I feel like the chapter president of the NRA who says, “You know what, maybe this business of being able to carry around personal weapons isn’t such a good idea after all.”
Or the ACLU lawyer who says, “look, one or two little crosses on the courthouse lawn won’t hurt anything.”
The late Bob Johnson was the spearhead of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government (FOG), Bob fought valiantly, tirelessly, rightfully, for laws that protect New Mexicans from government secrecy. Woe to the city council who conducted business behind closed doors. Bob was on the case.
Bob and I were friends, but there was always that look in his eye that he was gazing upon Benedict Arnold.
It started decades ago when this writer took the unpopular and, among my peers, the minority position that the City of Clovis should not have been forced to reveal the names of its city manager applicants. Heresy.
Some years later I wrote the University of New Mexico should not have to divulge the names of its finalists for the president’s position, a view fellow newspaper folks rewarded with special seating at subsequent press association luncheons. Just me and seven empty chairs.
I thought then, and I think now, that government should be given private leeway in hiring matters, that the public’s right to know needs to be balanced with the valid consideration that media disclosure of candidates just might deter some excellent applicants who fear their current jobs might be endangered.
That’s exactly the situation in a current case. New Mexico State University canceled its search for a new president. The state Inspection of Public Records Act dictates colleges must name at least five finalists for president before hiring someone.
NMSU took the process to the final stage. One applicant dropped out because he took a job as president of another institution. The other four passed on the NMSU job possibility because they did not want their names disclosed in the media.
Was one of the four the man or woman who would have taken NMSU to the next level? We’ll never know. But good for us media guys. We sure showed them.
The Inspection of Public Records Act is the compromise legislation that grew out of the earlier UNM flap. Lawmakers worked with the universities, the FOG and other interested parties to craft the legislation. It didn’t work in this case.
Chuck Peifer, an attorney for FOG, said the law has worked well in all other cases before the NMSU presidential search cancellation and said he finds it regrettable “that in order to end run the statute” NMSU canceled the interviews.
That does not make a whole lot of sense to me unless Peifer has some evidence the university conspired with the finalists to quit so NMSU could challenge the law. That doesn’t add up.
What the media wants, of course, is to prevent skullduggery in the hiring process and that is a valid concern. But if there is something stinky going on it is our job to smell it out and I have enough confidence in the investigative talents of my colleagues to think they will uncover misdeeds.
My journalistic peers around the state are a lot smarter than me and I have a hunch they will be generous with their time in pointing out the errors of my thinking about the name disclosure law.
But here is something they don’t know: I like eating alone. So, ha-ha on them.
(Ned Cantwell – ncantwell@beyondbb.com – just wants to go along to get along.)