It looks like Gov. Susana Martinez won't have to give a deposition in a wrongful termination suit after all.
Larry Flynn, the former probation and parole official who was fired after firing a gun on state prison grounds last year, quietly dropped his suit against the state late last month. His notice is below.
Flynn's lawyer, Sam Bregman, had subpoenaed the governor saying that she had intervened in firing Flynn, a classified state employee who was protected by state personnel laws.
Flynn was living on the prison grounds with his girlfriend, then Corrections Secretary Lupe Martinez, who resigned shortly after the shooting incident.
Flynn said he fired the gun to kill a couple of rattlesnakes who he'd found under a doghouse in his yard.
Update 12-7-12 9 a.m. : Bregman called saying Flynn recently started working another job and wanted to "move on." The hearing officer in the case had ruled that Gov. Martinez did not have to give a deposition.
Flynn Lettter
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Weh vs. Udall?
Roll Call is reporting that former New Mexico Republican Party Chairman Allen Weh is considering a run against U,S. Sen. Tom Udall in 2014.“As anybody should do when considering a move like this, you do your homework … and gather enough information to make a sound decision,” Weh said.
Weh, 70, ran for governor in 2010 losing a surprisingly bitter primary race to Susana Martinez, who went on to win the general election.
Weh is a retired Marine colonel who owns an Albuquerque aviation company.
Roll Call points out that, despite Martinez's 2010 victory, Republicans haven't fared so well here in statewide races. Obama won the state this year by 10 percentage points, while Martin Heinrich won his Senate race over Heather Wilson by six.
But just in case, maybe Udall should brush up on his cooking skills.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
R.I.P. Robert Pineda
I had to write an obituary last night for an acquaintance I sincerely liked.
I met Bob Pineda at the old Club International gym about 20 years ago. I'd always run into him, former County Commissioner Froggy Fernandez and others there in the sauna. Bob always made me laugh, dishing dirt on politics, talking about his latest theater project he was involved with and whatnot.
I didn't see him as often after Club International closed. But when I ran into him, he was always full of cheer and gossip and usually involved in some creative endeavor.
Like I told his daughter last night, he was the least boring certified public accountant I ever met. I'm going to miss.
Here's that obit:
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
Dec. 4, 2012
Roberto Enrique Piñeda was a playwright, a poet, a politician, an actor and a certified public accountant.
He died Saturday from respiratory problems after a lengthy illness. He was 69.
“He was the cool grandpa, the cool uncle, the cool friend,” his daughter, Suzette Lucero, said Monday. “He was such a free spirit. … He was an original. He broke the mold.”
His brother, Arturo Piñeda, said Monday, “He was the oldest in the family. We lost our top man.”
Roberto Piñeda was born to Frank and Alice LaRibbas Piñeda in Santa Fe in 1943. He earned a business degree in 1976 from the College of Santa Fe and became an accountant.
In 1978, he was hired as city manager for Santa Fe. He was fired following a dispute with City Council members and his refusal to resign. But some city employees apparently disagreed strongly with that action. A September 1979 editorial in The New Mexican said, “in a remarkable display of courage under fire, several city staff members refuted council members’ charges that [Piñeda] was not a good administrator and was not accessible. In the end, the council’s actions and motivations came under more question than Piñeda’s ability to do the job.”
That wasn’t his last top government job. He also worked as Santa Fe County manager, city manager of Las Vegas, N.M., and finance director for the city of Taos.
He made at least a couple of stabs at electoral politics. In 1988, Piñeda was a candidate in the Democratic primary for a Santa Fe County Commission seat. In 2004, he ran for Santa Fe County treasurer but fell short in the primary.
But accounting and government wasn’t his entire life. In the 1990s, Piñeda became involved with local theater. He acted in productions such as the Northern New Mexico Community Theatre’s 1996 production of The Madwoman of Chaillot and Teatro Hispano de Santa Fe’s production of El Pozito that same year.
Piñeda also wrote a play called El Happy Hour, which was produced by Teatro Hispano de Santa Fe in 1997.
