the Web that can get you in trouble with current or future employers. Watch out for viruses and malware. Don't give out personal or financial information. Be careful talking to strangers, etc.

But something that struck me as a political reporter was the line, "... will a log of Twitter or Facebook postings provide future 'palling around with terrorists' albatrosses for candidates in 2012 and beyond?"

Not that I'd ever consider running for public office, but this made me think about who I "pal around with" online.

I don't think there's any terrorists among my Facebook friends. But there are politicians.

Palling around with politicos: When I started out on MySpace a few years ago, in an attempt to maintain my journalistic neutrality, I actually turned down "friendship" requests from politicians and people from special-interest organizations I covered. But eventually I realized I was cutting off myself from potential sources of stories.

For example, state Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez recently made some headlines when he announced on his Facebook page that he was forming an "exploratory committee" to look at the possibility of running for governor. That story generated buzz partly because there was a possible challenger to Lt. Gov, Diane Denish and partly because a serious potential candidate was announcing this on Facebook.

Suddenly Sanchez was the hip computer-age politician. Never mind the fact that two years ago Sanchez successfully carried a bill that would have scuttled the mandatory electronic filing of campaign finance reports, explaining, "It's for people like me who aren't very good at computers or (who don't have) access to the Internet." (That bill passed the 2007 Legislature but was vetoed by Gov. Bill Richardson.)

Unfortunately Sanchez's Facebook page doesn't allow people to become "friends" with him. It only lets you become a "supporter" — and I'm still leery of listing myself as any candidate's "supporter."

Similarly, Denish's Facebook page isn't a personal page. It's a "group" page called Diane Denish for Governor. As of Wednesday night, this page had 156 members. Sanchez has 167 Facebook "supporters."

On the Republican side, former Congresswoman Heather Wilson, who is considering a gubernatorial run, just launched her page — and you can be just friends there, though like Sanchez she has a "politician" page for "supporters." (She's got 291 friends and 317 supporters.) Another GOP gubernatorial contender Greg Zanetti also has a Facebook page, where he's got 117 friends. Former state Republican Chairman Allen Weh apparently doesn't have a Facebook page, though he recently started a Twitter account.

The truth is that even though some new-media enthusiasts fantasize about Facebook being a major battleground in the next election, the truth is most politician sites are no more exciting than an average campaign pamphlet.

However, Twitter "tweets" from politicians are a lot better than news releases. Not that they're any less self-serving or predictable. They're just a lot shorter.

Cooper Refuses to Disclose "Charity" Records

Lawyers for "whistleblower" Frank Foy are asking that former deputy Bill Richardson campaign manager Amanda Cooper be held in contempt of court.

In a motion filed yesterday in state district court, Foy claims that Cooper did not turn over records of the Moving America Forward Foundation, which were subpoenaed in February. (Read Kate Nash's original story HERE.)

MAFF, established by Richardson in 2004, was set up with the stated goal of encouraging minority voting. The foundation collected more than $1.7 million, but by law doesn't have to disclose names of contributors.

In case you've lost track in the scandal jungle, Foy, a former investment officer with the state Education Retirement Board, claims that the ERB as well as the State Investment Council was pressured by former Richardson chief of staff and campaign manager Dave Contarino to invest with Vanderbilt Financial, a Chicago-based company.

In a response to that subpoena Cooper's lawyer says (correctly) that MAFF no longer exists, that producing the records would be an "undue burden" for Cooper and that the documents have no relevance to Foy's suit.

However, Foy's lawyer Victor Marshall says in yesterday's motion points out that Anthony Correra was a MAFF director and his son Marc Correra shared in $22 million in finders fees from Vanderbilt for landing investment deals with the Educational Retirement Board and the State Investment Council.

I haven't tried contacting Cooper yet today. Since the beginning of the year she has not returned calls from me. When I ran into her at a Democratic Party function a few weeks ago she told me there are some things she can't talk about. I suspect this might be one of them.

UPDATE: Here's the motion and other documents related to it.

Motion for Contempt & Enforcement of Subpoena Duces Tecum as FILED 6.16.09

FURTHER UPDATE: Way way down in the documents in the above link is a letter from Cooper's lawyer saying , "We are prepared to produce an affidavit from Ms. Cooper confirming that none of the defendants in the case nor any person or entity mentioned in the complaint ever made any contribution to MAFF."

Full disclosure: Lawyer Marshall has worked for The New Mexican.