House Office release Office Expense Reports

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In a new (and welcomed) form of disclosure, House members have released a huge document dump containing office expenditures for all 435 representatives. Sunlight will be doing a distributed research project of some sort to sift through the data, but I wanted to get out the info on New Mexico’s congressional delegation. For the following charts, the column on the right is quarterly, while the column on the left if YTD (though which quarter is kinda confusing). Click for larger versions.

First up, Rep. Martin Heinrich. His report can be found in the second PDF, beginning on page 343. Here’s the summary:

Martin Heinrich Expense Report 2009

Next up is Rep. Harry Teague. His report is located on the third PDF, beginning on page 277:

Harry Teague Expense Report 2009

Finally, here’s Rep. Ben Lujan. His report is in the second PDF, starting on page 337. His summary:

Ben Ray Lujan Expense Report 2009
Looks like Rep. Teague spent the most this quarter and YTD, almost cracking the $1 million mark for 2009 spending just more than $900,000 thus far.

Each member has about 5-6 pages of information, where the above info is broken down into details (like reimbursements for taxi rides and contracts for technology services), so check through and see if there’s anything interesting. Also, while these reports are a great asset and step toward transparency, they could be better. Keep an eye on the Sunlight Foundation blog for more and to see how you can help.

Update: To answer the obvious question, I included images because I literally couldn’t copy and paste just the sections I wanted. That’s how poorly structured these were (at least for me).

Update 2: Though Rep. Teague did spend the most among his peers in New Mexico, he didn’t really come close to spending $1 million (though Rep. Heinrich did). Also, Teague has been disclosing his office expenditures online all year long. You can see those reports here (on Teague’s nicely detailed Transparent Government page). After doing some searching on the sites for Reps. Heinrich and Lujan, I couldn’t find a similar page, nor could I locate office disclosures for past quarters.

So, kudos to Rep. Teague for being ahead of the curve.

Mr. Fancy Pants Goes to the Ball

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I alluded in my Twitter feed a few weeks ago that I had purchased a tuxedo. Well, it’s inauguration season here in Washington D.C., and I’m going to celebrate in style courtesy of the New Mexico State Society. My sister and I are society members, and while she forked up the cash to get in, the Society was gracious enough to allow me to attend as a member of the press. I think it’s very indicative of how well the Land of Enchantment, its lawmakers and other leaders have embraced new media and the state’s bloggers.

I’m also going to work with Matt from NMFBIHOP and Barb from Democracy for New Mexico to interview the freshman members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation (Reps. Ben Ray Lujan, Martin Heinrich, and Harry Teague) in the coming week.

Regardless of that possible coverage, I will be taking my camera to the Inaugural Gala (which is to be held at the beautiful Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian). So, I hope to snap a bunch of photos of New Mexican politicos and other friendly faces as we celebrate the inauguration of President-Elect Barack  Obama.

Crunch time

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I imagine most of the people still in New Mexico who read this blog are watching the economic turmoil with a mixture of fear, anger and awe. So much of the current mess seems beyond our control and completely out of our hands. And, while I’d agree with that in part, there are a couple of things you can do:

  1. Register to vote! This mess is the result of a bunch of bad decisions by a bunch of people, and voting better people into office is a great way of remedying the situation. There’s a widget on the right hand side of this blog where you can go, or visit this link to register through Rock the Vote. You only have a few days left.
  2. Donate to candidates. I know it’s tough right now, especially with the economy in the state it’s in. However, it’s probably the best investment you can make with your money. Vote more and better Democrats into Congress (people like Martin Heinrich or Harry Teague) and they’ll work to fix some of the inequality that has impacted families across the state and country. Check out the True Blue New Mexico page on Act Blue and send some coin to some worthy candidates.
  3. Volunteer. Knock on some doors or make some phone calls on behalf of Barack Obama. My understanding is that they’re coordinating a lot of the get-out-the-vote effort, and this will be crucial in swinging New Mexico for the Democrats in the 2nd Congressional District and for the presidential race.
  4. Tell your friends. Send them a link to this post. Ask them to register. See if they’ll volunteer with you.

Or, you can do nothing – you can sit back and watch what happens. If you think the country is doing great and you’re happy with your health care options and you think America is safer than in 2000 and you’re not worried about your retirement, then I guess you don’t have that much at stake in this election. Otherwise, I hope you’ll help out. You owe it to yourself.

True Blue New Mexico

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Donate to Democratic CandidatesMy friends at Democracy for New Mexico and New Mexico FBIHOP are fundraising again: they’ve started an ActBlue page for all of the Democratic candidates for federal office in New Mexico. They inlcude: Sen. Barack Obama, Rep. Tom Udall, Martin Heinrich, Harry Teague, and Ben Ray Lujan.

The netroots is playing a big role in elections this year, and I give some serious props to Matt and Barb for stepping up and getting this effort going. I think it’s a testament to their hard work, and a recognition of the role they’re playing, that each of the New Mexican candidates are posting guest blogs this week (you can see Heinrich’s posts here and here).

Matt has a great post introducing the project, highlighting the unique situation in New Mexico this cycle:

In 2008, New Mexicans have a chance for a true change — a golden opportunity to make a True Blue New Mexico.  There are more Democrats than Republicans registered in the state, and Democrats control both the state Senate and House.  Yet in federal offices, Republicans hold a 3-2 advantage, including a 2-1 advantage in the House. This year, that can change — and change dramatically.

I couldn’t agree more. I’ve thought that some additional attention in southern New Mexico from groups like the DCCC could help push the district closer toward the “Democratic” column, and with the right candidate Rep. Steve Pearce might have had a fight on his hands. With changing demographics, who knows what would have happened? Continue reading…

MapLight fundraising updates

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It looks like MapLight has finally added a slew of candidates from New Mexico to their database. I’ve got four MapLight widgets on the sidebar, broken down by the Senate race and congressional district, and you can see that Rep. Heather Wilson is beating both Rep. Tom Udall and Rep. Steve Pearce in the money game:

However, while Wilson and Pearce are spending cash fighting for the Republican nomination, Udall can relax a bit and save his dough for the general election.

Meanwhile, Martin Heinrich, Harry Teague and Don Wiviott are leading in fundraising for the first, second, and third congressional districts, respectfully.

The widgets will remain there on the right throughout the 2008 election cycle, so you can always check to see how much money the candidates have raised.

Martin Heinrich on FISA

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Last year, I wrote a quick post about Martin Heinrich, and alluded to something big his campaign was working on regarding FISA. At the time, I thought it would be breaking pretty soon, but it looks like it popped up earlier this year. It hasn’t seen a lot of play time (though hopefully that will change now that Matt Stoller highlighted the video over at OpenLeft):

Top-tier New Mexico Congressional candidate Martin Heinrich in this video, though, makes a real argument about why FISA happened, and it’s not your standard ‘both parties need to stop bickering’ but a real observation that both parties keep voting for legislation that abrogates our freedoms in very dangerous ways.

Here’s the video:

Why not reward good behavior, and make a donation to the Heinrich campaign, and work to make a True Blue New Mexico.