Gov. Martinez Likes Part of Obamacare

Gov. Susana Martinez does not agree with the "individual mandate" portion of the Affordable Care Act, but there's certain aspects of Obamacare she does like.

In case you've been in an isolation tank all day, the Supreme Court this morning upheld the law. Martinez was asked today whether she agreed with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney that the law should be completely repealed.

Her answer:

"You know, what I think is important is that we provide a system that is, um, available to those that are most in need. Making sure that we have, are not forcing families to buy something, that they can’t afford. But, by the same token, I think there are parts of it, for example, you know being allowed to have your child, um, until they are 26, insure them. They are going to college, etc., I think that’s a good thing. I think the pre-existing conditions, you know, we want to make sure that were taking care of people. So, I want to make sure that, is it in its entirety, or are there parts of it that we can keep, to make sure that we’re taking care of that very needy population."

The Obama campaign sent out a news release linking to an edited version of this video by Capitol Report New Mexico. (It leaves out the part where she slams the individual mandate as a "tax" many people can't afford.) Here's the complete video

Heather Skipping GOP Convention

There's been a lot of headlines about Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill skipping the Democratic National Convention this year. She's in a tight re-election race and the conventional wisdom is that she wants to avoid being tied to the Obama administration, which apparently isn't that popular in Missouri.

But McCaskill isn't the only U.S. Senate candidate skipping her party's national convention. Here in New Mexico, Republican Heather Wilson will be staying here in New Mexico during the GOP's national shindig in Tampa in August.


"Wilson spokesman Chris Sanchez said that the former congresswoman does not plan to attend the convention in August and will be campaigning in New Mexico at the time," the National Journal reported yesterday.

And Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post commented:

Simply put: Not going to the convention won’t save McCaskill from having to defend herself against attacks that she was a major Obama backer. The same goes for Wilson and former Hawaii governor Linda Lingle, who is running for Senate and will have to find ways to get separation from their national party, even though they won’t be at the Republican National Convention.
Having to answer for your party — in any and all of these cases — is far from a political death sentence. After all, there is a Republican senator from Massachusetts and a Democratic senator from Alaska. People can be convinced that you are your own person — particularly in these high-profile Senate races.
But simply skipping the convention won’t make the problem go away.

Or maybe Karl Rove is right and Heather really is an independent.  (That's a sarcastic reference to the new American Crossroads ad for Wilson. Read my analysis of that and an anti-Wilson ad in today's New Mexican.  And check out those ads below)

Parole Board Shakeup

On the first day I returned to work after recovering from my hip surgery I went up to an interim meeting of the Senate Rules Committee. Nothing exciting happened there. Most of the meeting consisted of hearing Gov. Susana Martinez's nominees for state Parole Board. None of these were controversial. The committee gave all nominees unanimous positive recommendations. To be truthful, it was pretty boring.

State Parole Board Chairwoman Sandy Dietz

But that 's only because I didn't know then what was going on the background. One of the board members who was confirmed that week was Mary Thompson, a Santa Fe counselor and former forensic evaluator who had been on the board since 2005. Gov. Martinez had nominated her for a second term.

What I didn't realize at the time was that Thompson was in an extremely bitter dispute with board chairwoman Sandy Deitz. About a week after the Rules Committee hearing, Thompson wrote Deitz a blistering letter that revealed not only a serious personality conflict, but a deep philosophical disagreement over one particular issue.

A state law enacted in 1980 says anyone sentenced to life in prison becomes eligible for parole after 30 years. First-degree murder is the only crime that carries a life sentence. (When the state repealed the death penalty in 2009, it created a new option for sentencing first-degree murder convicts: "life without possibility of parole.")

There's only about 10 "lifer" inmates have become eligible for parole hearings since 2010. Of those, only one was granted parole -- and that inmate already is back in prison.

Even though such inmates have a right to a parole hearing after 30 years, there's no guarantee they'll get such a hearing. Thompson accused Dietz of having a blanket policy of rejecting all parole requests from lifers. Dietz agreed that she's opposed all the requests that have come so far, but denied Thompson's charge that she was improperly manipulating the system to be sure all requests are denied.

