ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: ETHICS -- THINGS ARE BAD ALL OVER

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
January 31, 2008

Although neither the governor nor lawmakers seem to be fired up about ethics legislation this session, according to a national study released this week, there are deep misgivings about ethics in state governments all over the country — by state employees themselves.

The Washington, D.C.-based Ethics Resource Center, “a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to the study and promotion of ethical behavior in organizations worldwide,” released its annual National Government Ethics Survey. The results weren’t pretty.

Fifty-seven percent of state workers surveyed reported observing at least one kind of misconduct over the past year. More than 80 percent of those reported seeing multiple instances of misconduct.

Only 7 percent of state workers reported a “strong ethical culture” in their workplaces.
And yes, gentle readers, it’s not just New Mexico.

“There is a strong risk of losing the public trust that is essential for any government to maintain,” ERC President Patricia Harned said in a news release accompanying the report. “Voters must believe that elected officials, political appointees and career government employees act in their best interest. Eroded trust hinders government’s effectiveness.”

The study doesn’t have a state-by-state breakdown, so it’s impossible to see if New Mexico ranks higher or lower than the national average.

The most common form of misconduct reported was conflicts of interest. Nearly one-third of state employees said they’d observed this, though none of the conflicts were specified. This was followed by lying to employees (28 percent) and abusive behavior (26 percent).

“A quarter of state government employees work in environments conducive to misconduct,” the report says. “In environments conducive to misconduct, employees are introduced to situations directly inviting misconduct, and/or they feel pressured to cut corners to do their jobs. Further, employees may feel that work values conflict with personal values.”

“Top management may be unaware of the misconduct problem,” the report said. Twenty-nine percent of state employees who observed misconduct did not report it.

“Because government sets many rules to assure ethical practices in business, it is vital that government set a high standard of its own,” Harned said. “A world where almost one-third of local government workers don’t report ethics violations when they see them does not set a high standard.”

Most disturbing is the finding that 18 percent of state government employees who reported their observations of misconduct have experienced retaliation. More than a third who observed misconduct chose not to report it fearing retaliation from management, while 30 percent didn’t report misconduct because they feared retaliation from co-workers.

State government has a bigger “ethics risk” factor than federal or local governments, the study says. This is because of the high rate of observing misconduct coupled with the low rate of reporting it.

For the study, 3,452 randomly selected state employees were interviewed between June 25 and Aug. 15 last year. Again, we don’t know how many, if any, were from New Mexico.

Memorialize this: In past legislative sessions, I’ve jokingly called for a study on Legislature-mandated studies. Other Roundhouse wags have suggested a task force on task forces.

In that spirit, an Albuquerque Republican lawmaker said Wednesday that later this week she’s introducing a resolution on memorials and resolutions.

Rep. Justine Fox-Young is proposing the House change its rules that would restrict memorials to “an official expression of condolence or acknowledgment of achievement for public officials past or present or those who ‘made extraordinary contributions’ to the state.”

Her resolution would restrict resolutions to proposed state constitutional amendments, ratifying amendments to the U.S. Constitution, petitioning Congress under Congressional rules, “expressing the approval of the Legislature where legislative approval is required by statute or (the state constitution)” or adopting new or repealing or amending rules of the House.

As used now, there are memorials and resolutions for every which thing. There are memorials or joint memorials declaring it Cowboy Day, Farm Workers Day, Stealth Fighter Day, FFA & 4H Day, New Mexico Mesa Day, School Nutrition Day and UNM vs. NMSU Football Rivalry Week. There are memorials calling for new studies and task forces.

Perhaps coincidentally, Fox-Young showed her resolution to reporters on the same day that Gov. Bill Richardson told reporters at a news conference, “I’m sick of studies! I’m sick of task forces!” (He was discussing his health care legislation.)

“I really hate memorials,” Fox-Young said. “I never introduce them.”