“El Happy Hour is set in a Northern New Mexico bar and it’s a day of the week when people congregate,” Piñeda told The New Mexican before the play opened. “It’s a comedy of sorts with a very honest portrayal of subjects such as alcoholism, racism, intercultural marriages, domestic violence and sexual abuse.”
He later became a member of the Screen Actors Guild and appeared in speaking roles in three movies shot in New Mexico. In 2000, he played a doctor in All the Pretty Horses. Later he portrayed Saint Paul in Tortilla Heaven and a railroad brakeman in The Flock.
Piñeda is survived by his daughter and two sons, Joaquin Pineda and Robert J. Piñeda, six grandsons, his brother Arturo and his sister Dolores Chavez.
A visitation is scheduled for 6 p.m. Friday, Dec. 7, followed by a rosary at 7 p.m. at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, 417 Agua Fría St. A funeral Mass is planned for 10 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 8, at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church.
Memorial contributions may be made in his name to the Carmelite Monastery, 50 Mount Carmel, Santa Fe, NM 87501.
I met Bob Pineda at the old Club International gym about 20 years ago. I'd always run into him, former County Commissioner Froggy Fernandez and others there in the sauna. Bob always made me laugh, dishing dirt on politics, talking about his latest theater project he was involved with and whatnot.
 |
| Robert Pineda |
I didn't see him as often after Club International closed. But when I ran into him, he was always full of cheer and gossip and usually involved in some creative endeavor.
Like I told his daughter last night, he was the least boring certified public accountant I ever met. I'm going to miss.
Here's that obit:
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
Dec. 4, 2012
Roberto Enrique Piñeda was a playwright, a poet, a politician, an actor and a certified public accountant.
He died Saturday from respiratory problems after a lengthy illness. He was 69.
“He was the cool grandpa, the cool uncle, the cool friend,” his daughter, Suzette Lucero, said Monday. “He was such a free spirit. … He was an original. He broke the mold.”
His brother, Arturo Piñeda, said Monday, “He was the oldest in the family. We lost our top man.”
Roberto Piñeda was born to Frank and Alice LaRibbas Piñeda in Santa Fe in 1943. He earned a business degree in 1976 from the College of Santa Fe and became an accountant.
In 1978, he was hired as city manager for Santa Fe. He was fired following a dispute with City Council members and his refusal to resign. But some city employees apparently disagreed strongly with that action. A September 1979 editorial in The New Mexican said, “in a remarkable display of courage under fire, several city staff members refuted council members’ charges that [Piñeda] was not a good administrator and was not accessible. In the end, the council’s actions and motivations came under more question than Piñeda’s ability to do the job.”
That wasn’t his last top government job. He also worked as Santa Fe County manager, city manager of Las Vegas, N.M., and finance director for the city of Taos.
He made at least a couple of stabs at electoral politics. In 1988, Piñeda was a candidate in the Democratic primary for a Santa Fe County Commission seat. In 2004, he ran for Santa Fe County treasurer but fell short in the primary.
But accounting and government wasn’t his entire life. In the 1990s, Piñeda became involved with local theater. He acted in productions such as the Northern New Mexico Community Theatre’s 1996 production of The Madwoman of Chaillot and Teatro Hispano de Santa Fe’s production of El Pozito that same year.
Piñeda also wrote a play called El Happy Hour, which was produced by Teatro Hispano de Santa Fe in 1997.
“El Happy Hour is set in a Northern New Mexico bar and it’s a day of the week when people congregate,” Piñeda told The New Mexican before the play opened. “It’s a comedy of sorts with a very honest portrayal of subjects such as alcoholism, racism, intercultural marriages, domestic violence and sexual abuse.”
He later became a member of the Screen Actors Guild and appeared in speaking roles in three movies shot in New Mexico. In 2000, he played a doctor in All the Pretty Horses. Later he portrayed Saint Paul in Tortilla Heaven and a railroad brakeman in The Flock.
Piñeda is survived by his daughter and two sons, Joaquin Pineda and Robert J. Piñeda, six grandsons, his brother Arturo and his sister Dolores Chavez.
A visitation is scheduled for 6 p.m. Friday, Dec. 7, followed by a rosary at 7 p.m. at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, 417 Agua Fría St. A funeral Mass is planned for 10 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 8, at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church.