Martinez removed Thompson from the board one day after Thompson sent the letter. The governor also fired longtime Parole Board executive director Ella Frank, who had the job for eight years.

My story about this is in today's New Mexican.

The Return of Joe Carraro

Former state Sen. Joe Carraro wants to return to the Roundhouse.

Carraro announced in a news release today that he's submitting petition signatures to run for the District 10 Senate seat in Albuquerque, currently held by Sen. John Ryan.

Carraro is a former Republican who changed his registration to "Declined to State" after an unsuccessful Congressional primary in 2008.

"I registered as an Independent because I have always represented the people rather than ideologies or political parties, since they have their own interests," he said in his news release.

"Over the years I have been able to work with both sides of the aisle to accomplish worthwhile projects and legislation for the State and my district," he said. "As an Independent member of the Senate I hope to provide less acrimony and more communication and Ideas. We owe it to those who elect us, to communicate with each other to provide opportunities for them so they can live a better life."

Carraro, an Albuquerque business man, won his first term in the Senate in the mid 80s. He left at the end of 1988, but came back in 1993, serving until the end of 2008.

His old district was District 23, now represented by Sen. Sander Rue, R-Albuquerque.

UPDATE 6-27-12 6:10 p.m.:  Carraro just told me that his residence -- as well as a huge chunk of his old district -- was put into District 10 in the redistricting process. He says District 10 contains about 90 percent of his old district and about 10 percent of the district Ryan currently represents. I'm not sure how exact that is, but if it's anywhere close. that could be a boost to his candidacy.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUNDUP: Private Emails, Public Property

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
June 24 2012


Gov. Susana Martinez isn’t the first New Mexico politician to cause controversy by using private email accounts to communicate about public policy.

Three years ago in Las Vegas, N.M., the late former Mayor Tony Marquez was in a similar, if not identical situation.

And the response by Attorney General Gary King’s office might be an indication of how King might respond to a request by two legislators to investigate a May 2 email sent from a Public Education Department spokesman’s private email account to Gov. Martinez’s political director and several administration officials (on personal email accounts.)

Sen. Linda Lopez and Rep. Rick Miera, both Albuquerque Democrats, are mostly concerned that government employees might have been doing political work for the governor. But they also want King to look at “high government officials using private email accounts to shield their activities.”

In early 2009, the Las Vegas Optic was trying to receive email messages between Marquez and City Council members. The newspaper filed a a formal public records request.

However, City Attorney Carlos Quiñones believed the city had no obligation to release those emails, because they all were on the personal accounts of the mayor and council members. So the city responded to the Optic’s request saying it couldn’t locate any of those emails on the city’s email server.

At some point, according to an Associated Press story, the paper received — through some unofficial channel — copies of about 20 emails between the mayor and his councilors, all on private accounts. Many of those had been copied to the city attorney. The Optic complained to the Attorney General’s Office.

On July 31, 2009, Assistant Attorney General Leslie Lowe wrote to the Las Vegas city clerk, saying she disagreed with Quiñones’ argument that the city didn’t have to turn over private emails. Rowe, reading from Inspection of Public Records Act, informed the city that “public records” means “all documents, papers, letters, books, maps, tapes, photographs, recordings and other materials, regardless of physical form or characteristics, that are used, created, received, maintained or held by or on behalf of any public body and relate to public business.”

“My interpretation of this section makes the mayor’s emails, without regard to the account he uses, public records, if they relate to public business, and subject to disclosure.”

Apparently this advice didn’t immediately settle the issue. According to The Associated Press, Quiñones wrote back to Lowe saying Mayor Marquez would voluntarily give up the emails from his private account. But he still argued, “There is no specific legal authority in New Mexico providing for the inspection of private email accounts of government officials.” He contended the Legislature would have to amend the law to specify that personal emails are subject to the Inspection of Public Records Act.

