Outside attorneys in AG’s Office face criticism (NM - rabid enviro-lawyers)

The Albuquerque Journal ^ | Monday, July 15, 2009 | Dan McKay

[CedarDave]

SANTA FE – The state Attorney General’s Office employs two lawyers funded by a New York University center established to promote clean energy and environmental laws – an arrangement slammed by a group supporting New Mexico’s energy industry.

Matt Baca, a spokesman and senior counsel for the attorney general, said the lawyers are managed exclusively by New Mexico officials, not by the NYU School of Law, which pays their salaries.

But the practice has drawn criticism from Power the Future, an advocacy group for energy workers, and the American Tort Reform Association, which has described the arrangement nationally as an improper way for outside interests to embed attorneys in public offices.

Larry Behrens, a spokesman for Power the Future, a group that touts its opposition to radical environmental groups, said New Mexicans should be outraged.

Employing two outside-funded attorneys, he said, makes it look like “positions in our public offices are for sale.” Furthermore, he said, it isn’t clear which cases they’ve worked on or what they’re doing.

“This arrangement raises a number of transparency and ethical issues because it clearly doesn’t pass the smell test,” he said in a written statement. “These attorneys are funded by out-of-state billionaire Michael Bloomberg and given power over the people of New Mexico yet they aren’t accountable to taxpayers.”

The lawyers are employed through the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center at the NYU School of Law. The center was established in 2017 with a $6 million grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies, according to The Washington Post.

A five-page agreement signed in 2018 says each of the NYU fellows will be commissioned as a special assistant attorney general and ... are to work primarily on “clean energy, climate change and environmental matters of regional and national importance.”

[CedarDave]

Reposting a comment I made to FR member Cletus.D.Yokel this morning:

Isn’t the NMSAG a lefty’s leftist? A real Climate True Believer?

All elected state officials (most from 2018) including the majority of the legislature are radical progressive leftists. They have already enacted gun control restrictions and new taxes though the state is rolling in over a billion dollars in oil and gas revenues. To that end they are trying to kill off the industry with new methane regs (including prohibiting flaring), fracking restrictions (proposal failed) and a law requiring all electricity must be generated by renewables in 25 years.

[CedarDave]

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[rigelkentaurus]

So does this mean that any and all advocacy organizations can embed their lawyers into the NM government? Or is it only the communist organizations that are allowed to do this?

[CedarDave]

If they're will to pay, yes, including federal grants. Cut from the article was this quote:

It isn’t unusual, Baca said, for employees to be funded through outside sources. As with many state agencies, he said, the Attorney General’s Office relies on grant funding, not just state appropriations.

“We hire multiple employees on outside grant funding that work on a wide range of issues from human trafficking and internet crimes against children to environmental protection,” Baca said in a written statement. “This practice has spanned multiple administrations over several decades.”

[ptsal]

AGENDA DRIVEN LAW..... Yikes!

Bad idea.

[DesertRhino]

This employing lawyers from an out of state entity, and accepting cash to pay them, to file suits against New Mexicans seems to violate the anti-donation clause of the NM constitution.

“Neither the state nor any county, school district or municipality, except as otherwise provided in this constitution, shall directly or indirectly lend or pledge its credit or make any donation to or in aid of any person, association or public or private corporation”

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

Is this “LEGAL” to give out of state lawyers a position in N. Mexico’s legal structure with all the dangerous powers that would attach?

Why wouldn’t they have to go through an at least “pro-forma” legislative appearance and vote?

I strongly suspect Soros probably has his fingers’ in NM’s States AG office as he has in dozens of others (as has Bloomturd). I would hope that the few remaining honest conservatives in that Marxist state demand and/or open a formal investigation into this “rent an out of state Marxist” power infiltration scheme.

Any FReepers from NM know more about this? Time to set up a local “NM Judicial Shennanigans Watch” organization.

The Reds and Green Extremists are on the march, infiltrating every level of national, state and local politics. Time to establish a conservative “watchdog” organization to expose their traitorous ties.

[socalgop]

What you quoted says the opposite - the state can’t donate to private groups. Here, it is a private group donating to the government.