Memorial contributions may be made in his name to the Carmelite Monastery, 50 Mount Carmel, Santa Fe, NM 87501.
Roundhouse Roundup: PAC Disclosure Battle Ahead
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
Dec. 2, 2012
After the hard-fought, grueling and expensive ordeal that was the 2012 election campaign in New Mexico, one issue the state Legislature is bound to tackle next year is possible changes in the election laws.
“We’re going to have 112 experts on election laws in here, because we’ve all been through it,” Sen. Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, said at an interim committee meeting last week. (In case someone didn’t get the reference, there are 112 members of the Legislature.)
Once again, Wirth will be sponsoring a bill that would require independent-expenditure groups, including PACs, super-PACs — and I suppose bat PACs, spider PACs and wonder PACs — to disclose their contributors.
Wirth has carried the bill during the previous two sessions. Both times, he has been successful in the Senate, getting bipartisan support. (This year it passed the Senate 40-0.) However, both years the bill died in the House.
As Wirth has explained before, the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United decision determined that capping the amount of money people can spend on ads favoring one candidate or bashing another is an unconstitutional assault on freedom of speech. But the high court still allows governments to require disclosure of who’s spending money on the ads.
It’s true that independent expenditure groups spent millions of dollars in the state during the last campaign — in some cases advertising on statewide TV to try to influence the outcome in local legislative battles.
But lack of disclosure wasn’t a problem with the political action committees this year. And knowing that their names would be disclosed — available for the world to see right on the Secretary of State’s campaign finance website — apparently didn’t stop people from writing big checks to the PACs.
The major political action committees spending money in the races governed by state election law disclosed all of their donors. Whether or not you liked the heavy-handed ads and alarming mailers that bombarded your brain cells and mailboxes during the closing days of the recent campaign, at least we know who was paying for them.
But both Wirth and Viki Harrison, executive director of Common Cause, who is helping draft the bill, said there’s a real question whether those PACs actually had to disclose under current state law. “I’ve talked to lawyers, and there’s good arguments on both sides,” Harrison said.
His bill would clear up any confusion in the law about having to disclose, Wirth said.
Wirth said he fears there will be a serious effort next year to do away with the campaign contribution limits for individual candidates that went into effect this year. Legislators already are grumbling about having to compete with groups that can spend unlimited amounts against them.
He said his bill will draw a clear line between campaigns and independent expenditure groups.
Coordinated efforts: One strict rule about independent expenditure groups is that they can’t coordinate with any candidate — at least under federal law. Spend all the money you want saying the candidate you like is a saint and his opponent is a loathsome danger to the very fabric of civilization itself. But you can’t work with any candidate’s campaign to craft your message.
Many casual observers of our political process are skeptical about this. But there was one instance in the last month of the campaign that showed a complete lack of coordination.
Crossroads GPS, that Republican-friendly PAC associated with former George W. Bush political director Karl Rove, sent out a mailer blasting Democratic Senate candidate Martin Heinrich for supporting “Amnesty legislation that would give illegal immigrants a free ride … while New Mexico families are stuck footing the bill.”
Footnotes on the mailer made it clear that this “path to citizenship for illegal aliens” was the DREAM Act, which would give the children of illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship via military service or enrollment in college.
The only trouble is that this was mailed right about the same time that Republican Heather Wilson, who Crossroads GPS supported for U.S. Senate, said in a televised debate that she, too, would have voted for the DREAM Act.
Oops.
Dec. 2, 2012
After the hard-fought, grueling and expensive ordeal that was the 2012 election campaign in New Mexico, one issue the state Legislature is bound to tackle next year is possible changes in the election laws.
 |
| Sen. Wirth |
“We’re going to have 112 experts on election laws in here, because we’ve all been through it,” Sen. Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, said at an interim committee meeting last week. (In case someone didn’t get the reference, there are 112 members of the Legislature.)
Once again, Wirth will be sponsoring a bill that would require independent-expenditure groups, including PACs, super-PACs — and I suppose bat PACs, spider PACs and wonder PACs — to disclose their contributors.
