Hi Folks, This is Matt from Common Cause New Mexico. Ethics and campaign reform have been hot topics here in the Land of Enchantment. Kirstin blogged last week about our effort to overhaul several of Albuquerque's ethics laws. Despite being one vote shy of the supermajority needed to amend the city charter, we fully intend to bring the bill back in the near future. When we do pass ethics reform in Albuquerque, we'll give more clarity to campaign reporting requirements, better oversight tools to an important oversight commission, tighten up conflict of interest proivisions and stop future play-to-play scandals before they get started. Plus, we'll make Albuquerque's new clean elections system even stronger.
Speaking of play-to-play, there are still several indictments that have to be resolved here in what's been an ongoing scandal out of the state treasurer's office over the past several months. The scandal is not going away, and the people of New Mexico are fed up with the constant news of public corruption.
Common Cause is working through Governor Bill Richardson's ethics and campaign reform task force to advocate for the much-needed ethics and campaign reforms that will help prevent these kinds of scandals from coming up again in the future. I'm happy to announce that we're also kicking off our election 2006 ethics pledge campaign with an event on June 21! We will work closely with the Washington, D.C., Common Cause office to coordinate our state pledge campaign with the national clean elections pledge campaign.
It's no secret what we're working on in the governor's task force, and what we'll be asking candidates to commit to through the pledge campaign. But just in case, here's a reminder:
1. Ban gifts to public officials from persons having a financial interest in their official actions.
2. Create an independent ethics oversight commission.
3. Establish stronger lobbyist disclosure requirements (like requiring lobbyists to disclose, in real time, what bills they are interested in influencing on a weekly basis during the legislative session).
4. Require that campaign reports contain more information (like aggregate donor totals, and employers/occupations for all donors) and that they be filed more frequently.
5. Limit cash contributions, and limit individual contributions.
6. Require disclosure of all independent campaign expenditures, including those originating outside of New Mexico.
7. Establish public financing of all statewide and legislative campaigns, just like we did in Albuquerque.
