Archive for March 2, 2011
How Politics Works – In New Mexico
by John Weckerle
We recently read the following articles from Clearly New Mexico:
- Public Records Request Shows Gov’s “Small Business-Friendly Task Force” Met In Secret; Is Packed With Lobbyists for Oil and Gas, Mining and Dairy
- Are You Sitting Down? Here Are The Recommendations From The Gov’s “Small Business-Friendly” Task Force
The articles, which appear very thoroughly researched and provide links to references, discusses the establishment, configuration, and interim recommendations of Governor Susana Martinez’s “Small Business-Friendly Task Force.” We encourage our readers to follow the links and read through the articles.
After being stonewalled by the Governor’s office in response to informal requests, the folks at Clearly New Mexico submitted an Inspection of Public Records request to obtain information on the task force’s makeup and activities. The article makes several points: that the task force was established and has operated outside the view of the public eye; that small business is underrepresented and big business is overrepresented on the task force; that the task force is packed with lobbyists representing major sources of funding for Ms. Martinez’s campaign; and that rather than focusing on problems and potential solutions, the task force is focused primarily on supporting Ms. Martinez’s large business-friendly regulatory agenda. We’ll acknowledge that some of the people on the task force appear to be small business owners, but it does appear that the task force is dominated by large business interests and Martinez Cabinet appointees.
There are a few things we find disturbing about the situation. First, the primary focus does appear to be supporting the Governor’s regulatory agenda. As quoted in the second article, the preamble to the task force’s Interim Report states:
“The task force does not wish to present a laundry list of problems to the Governor but develop solutions (sic). The goal is to provide the Governor and/or agencies cover when repealing or revising a rule or regulation thus avoiding litigation if possible.
The final report to the Governor will include a road map of short and long-term tactics and strategies, including the use of executive orders and legislative strategies. Each troublesome regulation identified will be accompanied by a recommendation on the best way to remove their negative impacts (sic).”
So much for identifying problems and finding solutions. It would appear that the entire purpose is to advance – without any attention to fact or analysis – the interests of big business, most notably (but not exclusively) those of the “conventional” energy and construction/development industries. Among the top industries listed as contributing to the Martinez campaign are Oil & Gas ($1,008,201) and several construction/development industries totaling over $1,000,000, making these two broad sectors responsible for much more than a quarter of the Martinez campaign’s revenues. According to the Interim Report from the committee, the construction subcommittee is looking to repeal , modify, or replace collective bargaining provisions in the 2009 amendments to the Public Works Minimum Wage Act. New Mexico is turning into Wisconsin. Lawyers and lobbyists, very prevalently visible on the committee according to the Clearly New Mexico article, were the sixth highest contributing industry at $242,144. We’ll point out that Koch Industries, which has gotten some media attention of late, provided $10,000 to the Martinez campaign.
The Clearly New Mexico articles do a great job in looking through the committee. We decided to take a closer look at some of the personnel, looking at various web sources, especially Followthemoney.org. Here’s a little of what we found: