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Saturday, November 14, 2009
Ban Sought on Lobbyist Donations
By Thomas J. Cole
Journal Staff Writer
Under New Mexico law, a lobbyist can't give a state legislator a gift valued at more than $250 but can shower a lawmaker with thousands of dollars in campaign contributions.
Legislators may be asked to ban the political donations, as well, when they meet in January.
A bipartisan think tank in Santa Fe is pushing legislation to prohibit campaign contributions from lobbyists, government contractors and those that would reap a particular financial benefit from a government action.
Think New Mexico says passage of its proposal would "restore public trust in government and take an urgently needed step to change the culture of corruption" in the state.
Contractors and those with a particular financial stake in government action are also already restricted in making gifts to legislators and other officials.
Contractors are prohibited from making campaign contributions, but only during the procurement process.
The board of directors of Think New Mexico includes former Gov. Garrey Carruthers, a Republican, and former U.S. Interior Secretary Stewart Udall, a Democrat.
As far as campaign finance reform goes, the proposal by the group is a modest one. That is by design, says Fred Nathan, the group's executive director and a former special counsel in the state Attorney General's Office.
Think New Mexico believes in making proposals that are broad enough to make a difference in New Mexico life but narrow enough to be politically achievable, Nathan says.
"We're not proposing this is the be all and end all" of campaign finance reform, he says.
While some lobbyists make significant campaign contributions to legislators, lobbyists' clients give much more.
Of the top 20 political donors to candidates for the Legislature in 2008, none was a lobbyist, a Journal study found. But of those top 20, all but one had a lobbyist in Santa Fe.
Under the Think New Mexico proposal, campaign contributions would be banned only for those clients of lobbyists that are also government contractors or have particular financial interests in legislation.
Lobbyists' clients also are restricted by the state's two-year-old Gift Act, but adding them all to Think New Mexico's proposed legislation would significantly broaden the measure.
In short, you wouldn't just be asking legislators to bite the hand that feeds them; you'd be asking them to amputate the hand.
The proposal would restrict not only campaign contributions to legislators, but also political donations to candidates for other state and local offices.
It's unclear whether the ban on campaign contributions from government contractors would extend to unions that represent teachers and other public employees and have bargaining agreements with local or state governments.
Some argue for a broader approach to the problem of influence buying in Santa Fe, such as the expansion of public financing to include campaigns for the House and Senate.
Nathan counters that the need for wider reform isn't a reason not to support the smaller step proposed by Think New Mexico.
That's a point he'll need to make many times in the coming months.
In adopting the state's campaign-finance and ethics laws, legislators have generally leaned more toward the model of public disclosure than the model of prohibition.
The theory has been this: Provide information to the voters and let them make the decisions on right or wrong.
But public disclosure hasn't always lived up to its promise. That's the case with a law enacted in 2003 requiring public officials and candidates for state and county elective offices to file their campaign-finance reports electronically with the Secretary of State's Office.
In short, the online system for viewing individual reports is far from user-friendly, and searches for political donations are limited. The Secretary of State's Office also recently dumped its plan to develop a new reporting system in-house.
But there is hope.
The Secretary of State's Office says it is now working to implement a system modeled on what is used by the state of Washington.
The projected cost is $171,500, and the Secretary of State's Office says it has the money on hand.
The plan is to have the system running in time for the first campaign-finance reports of the 2010 elections.
UpFront is a daily front-page opinion column. Thom Cole can be reached in Santa Fe at 505-992-6280 or at tcole@abqjournal.com
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