Finally in September, the city handed over more than 100 pages of emails to the Optic. But that wasn’t the end of it. In March 2010, the Optic complained to the attorney general that the city had violated the Open Meetings Act — which forbids public business being discussed by a quorum of the governing body outside of a public meeting.

But the funniest thing to come out of the Las Vegas situation was a headline in the Optic in October 2009 after the paper uncovered a memo from Quiñones to various city officials.

Apparently the city attorney was still steamed about that initial batch of private emails between the mayor and the councilors that the Optic got its hands on. Giving those emails to the press was a breach of confidentiality, Quiñones claimed.

The paper’s headline: (See below)

(Stolen from NM FOG website)

More on Personal Emails for State Business

The Progress Now New Mexico organization -- a left-leaning group that has been critical of Gov. Susana Martinez -- has uncovered a couple of more Martinez cabinet secretaries communicating about government business on personal emails.

One is Economic Development Secretary Jon Barela, who in May 2011 received an email from Martinez's deputy chief of staff Ryan Cangiolosi at his Comcast email account (though the report has no email from Barela on that account.)

The other is Cultural Affairs Secretary Veronica Gonzales, who used her Comcast account to send messages to Cangiolosi and others about a government contract in May 2011.

Progress Now New Mexico obtained these emails through a public records request. But their website says this was possible in both situations only because other government employees included in the communications used their official government emails.

Martinez on Monday announced that from now on all email communications dealing with state business will be on state email

Here's the webpost by Progress Now New Mexico.

"I May Have Had My Last Race ..."

Richardson campaigning in Concord, NH, 2007

This probably won't come as a shock to many of you gentle readers, but former Gov. Bill Richardson said on national TV over the weekend that it's not likely he'll ever run for office again.

Fox News' Juan Williams asked the question in an interview with Richardson on Fox News Latino. Richardson said, "I am now a member of the private sector. I’m happy. I've got a little foundation. You never say never, but I may have had my last race and that was the Presidential race. I think that you only get one shot."

Might there be other serious Hispanic candidates in the future?

"Well, Juan, I think they’re up and coming right now," Richardson replied, "They may be two, three elections away. The mayor of San Antonio, I think the mayor of Los Angeles has that potential. There’re some Republicans that may be candidates. The governor of Nevada, possibly Senator Rubio. I don’t know much about him, I’m intrigued by him."

The entire interview is below:

Governor Tells State Employees to Use State Email

After a week of criticism following the disclosure that Gov. Susana Martinez and top officials in her administration used personal emails to conduct state business, Martinez this afternoon said all state employees in agencies under her authority should use official state email for state business.

Here's the entire news release:

Today, Governor Susana Martinez issued the following statement and directive, following a recent productive meeting with the Foundation for Open Government, regarding the use of official emails throughout state government: 

"Today, I am directing all state employees under the governor's authority to utilize official state email when conducting state business via email.  This includes discussions preliminary in nature to final decisions or actions that have occasionally been sent via personal email because they are not required to be maintained under state law. There is no state law that requires this to be done, but utilizing only state email to conduct state business in connection with public employees' duties is another important step to ensure continued confidence in government." 

"This directive goes beyond what has been required or practiced in the past in New Mexico, and it exceeds what is practiced in most other states. In addition, given that numerous other public officials, including legislators, discuss public matters on personal email addresses, I am urging the Legislature, other executive branch agencies, and local governments and municipalities to also adopt a similar policy that requires official email to be used when conducting state business and retained according to state regulations. Furthermore, we would be pleased to work with interested parties to ensure that our records statutes and regulations are coherent, strong, practical, and consistent across government."

Martinez met with the board of New Mexico Foundation for Open Government on Saturday.

Last week, in response to my questions about a several emails showing the administration was using personal email accounts to communicate about routine business, spokesman Scott Darnell said, "the types of communications in personal email accounts fall into categories that are not required to be maintained -- preliminary in nature, do not reflect final action, etc. Final agency action is conducted through official state email or other correspondence and maintained."

UPDATE: 11:45 p.m. Several hours before Gov. Martinez issued her news release about her new email policy, I obtained a sworn affidavit from Martinez's former Corrections Secretary, Lupe Martinez.