Wirth has carried the bill during the previous two sessions. Both times, he has been successful in the Senate, getting bipartisan support. (This year it passed the Senate 40-0.) However, both years the bill died in the House.
As Wirth has explained before, the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United decision determined that capping the amount of money people can spend on ads favoring one candidate or bashing another is an unconstitutional assault on freedom of speech. But the high court still allows governments to require disclosure of who’s spending money on the ads.
It’s true that independent expenditure groups spent millions of dollars in the state during the last campaign — in some cases advertising on statewide TV to try to influence the outcome in local legislative battles.
But lack of disclosure wasn’t a problem with the political action committees this year. And knowing that their names would be disclosed — available for the world to see right on the Secretary of State’s campaign finance website — apparently didn’t stop people from writing big checks to the PACs.
The major political action committees spending money in the races governed by state election law disclosed all of their donors. Whether or not you liked the heavy-handed ads and alarming mailers that bombarded your brain cells and mailboxes during the closing days of the recent campaign, at least we know who was paying for them.
But both Wirth and Viki Harrison, executive director of Common Cause, who is helping draft the bill, said there’s a real question whether those PACs actually had to disclose under current state law. “I’ve talked to lawyers, and there’s good arguments on both sides,” Harrison said.
His bill would clear up any confusion in the law about having to disclose, Wirth said.
Wirth said he fears there will be a serious effort next year to do away with the campaign contribution limits for individual candidates that went into effect this year. Legislators already are grumbling about having to compete with groups that can spend unlimited amounts against them.
He said his bill will draw a clear line between campaigns and independent expenditure groups.
 |
| Rove |
Many casual observers of our political process are skeptical about this. But there was one instance in the last month of the campaign that showed a complete lack of coordination.
Crossroads GPS, that Republican-friendly PAC associated with former George W. Bush political director Karl Rove, sent out a mailer blasting Democratic Senate candidate Martin Heinrich for supporting “Amnesty legislation that would give illegal immigrants a free ride … while New Mexico families are stuck footing the bill.”
Footnotes on the mailer made it clear that this “path to citizenship for illegal aliens” was the DREAM Act, which would give the children of illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship via military service or enrollment in college.
The only trouble is that this was mailed right about the same time that Republican Heather Wilson, who Crossroads GPS supported for U.S. Senate, said in a televised debate that she, too, would have voted for the DREAM Act.
Oops.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Susana on Greta
One early revelation in the interview -- our governor is a cat lady!
Included is footage that didn't make it onto the broadcast.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
House GOP Shakeup: Bratton New Floor Leader
 |
| Bratton |
In a surprise move Monday, Republicans in the state House of Representatives elected Rep. Don Bratton of Hobbs as minority leader, defeating current GOP floor leader Tom Taylor of Farmington.
The Republican caucus also elected Rep. Nate Gentry, R. Albuquerque as minority whip, replacing Bratton and Alonzo Baldonado of Belen as caucus chairman.
The caucus met in Albuquerque Gentry said Monday after the meeting.
Monday, November 26, 2012
Roundhouse Roundup: The Pro-tem Polka
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
Nov. 25 2012
State Senate Democrats still have a few weeks before they nominate a candidate to replace outgoing Senate President Pro-tem Tim Jennings.
Like a good game of Whac-a-Mole, new possibilities keep popping up while others go down before you even get the chance to hit them over the head with a mallet.
The last time I wrote about this, there was one contender, Sen. Linda Lopez, D-Albuquerque, who was definite; one, Sen. Carlos Cisneros, D-Questa, who seemed just a hair away from being definite; one, Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, who said he was considering it; and one who was strongly rumored to be thinking about it, Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, D-Belen.
Since that time, Sanchez has announced that he just wants to stay on as majority leader, and Smith told the Albuquerque Journal that he wants to stay on as chairman of the Finance Committee.
But Sen. Mary Kay Papen also has thrown her proverbial hat into the ring. A conservative Democrat from Las Cruces, Papen could go the route Jennings took to win the position. Four years ago Jennings lost the Democratic Caucus nomination to Cisneros for the pro-tem job. But that position is elected by the full Senate, so he cobbled together a coalition of conservative Dems and all Republicans to win when the Legislature convened in January 2009.
