Governor Richardson Asking His State Employees To Help With Prez Campaign
Check this out, from the Associated Press:
SANTA FE, N.M.—Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Richardson has a Christmas wish for some of the state government employees in his administration: pack your bags and head to Iowa.The two-term governor is asking governmental appointees and other state employees to volunteer to help his campaign by traveling to Iowa before the Jan. 3 leadoff presidential contest...
Last month, the governor and his presidential campaign manager, Dave Contarino, met with a group of state workers and other supporters at a Santa Fe hotel to appeal for campaign volunteers and update them on how Richardson is faring.
State employees were invited to the lunch hour meeting by the campaign with messages sent to private e-mail accounts and, in some cases, private cell phones.
Seems a bit odd to us. The story specifies that the state employees working for Richardson are taking unpaid leave. But still, a governor is asking state employees -- his employees -- to help his political campaign. Not easy to say no to your boss, obviously. This permissible under New Mexico law? What about the ethics here? Readers?
Comments (12)
Michael wrote on December 7, 2007 1:03 PM:I find it unseemly. Obviously not on the level of, say, sexual harassment, but still philosophically in the same vein: using a position of power and its implications to subtly coerce. Not very impressive, IMO.
Greg wrote on December 7, 2007 1:06 PM:I think I agree. Even if it's legal, it's putting his employees in a very uncomfortable spot.
Freewheelin' Freddie wrote on December 7, 2007 1:07 PM:Richardson's ambition just leapt ahead of his good judgement.
DonnaG wrote on December 7, 2007 1:24 PM:This is the kind of thing that helped take down the last Republican governor of Illinois.
CT Voter wrote on December 7, 2007 1:33 PM:Even if it's legal, it's wrong. And this comment explains why:
"You just hope that none of these employees are feeling compelled to do this out of fear of what might happen if the governor doesn't win the presidency and comes back to the state and then starts trying to count who helped him and who didn't help him," said Scott Darnell, a spokesman for the state Republican Party.
And yeah, spokespeople for the opposition party aren't exactly bias-free, but he has a good point. If they all want to volunteer, fine, but the effort should be something that comes from them, not their boss.
Seems sleazy. It does sound as though the people he's addressing are political appointees, not regular civil servants.
If he's asking this of regular civil servants, it jumps from sleazy to corrupt.
Uncommonsense wrote on December 7, 2007 2:13 PM:New Mexico's Civil Service law seems to permit Richardson's request that his employees donate their time to his campaign. There is one section of the statute which raises a serious question about whether they are being coerced into "donating" the money they would have to spend to travel to Iowa, however.
Nevertheless, it is undeniable that this constitutes a violation of the spirit of the Civil Service law, which exists to protect public employees from exactly this kind of political pressure.
Richardson should know better.
Jared Berry wrote on December 7, 2007 2:37 PM:This really is a non-story. Bill knows what he can and can't do (and I guarantee he had lawyers check out the legalities) as governor of the state.
This is what happens when an administrative person goes into another endeavor; they take their people with them. Bush took Texas State employees with him in 2000, and I'm sure that Romney had people working for him who once were employees of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Jared Berry wrote:
This is what happens when an administrative person goes into another endeavor; they take their people with them. Bush took Texas State employees with him in 2000, and I'm sure that Romney had people working for him who once were employees of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
The difference, Jared, is that in Richardson's case, the workers in question are still employed by the State of New Mexico.
Even though the Civil Service statute protects them from retaliation from refusing to participate, each and every one of them knows how easy it would be for their supervisors to begin documenting infractions that could lead to their being reprimanded, denied promotions, or dismissed from their jobs. Their awareness of this reality cannot help but factor into their decisions about whether to participate in their boss's presidential campaign.
What Richardson is doing is inappropriate and indefensible.
KathyF wrote on December 8, 2007 2:06 AM:This is simply Bill Richardson being Bill Richardson. He's done similar things in the past. New Mexicans seem to like having a strong leader who tells them what to do, who to vote for, etc. He is very good at twisting arms, but I'm not sure that skill is what the rest of the country is looking for.
Richard Liskov wrote on December 8, 2007 3:43 PM:He's desperate and disgusting. I am proud to have worked for a public official--New York Attorney General Robert Abrams--who between 1978 and 1992 absolutely forbade any of the Assistants he appointed staff from working on any of his campaigns.
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