Editorial, 09/18/2007 - Ethics reform is for politicians’ own good

State Senate leaders never seem short on excuses for killing ethics reform. During the last session of the state Legislature, they blamed Gov. Bill Richardson not only for what they saw as highhandedness in his demands for reform, but also for running for president.

Last week, Senate Majority Leader Michael Sánchez said it’s just “the media,” and maybe some “advocacy groups,” pushing for such things as campaign-contribution disclosure and other forms of political accountability.

Ask my constituents for their top 10 concerns, Sánchez declared, and you won’t likely hear demands for information about who’s giving how much to this politician or that.

So keep the home folks fat and happy with porkbarrel spending, and they won’t wonder why you further enriched, at state expense, good ol’ big-contributor Joe Bigbucks?

Our guess is that most folks aren’t stirred to show up at the Roundhouse lobbying for ethics laws because we expect our senators, representatives, governor and the rest of our public servants not to be crooks.

Silly us — and when the indictments come down, we hear the accused screaming like stuck pigs that they’re victims of politics.

It’s to keep an unindicted senator unindicted that our state needs tougher ethics laws. Sánchez and his 41 Senate colleagues should be falling all over themselves in the rush to reform. The House of Representatives recognizes the need to burnish the image of New Mexico politics, so perhaps a majority of those 70 members can shame the Senate into new laws during the coming legislative session.

And Sánchez himself says he expects a “good, bipartisan” ethics bill to be passed — even as he grumbles about buttinskis trying to tell him what to do.

Aiding the cause of reform is the work of an ethics task force of elected politicians and concerned citizens. The group has laid out a number of suggestions which, if they become law, could drag New Mexico out of the political slough it’s perceived to occupy.

Creation of an ethics commission is an overdue part of the package the task force is likely to drop in the Legislature’s lap. Clearer disclosure of lobbying influence is another. And retaliation protection for whistle-blowing state workers? Of course.

Campaign-finance disclosure, to us, is the most needed reform. We still hesitate to seek limits on how much someone can give to a campaign; it’s still a free country, isn’t it? But the voting public has the right to know who’s backing whom — and to consider contributions as potential bribes; the bigger, the more likely they are to have bought the recipient lock, stock and barrel.

Without that information, New Mexicans are voting in the dark. Surely Sen. Sánchez and his fellow legislative leaders can’t be opposed to sunshine — can they?