Another new name to pop up is Sen. Howie Morales, D-Silver City. I asked him Wednesday whether he was running for the Senate’s top position. He admitted he is considering it, but said, “Nothing’s set in stone … everything keeps changing.”
Jennings, who served in the Senate for more than 30 years, was defeated for re-election this month.
The president pro-tem gets to preside over the Senate when the lieutenant governor is away (the lieutenant governor being the official president of the Senate). But the main power of the president pro-tem is getting to name and preside over the Committees’ Committee, which selects committee members and chairmen. That’s going to be a bigger task this year because so many new senators — 15 of 42 members total — have been elected.
Coalition politics: If Morales does run, that would mean three of the eight Democrats who joined with Republicans to back Jennings are candidates for Jennings’ job — the others being Papen and Lopez.
Senate Republicans will be representing a bigger block than they did in 2009. There were 15 Republicans then, but because of the elections, there will be 17 next year.
From the horse’s mouth: Here’s a name you can take off of the list: Sen. Phil Griego, D-San José.
I was talking to Griego about a different issue a few days ago when he volunteered this information. “You might have heard that I was running for a leadership position,” he said. “Well I’m not. … There’s rumors out there, but I’m not. You’re hearing it from the horse’s mouth.” Griego said he wants to stay on as the chairman of the Corporations and Transportation Committee.
Richardson at Foggy Bottom?: An article in a national online Hispanic news site caught my eye this week. The headline of a Nov. 16 story in Voxxi read, “Latinos Push for Bill Richardson for Secretary of State.”
According to the piece by reporter Tony Castro, “Hispanic leaders close to the Obama administration are lobbying the president to name former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson as Hillary Clinton’s successor as Secretary of State, according to sources in Washington.
“Such an appointment would be historic, making Richardson the highest ranking Latino to ever serve in the federal government,” the story says.
Castro notes that Obama’s nomination of Richardson to serve as secretary of commerce four years ago ended badly “because of an investigation into possible financial improprieties in New Mexico. Richardson was subsequently cleared in that investigation.”
That’s not quite right. Although the Justice Department chose not to prosecute Richardson over pay-to-play allegations, then U.S. Attorney Greg Fouratt wrote in a letter that the decision not to bring charges “is not to be interpreted as an exoneration of any party’s conduct.”
Nov. 25 2012
State Senate Democrats still have a few weeks before they nominate a candidate to replace outgoing Senate President Pro-tem Tim Jennings.
Like a good game of Whac-a-Mole, new possibilities keep popping up while others go down before you even get the chance to hit them over the head with a mallet.
The last time I wrote about this, there was one contender, Sen. Linda Lopez, D-Albuquerque, who was definite; one, Sen. Carlos Cisneros, D-Questa, who seemed just a hair away from being definite; one, Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, who said he was considering it; and one who was strongly rumored to be thinking about it, Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, D-Belen.
Since that time, Sanchez has announced that he just wants to stay on as majority leader, and Smith told the Albuquerque Journal that he wants to stay on as chairman of the Finance Committee.
Another new name to pop up is Sen. Howie Morales, D-Silver City. I asked him Wednesday whether he was running for the Senate’s top position. He admitted he is considering it, but said, “Nothing’s set in stone … everything keeps changing.”
Jennings, who served in the Senate for more than 30 years, was defeated for re-election this month.
The president pro-tem gets to preside over the Senate when the lieutenant governor is away (the lieutenant governor being the official president of the Senate). But the main power of the president pro-tem is getting to name and preside over the Committees’ Committee, which selects committee members and chairmen. That’s going to be a bigger task this year because so many new senators — 15 of 42 members total — have been elected.
Coalition politics: If Morales does run, that would mean three of the eight Democrats who joined with Republicans to back Jennings are candidates for Jennings’ job — the others being Papen and Lopez.
Senate Republicans will be representing a bigger block than they did in 2009. There were 15 Republicans then, but because of the elections, there will be 17 next year.