Someone is bound to suggest a task force to study her resolution.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, January 27, 2008
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
Now Simulcasting 90.7 FM, and our new, stronger signal, 101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Chatterbox by The New York Dolls
No Feelings by The Sex Pistols
Get Over You by The Undertones
Period by Mission of Burma
Teenage Head by The Flamin' Groovies
Caught in a Dream by Alice Cooper
Bigger Hole to Fill by The Hives
Do You Know What I Idi Amin by Chuck E. Weiss with Tom Waits
Twinkle Toes by The Neanderthals

Girls For Single Men by Sausage
Ride Away by The Fall
Brand New Special and Unique by Stan Ridgway
Gimme Dat Harp, Boy by Captain Beefheart
She's Not There by The Zombies
Love Me With Your Mind by The Shams
Sportin' Life Blues by Champion Jack Dupree

Tiger Phone Card by Dengue Fever
Chet Boghassa by Tinariwen
Professor Jay from Delhi by Anandji Shah & Katyanji Shah
Frankie and Johnny by Kazik Staszewski
Hit the Road Jack by Cat
I Would Never Wanna Be Young Again by Gogol Bordello
Sezegerely Soul Stew by 3 Mustaphas 3
Aijo by Varttina

Hello Sunshine by Bettye LaVette with Hank Ballard
Jon E. Edwards is in Love by Jon E. Edwards & The Internationals
Boilin' Water by Tony Bowens & The Soul Choppers
Search For Delicious by Panda Bear
Unsolved Mysteries by Animal Collective
Long Way Home by Tom Waits
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, January 25, 2008
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

Now Simulcasting 90.7 FM, and our new, stronger signal, 101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org


OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Cowboy in Flames by The Waco Brothers
Georgia on a Fast Train by Billy Joe Shaver
Man Overboard by Libby Bosworth & Toni Price
Farewell Jack by Donna Jean & The Tricksters
Lisa's Birthday by Drive-By Truckers
The Great Medical Menagerist by Harmonica Frank Floyd
Scoodle Um Skoo by Papa Charlie Jackson
Let's Duet by John C. Reilly & Angela Correa
Rancho Grande by Carolina Cotton

I Paint a Design by Michael Hurley
If She Wasn't on Blocks by The New Duncan Imperials
You Don't Know Me by Say Zuzu
I'm Not a Communist by Grandpa Jones
Big Swamp Land by Johnny Paycheck
St. Petersberg Jail by Ronny Elliott
Who Do You Love by Ronnie Hawkins & The Band
Pistol Pete and The Ringo Kid by Acie Cargill
That's the Way Love Goes by The Harmony Sisters

Rotweiller Blues by Warren Zevon
The Collector by The Everly Brothers
Kingdom of Cold by Hundred Year Flood
El Presidente by Goshen
Old Friends by Roger Miller, Willie Nelson & Ray Price
I'm Feelin' Sorry by Jerry Lee Lewis
Dirty Business by New Riders of the Purple Sage

You Must Unload by Larry Groce
The Train Carrying Jimmie Rodgers Home by Iris DeMent
Wave by Calexico
Beautiful Mistake by Grey DeLisle
Say It's Not You by George Jones with Keith Richards
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: OH DONNA!

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
January 25, 2008

Donna Jean & the Tricksters is a decent but not a great album. It won’t be on anyone’s top 10 at the end of the year — except maybe Relix magazine’s. To be honest, I probably won’t play it all that much on my radio shows. It’s above-average Grateful Dead-influenced jam-band fare with a hearty blues edge.

But I’m glad this record is around — it’s like getting a handwritten letter from an old friend. It’s good to hear from Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay, whose voice graced the albums of the Grateful Dead for most of the 1970s.

Ever since she and her late husband, keyboardist Keith Godchaux, were asked to leave the Dead in 1979, Donna Jean basically has been missing in action. She’s done an occasional solo record, and every now and then you hear about her singing a couple of songs at a show with Bob Weir’s Ratdog or some other Dead offshoot. But largely she’s unjustly been forgotten, except by scholarly Deadheads — or by fans with long memories.

Donna Jean was a striking figure when she was in the band. She was the hippie earth-mama goddess surrounded by a bunch of hairy weirded beardos. She looked sweet with her flowing brown locks, and she provided the band with a little female energy. But she was a belter — not as over-the-top as Janis Joplin or as searing as Grace Slick, but she infused the cosmic California sound of the Grateful Dead with some down-to-earth Southern soul.

