105 years stretches patience past its limit

During the discussion preceding the Senate Rules Committee's most recent abandonment of any serious effort to end the cultures of incompetence and corruption in state government by creating an ethics commission with some teeth, Sen. Sander Rue asked New Mexicans for patience;

“I hope the public will indulge us for one more session.”

 “We’re at a point where this needs to be done. 
It should have been done by now.”

In truth, we are way past the point where it needed to be done.  It should have been done in the very first meeting of the very first legislature.

The first legitimate use by government, of the power and resources entrusted to them by the people whose power and resources they are, is to protect them from waste, fraud and abuse.

Their top priority 104 years ago was to write for politicians and public servants, high enough standards of conduct and competence to protect the people's interests from waste, fraud and abuse.

Along with creating high standards, they had the coinciding responsibility to provide honest to God accountability to those standards.  Even the highest standards are meaningless if they are unenforceable; their effect becomes indistinguishable from the lowest of standards of conduct. 

The first legislature obviously did neither;

1. write high and unequivocal standards of conduct and competence, nor
2. create for themselves, honest to God accountability to any standards at all.

Nor has any legislature since.
There have been 52 of them.
They've met at least 104 times in as many years and
they never got around to creating for themselves;
honest to God accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence within their public service.

And now, they'd like us to trust them for another year.

How in the world could anyone take their promise seriously?

How gullible do they think their constituents are?

How gullible are they?




photo Mark Bralley