From the horse’s mouth: Here’s a name you can take off of the list: Sen. Phil Griego, D-San José.
I was talking to Griego about a different issue a few days ago when he volunteered this information. “You might have heard that I was running for a leadership position,” he said. “Well I’m not. … There’s rumors out there, but I’m not. You’re hearing it from the horse’s mouth.” Griego said he wants to stay on as the chairman of the Corporations and Transportation Committee.
Richardson at Foggy Bottom?: An article in a national online Hispanic news site caught my eye this week. The headline of a Nov. 16 story in Voxxi read, “Latinos Push for Bill Richardson for Secretary of State.”According to the piece by reporter Tony Castro, “Hispanic leaders close to the Obama administration are lobbying the president to name former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson as Hillary Clinton’s successor as Secretary of State, according to sources in Washington.
“Such an appointment would be historic, making Richardson the highest ranking Latino to ever serve in the federal government,” the story says.
Castro notes that Obama’s nomination of Richardson to serve as secretary of commerce four years ago ended badly “because of an investigation into possible financial improprieties in New Mexico. Richardson was subsequently cleared in that investigation.”
That’s not quite right. Although the Justice Department chose not to prosecute Richardson over pay-to-play allegations, then U.S. Attorney Greg Fouratt wrote in a letter that the decision not to bring charges “is not to be interpreted as an exoneration of any party’s conduct.”
Monday, November 19, 2012
Roundhouse Roundup: Roundhouse No Breeding Grounds for Governors
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
Nov.18,2012
Now that we’re done with the 2012 election, it’s high time we move on to more important matters — like the 2014 election.
Seriously, people out there in Politicsville are already starting to chatter about what Democrat will be chosen to take on Republican Gov. Susana Martinez. Attorney General Gary King said a few months ago that he is running. Albuquerque lawyer Sam Bregman won’t confirm or deny that he’ll run. A few other names have been bandied about here and there. And such chatter is likely to rise in coming months.
But I’m going to make a prediction. Whoever the Dems put up against Martinez will not come from the state Legislature.
This isn’t a knock on the fine men and women who serve in our citizen Legislature. There are many excellent lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and many of whom, I’m sure, would make competent governors. It’s just that it’s tough to make that jump from the House or Senate to the Fourth Floor.
History will bear me out — at least the history of the last few decades. Bruce King was the last governor who had spent any time in the state Legislature. (He was speaker of the House back in the ’60s.) But when he was elected governor in 1990, King was best known for being a former governor, not a lawmaker. That also was true for his second term as governor, to which he was elected in 1978. (His first term as governor came in 1970.)
(A similar dynamic probably will apply to King’s son, Gary King in 2014. He was in the House for many years, but voters almost certainly will judge him on his performance as attorney general, not for votes he cast in the Legislature in the ’80s and ’90s.)
With the exception of King, other governors going back to the '80s — Martinez, Bill Richardson, Gary Johnson, Garrey Carruthers and Toney Anaya — were never legislators. The last governor elected directly from the Legislature was Jerry Apodaca, a former senator from Las Cruces, in 1974.
So why isn’t the Legislature a logical springboard to the governor’s mansion anymore? Maybe it’s because most voters are fairly satisfied with their own representatives and senators, but many tend to think of the rest of the state Legislature as a bunch of clowns or worse. Kind of like the way we feel about our own congressional representatives.
Maybe someone in the Legislature will come along, wow the electorate and prove me wrong. If you have any names, let me know.
“I’d rather not answer that”: Last week I had some questions about Patriot Majority New Mexico, a Democrat-favoring political action committee that spent at least $1.3 million in the general election. I called Amanda Cooper, who helped run Richardson’s presidential and second gubernatorial campaign.
Why Cooper? She’s not listed anywhere as a PAC official. And there’s no salary or any other expenditure to her listed in the committee’s campaign finance reports. But last month, when House Speaker Ben Luján gave Patriot Majority a check for more than $83,000 from his Speaker’s Fund, he listed the PAC’s address as Cooper’s home in Corrales.
Cooper said that listing her address on Lujan’s report was “a mistake.” I then asked Cooper point blank, “What is your relationship to Patriot Majority?”