The document describes a cabinet meeting last year in which the governor's chief of staff Keith Gardner told those present "to, whenever possible, use our private emails when communicating, because by doing such would prevent them from being discovered through public records requests."

Martinez's spokesman Scott Darnell responded,"Her statement is simply false, and she knows it."

Read my story HERE

ROUNDHOUSE ROUNDUP: Some Primary Wounds Still Open

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
June 17, 2012


Just when you thought the primary truly was over, here comes a little reminder that some political wounds take time to heal.

Two progressive-leaning Albuquerque groups that earlier this year sent a mailer blasting state Sen. Phil Griego, D-San José, are demanding an apology from the senator — who won his bitterly contested primary this month — over an advertisement that ran in an Albuquerque paper.

Neri Holguin

The ad, “An Open Letter to the Voters of State Senate District 39,” begins, “Most Democratic activists in Santa Fe know that Jack Sullivan’s chief political consultant and campaign manager Neri Holguin is also paid by a so-called ‘nonprofit.’ ”

One small problem with that: Holguin wasn’t paid, secretly or otherwise, by any of the four groups Griego listed. “I was entirely paid by the Sullivan campaign for the management services I provided,” Holguin said Thursday.

Javier Benavidez of the Center for Civic Policy said, “We have contracted with her in the past but not since 2009 — when she completed a one-month contract to research issues related to New Mexico’s Hispanic population for nonpartisan civic engagement.”

Benavidez’s group and the Southwest Organizing Project, in a news release last week, sent letters to the senator as well as the Journal North demanding apologies. They want Griego’s apology to be in the form of an ad at least as big as the one that ran two days before the primary. They want a half-page ad in the Journal North.
Both letters say the groups may seek legal action if the ads aren’t run.

Griego couldn’t be reached for comment.

Griego’s ad correctly says that these organizations don’t disclose their contributors. Personally, as I’ve opined in the past, I believe that’s a bad thing. When any group, no matter what its tax status, sends out a mailer attacking someone running for office in an election, I believe the public should be able to know who’s buying the stamps.

Unfortunately, federal courts disagree. Even before the infamous Citizens United case, the very same groups demanding an apology from Griego were vindicated in court by federal judges who ruled that their election-year mailers aimed at certain legislators were not “political” and the groups did not have to disclose their donors.

Fact check: One item that caught my eye in the news release was a statement that the Journal “appeared to have run these ads without verifying the truth or falsity of these accusations.”

As much as I’d like to pile on a competitor, when I read that I tried to imagine the ad department in any paper fact-checking all the ads that come in. I’ve never met an ad department fact-checker in any of the three papers I’ve worked for (including Journal North). So I asked New Mexican Publisher Ginny Sohn, who used to run our ad department.

“If we see or notice something we believe is wrong, we’ll go back to the candidate and say, you need to rethink this,” Sohn said. But the candidate, not the paper, is responsible for the content — which, she said is why the paper requires ads to include the name and some kind of address or website of the candidate or organization buying them.

So here’s a tip for you the voter: Be very, very skeptical of any political advertising, print, TV or Internet, from any candidate of any stripe.

The New Mexican will be monitoring political ads (TV, print and radio) and checking for accuracy during the upcoming campaign. But that’s a reporter’s job not an ad rep’s.

Kenneth Gomez of Farmington Proclaims Himself Chief Executive of NM and USA

Sorry President Obama and Gov. Martinez. But when you weren't looking, Kenneth Gomez of Farmington took your jobs.

Gomez, who was an official write-in candidate for governor in 2010, has filed a document with the San Juan County Clerk declaring himself such. His reason: There's been "active insurgency against the Constitution of the United States of America and the Constitution of the State of New Mexico."

He says he will free all prison inmates, end abortions and nullify any laws that have passed since the "impostors" -- Obama and Martinez I suppose -- took office.

Read the entire proclamation below. I'm sure that Obama and Martinez will do their best to ensure a smooth transition.
Proclamation & Directive for Citizens of the USA