Historically, New Mexico Legislators have used their unpaid status to skirt implementing certain ethical standards. However, starting in 2029, New Mexico legislators will receive $67,800 a year after voters approved a constitutional amendment to pay lawmakers.
Ahead of the upcoming legislative session, nonpartisan Think New Mexico released a report proposing 10 changes to close ethics gaps for legislators, lobbyists, and dark money groups in the next legislative session. Founder and Executive Director Fred Nathan, Jr. spoke with KUNM about the proposed reforms, and why the current ones fall short.
FRED NATHAN, JR: In New Mexico, a legislator cannot unilaterally recuse themselves, even if they have a direct financial conflict of interest. They have to get permission of their colleagues because the legislature had not been paid a salary. We're pretty lax relative to other states when it comes to financial conflicts of interest, disclosure, and recusal. We want to make it easier for legislators to simply recuse themselves if they believe they have a conflict of interest, and we want to strengthen the rules about disclosure of potential financial conflicts of interest. A second area relates to lobbyists, and every year lobbyists make tens of thousands of dollars of contributions towards meals. And now that they're receiving a salary – that will be $67,800 tied to the median household income – it seems like a good time to ban lobbyists from paying for meals for legislators.
KUNM: Dark money and political action committees - you also want some more transparency from them, right?
NATHAN: One of these dark money groups, and I believe they're working on Project Jupiter - which they support - they're called New Chapter New Mexico. And they've spent an enormous amount of money that hasn't been disclosed to the public. They only have one financial supporter, which is New Chapter New Mexico, the nonprofit. And because the nonprofit is not directly spending the money to influence legislation, but spending it all on the LLC, they don't have to disclose that. And it seems like the public should have a right to know who these groups are and how much money they're spending and what they're spending it on. Arizona has passed a true source law, which allows the state to peel back all of these layers. And many times there's multiple groups that are funding the major political action committee, which doesn't have to disclose because their money is coming from a single nonprofit or a series of nonprofits.
Also, recently there has been this new tactic where dark money groups get emails of regular citizens and put in phony messages that these citizens have not authorized, and it's really a form of identity theft. But because money's not involved, it can't be prosecuted. So we'd like to create a criminal fraud law to address this practice and stop trying to mislead legislators and other policymakers about where their constituents are on various issues.
KUNM: Have you started to communicate with lawmakers in expectation of the upcoming session? Have you gotten any reactions or know any people who might be a good sponsor for you?
NATHAN: We're not ready to disclose sponsorships, but we've had a number of very promising conversations, and there are a number of legislators who are very interested. And you know, I would point out even before our report, there are a bunch of good legislators who have been trying to pass ethics reform legislation. I'm thinking of Sen. Jeff Steinborn (D-Las Cruces), Rep. Sarah Silva (D-Las Cruces), Rep. Nathan Small (D-Las Cruces), Sen. Harold Pope (D-Albuquerque) is another one. So there's a good group of core legislators who are interested and have been working tirelessly in the vineyards of ethics reform.
KUNM: What kind of impact is having stronger ethics laws for lawmakers? How does that affect their conduct, and also how does that affect the wellbeing of the state as a whole?
NATHAN: You know, it really benefits the public. So, as I said earlier, we need to rebuild trust in state government. The numbers right now are very low, with only 19% saying they trust state government. So, I think the public will be the biggest beneficiaries, but legislators too. With all the second guessing that goes on and so forth, they can now point to stronger ethics laws if we are able to pass some of these reforms in the 2027 session. In some cases, some of these unethical practices, the legislators are actually the victims. So, for example, with these dark money PACs, legislators don't know where this money is coming from, and they'd like to know. And with these misleading email campaigns that have been sent to them, that's a practice that I think a lot of legislators want to put a stop to.
Read the full report with Think New Mexico’s suggested ethics changes here.