Had she never even been with the Dead, Donna Jean still would have a respectable musical résumé. She’s an Alabama girl who cut her musical teeth as a teenager at Muscle Shoals studios. Singing with a female group called Southern Comfort, Donna Jean provided background vocals on some true American classics — including “When a Man Loves a Woman” by Percy Sledge and “Suspicious Minds” by Elvis Presley.

The story of how the Godchaux couple got to be in the Grateful Dead is a testament to Donna Jean’s audacity — as well to the less-formal, human-scale nature of rock in the pre-corporate days.

In a 1998 radio interview in Philadelphia, Donna Jean told Dead chronicler David Gans how she and Keith approached the group about joining — neither of them knew anyone in the Dead. (She had moved from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to the Bay area, where she hooked up with Keith.) They made their move at a Jerry Garcia/Merle Saunders concert at the Keystone Korner club in San Francisco. Actually Donna Jean made the move. She approached Garcia during a break.

“I said, ‘My husband and I have something we need to talk to you about,’” she told Gans. “Jerry said, ‘OK, well, come on backstage.’ And Keith and I were too scared. We didn’t know what to do, and we didn’t go backstage. This is when they took a break.

“A few minutes later, Garcia came out in the audience and sat down next to us. And at that angle, Keith couldn’t see Jerry; he was on the other side of him. And I said, ‘Um, Keith, I think Garcia’s hinting that he wants to talk to us. He’s sitting right next to you.’ Keith just put his head down on the table, and he turned around to Garcia and he goes, ‘You’ll have to talk to my wife. I can’t talk to you right now.’

“So I said, ‘Jerry, now —.’ Gosh, if I had known that everybody doesthis to him, I would have never had the nerve. And I said, ‘Uh, Keith is — I just know he’s your new piano player. ... So, we’re gonna need your telephone number so that we can call you.’ ... So Jerry gave us his home phone number!”

The couple didn’t know it then, but the Dead’s original keyboardist, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, was dying, and the band was auditioning replacements. In a matter of days, Keith Godchaux was in the band. Donna Jean didn’t officially join until later. But her voice started popping up on Dead albums like Europe ’72 and on side projects like Weir’s first solo album, Ace.

This was an incredibly fertile and creative period for the Dead. Two of my favorite Dead albums — From the Mars Hotel and Blues for Allah — came out of the “Keith and Donna” era. Donna Jean’s contribution was mainly her background vocals, especially on the studio albums.

But if you think it was an all-American hippie fairy tale to walk up to Jerry Garcia in a nightclub one day and become a member of the Grateful Dead by the end of the week, think again. As the Me Decade drew to a close, the dream was becoming a nightmare.

In his 2002 book, A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead, former Dead publicist Dennis McNally describes the end of the Godchaux era. Keith was basically was a junkie. Donna Jean, as she admitted to McNally, was a raging alcoholic. It sounds as if she was second only to Keith Moon as a destroyer of hotel rooms, and she once even put her husband’s arm in a sling. Finally, in 1979, it came to an end. The couple was asked to leave the Dead, but according to Donna Jean, she and Keith had decided to leave before that.

Within a year, Keith would be killed in a car wreck. Donna Jean would find religion, remarry (to David MacKay, formerly of the San Francisco band the Tazmanian Devils), and drift so far out of the limelight that some younger Deadheads barely know who she is.

Now, nearly 30 years after leaving the Dead, Donna Jean’s brown hair has turned to silver. Her voice has mellowed; it’s more restrained than in the old days.

She sings lead on just a handful of songs on the new album. The best of these is a gospelish workout called “No Better Way,” with overtones of Eat a Peach-era Allman Brothers.

But, like her work with the Dead, Elvis, and Percy Sledge, her background vocals are a delight, her work on the upbeat country-rocker “A Prisoner Says His Piece,” being a standout. Audio appearances can be deceiving, but she sounds happy.

All I know is that it’s good to hear from Donna Jean.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: A TOOTHLESS CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION BILL?

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
January 24, 2008

Ethics-reform advocates were disappointed last week when Gov. Bill Richardson gave the issue about 20 seconds in his State of the State address. They were even more disappointed with the only bill to emerge so far, one that deals with limits on campaign contributions.