First silence. Then a nervous laugh. Then more silence. I asked again. She said, “I’d rather not answer that.”
Whaaa …???
I’m grateful that Cooper did get me in touch with Craig Varoga, who answered my questions about the story I was writing that day. He’s a Washington, D.C., consultant who is registered as the president and treasurer of the group. He also worked on Richardson’s presidential campaign.
Another major Richardson figure, former chief of staff and campaign manager David Contarino, showed up in an NPR profile of Patriot Majority. But that report was from 2008. His name doesn’t appear on any of the Patriot Majority documents filed with the state this year.
Varoga didn’t respond to an email requesting he clear up whether Cooper or Contarino were involved with Patriot Majority New Mexico.
Such PACs pumping millions into state campaigns have prompted much suspicion and misgivings. True, Patriot Majority disclosed its donors. But that doesn’t do much to calm those suspicions when they give answers such as, “I’d rather not answer that.”
Nov.18,2012
Now that we’re done with the 2012 election, it’s high time we move on to more important matters — like the 2014 election.
Seriously, people out there in Politicsville are already starting to chatter about what Democrat will be chosen to take on Republican Gov. Susana Martinez. Attorney General Gary King said a few months ago that he is running. Albuquerque lawyer Sam Bregman won’t confirm or deny that he’ll run. A few other names have been bandied about here and there. And such chatter is likely to rise in coming months.
 |
| Gov. King: Elected before the invention of color photography |
This isn’t a knock on the fine men and women who serve in our citizen Legislature. There are many excellent lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and many of whom, I’m sure, would make competent governors. It’s just that it’s tough to make that jump from the House or Senate to the Fourth Floor.
History will bear me out — at least the history of the last few decades. Bruce King was the last governor who had spent any time in the state Legislature. (He was speaker of the House back in the ’60s.) But when he was elected governor in 1990, King was best known for being a former governor, not a lawmaker. That also was true for his second term as governor, to which he was elected in 1978. (His first term as governor came in 1970.)
 |
| Gov. Apodaca: |
With the exception of King, other governors going back to the '80s — Martinez, Bill Richardson, Gary Johnson, Garrey Carruthers and Toney Anaya — were never legislators. The last governor elected directly from the Legislature was Jerry Apodaca, a former senator from Las Cruces, in 1974.
So why isn’t the Legislature a logical springboard to the governor’s mansion anymore? Maybe it’s because most voters are fairly satisfied with their own representatives and senators, but many tend to think of the rest of the state Legislature as a bunch of clowns or worse. Kind of like the way we feel about our own congressional representatives.
Maybe someone in the Legislature will come along, wow the electorate and prove me wrong. If you have any names, let me know.
“I’d rather not answer that”: Last week I had some questions about Patriot Majority New Mexico, a Democrat-favoring political action committee that spent at least $1.3 million in the general election. I called Amanda Cooper, who helped run Richardson’s presidential and second gubernatorial campaign.
Why Cooper? She’s not listed anywhere as a PAC official. And there’s no salary or any other expenditure to her listed in the committee’s campaign finance reports. But last month, when House Speaker Ben Luján gave Patriot Majority a check for more than $83,000 from his Speaker’s Fund, he listed the PAC’s address as Cooper’s home in Corrales.
Cooper said that listing her address on Lujan’s report was “a mistake.” I then asked Cooper point blank, “What is your relationship to Patriot Majority?”
First silence. Then a nervous laugh. Then more silence. I asked again. She said, “I’d rather not answer that.”
Whaaa …???
I’m grateful that Cooper did get me in touch with Craig Varoga, who answered my questions about the story I was writing that day. He’s a Washington, D.C., consultant who is registered as the president and treasurer of the group. He also worked on Richardson’s presidential campaign.
Another major Richardson figure, former chief of staff and campaign manager David Contarino, showed up in an NPR profile of Patriot Majority. But that report was from 2008. His name doesn’t appear on any of the Patriot Majority documents filed with the state this year.
Varoga didn’t respond to an email requesting he clear up whether Cooper or Contarino were involved with Patriot Majority New Mexico.