“We’re not supporting that bill as it stands,” said Steven Allen, director of Common Cause New Mexico, a watchdog group that for several years has been pushing for ethics and political reforms.

He was referring to Senate Bill 264, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, D-Belen — a bill Allen called weak and toothless.

Richardson told reporters Wednesday that he’d like to see a stronger bill, one closer to what his Ethics Task Force has recommended.

SB 264, in its current form, calls for a limit of $2,300 on contributions from an individual to any candidate for state office. Actually the limit would be $4,600 — $2,300 for the primary election, $2,300 for the general.

That’s the same as the federal limits for candidates for president or Congress. There’s a mechanism in the bill to adjust the maximum contribution amount by linking it to the Consumer Price Index.

Allen and other reformers aren’t quibbling with the amount of the limit in the bill.

But Allen said the bill covers only individual contributions to candidates. “It should cover contributions from corporations, unions and (political) parties as well.” he said, noting this would be more in line with the Ethics Task Force recommendation.

In New Mexico politics, it’s often the corporations and unions that provide the lion’s share of money.

For instance, in Richardson’s 2006 re-election effort (at $13.3 million, the most expensive campaign in state history), only two of Richardson’s top 10 contributors were individuals (racetrack owner Paul Blanchard, who gave $120,000, and Univision chief executive Jerry Perenchio, who gave $102,443). Of the other donors, four were companies (Cap II Properties, Gulfstream Lomas, Controlled Recovery and Forest City Covington, each of which gave $100,000 or more); three were labor organizations (Federation of Teachers; American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; and Laborers International Union of North America, each of which gave $100,000); and one political action committee, Richardson’s own Moving America Forward — which received contributions from individuals, corporations and unions. The campaign reported $487,000 from that PAC.

But changes apparently are afoot for the contribution bill.

Sanchez couldn’t be reached for comment Wednesday, but Stuart Bluestone of the state Attorney General’s Office confirmed the majority leader had told him he had made some changes to SB 264 and wanted Bluestone to go over them.

“I haven’t seen (the changes) yet, so I don’t know what they are,” said Bluestone, who served on the Ethics Task Force for two years.

But if the bill doesn’t change in the Senate, House Speaker Ben Luján, D-Nambé, said Wednesday that he’s considering introducing a bill of his own that would include PACs and the other contributors.

Public finance of campaigns: So far nobody has introduced any bills to expand public financing of campaigns. Some were worried the Richardson administration had become lukewarm to the idea — even though in the final days of his presidential bid, as he campaigned in Iowa and New Hampshire, the governor almost always called for public financing, saying that might have given him a better shot to compete with U.S. Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, each of whom dwarfed Richardson in campaign spending.

But Richardson on Wednesday told reporters he’s still behind the idea. He said to expect him to issue a message by today that would allow a public-financing bill to be considered in the current session. Some kind of bill should be released shortly thereafter.

The state currently makes public funds available to state judiciary and Public Regulation Commission candidates who agree to campaign spending limits.

Ethics report card: After the legislative session ends next month, New Mexico Common Cause will publish a report card scoring lawmakers on how they vote on ethics bills, Allen said. He said the report card will include committee votes as well as floor votes, which is appropriate because many bills die in committee.

The report card could become fodder for political campaigns in a year in which all legislators are up for re-election.

Just one problem though. In recent years only a fraction of senators or House members face any opponents when they run for re-election.

In 2004, the last time state senators were elected, 25 of the 42 seats had only one candidate running in the general election.

In 2006, when all House members were up for re-election, only 29 out of 70 House seats were contested in the general election.

Vote on your own time: The state Personnel Office last week distributed a memo reminding state workers they do not get time off to participate in the Feb. 5 Democratic presidential caucus.

Unlike the state primaries and general elections, which are operated and paid for by the state and thus covered by the state election code, the presidential caucus is completely the responsibility of the Democratic Party.

Arcie Baca, the local head of AFSCME, at first was concerned about this policy. But, after thinking about it, he said, there might be privacy issues if employees got time off to caucus. “Everyone would know you’re a Democrat,” he said.

“I just wish the Republicans would have (their caucus) at the same time,” Baca said. The state GOP chose not to have a caucus Feb. 5 and will instead vote for Republican presidential candidates in the June primary.