Such PACs pumping millions into state campaigns have prompted much suspicion and misgivings. True, Patriot Majority disclosed its donors. But that doesn’t do much to calm those suspicions when they give answers such as, “I’d rather not answer that.”
Friday, November 16, 2012
Susana's "Gift" to Mitt
Gov. Susana Martinez joins a growing list of Republicans who are distancing themselves from unsuccessful presidential candidate Mitt Romney's comments this week that he lost the election because of "gifts" President Obama gave to minorities, young people and others who voted for his re-election.In an interview by Yahoo News at the Republican Governors Association Conference in Las Vegas, Martinez had this to say about those comments:
"That unfortunately is what sets us back as a party, our comments that are not thought through carefully ... We need to embrace (minority voters) not just at election time. ... We should not visit them when we need their vote and then walk away ... And then four years go by and we go visit them again. We have to make them part of the solution, and the way you do that is by listening to them and then making that part of 'How do we do this together to make our lives all better?'
And then once you've done it, you tell them we did it together."
Martinez also said,
"Republicans need to stop making assumptions, and they need to start talking to younger people, people of color, and ask them—not talk to them—ask them, 'What is it that we can do better? How do we earn your vote? How do we earn the ability for you to see that we can be the party that will make your life better and that of your children?' ... But we can't be the ones that come and tell them how things are going to be and how we have all the solutions."
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Gov. Martinez Attacked ... From the Right!
Americans for Prosperity, the group associated with the Koch Brothers, is at odds with Republican Gov. Susana Martinez over New Mexico's taking part in establishing a state-run clearinghouse to help small businesses and uninsured individuals to find affordable health insurance.
In a news release Thursday, Joseph Montes, the group's New Mexico state director, said:
Martinez's spokesman Scott Darnell, responded, "Gov. Martinez has always done what she believes is best for New Mexico, regardless of partisan ideology. In this case, it is best for New Mexico to develop our own state-based exchange that can address the unique needs and concerns of New Mexicans, rather than waiting for the federal government to impose a one-size-fits-all exchange from Washington, D.C."
Work on the state health exchange has been going on since last year. The statement from Norquist's group might be in response to an Associated Press story today about a possible fight in the Legislature about whether the state needs to pass new laws to create the exchange.
About 20 percent of the state’s population lacks health care, and it’s estimated as many as 250,000 New Mexicans may become eligible to buy health insurance through the exchange between 2014 and 2020.
UPDATE 11:45 PM: The original version of this post said Americans for Prosperity was associated with Grover Norquist. His group is Americans for Tax Reform. The text has been corrected. Thanks, Matt.
In a news release Thursday, Joseph Montes, the group's New Mexico state director, said:
“AFP is extremely disappointed in Gov. Martinez’s decision to create a health insurance exchange in the state of New Mexico. An exchange will increase insurance premiums on consumers and taxes on hardworking families.
“Numerous governors across the country are joining together to send a strong message to Washington to reject these flawed exchanges. Martinez’s message sends the exact wrong signal. New Mexico is agreeing to be the de-facto administrator of the federal government’s rules, regulations and mandates. The state needs to begin to decrease its over-reliance on the federal government. By participating in federal mandates, whether funded or not, New Mexico only deepens this reliance.”
Martinez's spokesman Scott Darnell, responded, "Gov. Martinez has always done what she believes is best for New Mexico, regardless of partisan ideology. In this case, it is best for New Mexico to develop our own state-based exchange that can address the unique needs and concerns of New Mexicans, rather than waiting for the federal government to impose a one-size-fits-all exchange from Washington, D.C."
Work on the state health exchange has been going on since last year. The statement from Norquist's group might be in response to an Associated Press story today about a possible fight in the Legislature about whether the state needs to pass new laws to create the exchange.
About 20 percent of the state’s population lacks health care, and it’s estimated as many as 250,000 New Mexicans may become eligible to buy health insurance through the exchange between 2014 and 2020.
UPDATE 11:45 PM: The original version of this post said Americans for Prosperity was associated with Grover Norquist. His group is Americans for Tax Reform. The text has been corrected. Thanks, Matt.
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