And the winner of the "pot calling the kettle

black" award goes to Susana Martinez! The

master of defection. Pay-to-play is all her
administration has accomplished: The
Downs contract, HSD contracts with AZ
frms, and privatizing public education have
all been about quid pro quo. Since facts are
stubborn things, here's a few facts to show
just how laughable this all is.
Downs: The owners of the Downs
concealed the majority of the money given
to Martinez, iwhile holding discussions with
Jay McCleskey, and Susana Martinez about
the contract. The sole point of concealing:
to make it difcult for the public to know how
much they gave and when they gave. They
laundered money to Martinez through the
RGA including two days before the
evaluation committee met and decided on
the Downs, Traci Wolf (VP of the Downs)
gave under the name Traci Moore- check
contributions on the SOS website under
Wolf and that money doesn't show..
Windham and Turner gave under the name
Brazos Land & Cattle, LTD a company they
took over through bankruptcy court in
Louisiana. Check the state corporation
website under Brazos and their names don't
show.
In exchange for all that money, Martinez
and her administration engaged in 41
ofcial acts whose sole purpose was to
ensure the Downs got the contract (the
legal defnition of quid pro quo). Just a few
of the 41 acts: Martinez personally replaced
the evaluators including putting in a ringer
(likely after both bidders had submitted their
responses to RFP and it was clear Laguna
submitted a better proposal), personally
appointed Dan Mourning as general
manager at the request of Darren White
and Jay McCleskey. Mourning did not
recuse himself when White joined the
Downs bidding team despite getting his job
because of White. Martinez refused to allow
Laguna to negotiate, as the Downs was
allowed, despite being declared a fnalist,
and state law requiring all fnalists to be
treated equally. High ranking administration
members communicated with Downs ofers
in secret during the prohibited period. A
clear violation of the RFP. Communications
included with Scott Darnell on his hotmail
account, and Pat Rogers personally
meeting with Dan Mourning by entering
through the backdoor to Mourning's ofce
and not signing the visitor's log. Her
administration rescinded the Downs
contract vote when it was clear it was going
to be voted down, and then pressured state
fair commissioners to change their
opposition to the contract.
HSD: Barbara Barrett held a fundraiser for
Martinez at her home in AZ. Barrett gave
extensively to Martinez, the RGA, and even
Reform NM Now (Martinez and
McCleskey's PAC). Barrett and her husband
are closely connected to members of the
AZ behavioral health community including
Valle Del Sol, and Southwest Behavioral
Health. Her foundation helps to fund the
Arizona Community Foundation (where she
once served as director) which provides
grants to numerous nonprofts including
behavioral health companies.
Here's the rig: shortly after Barrett gave
money to Reform NM Now, the deputy
general counsel at HSD began researching
what would eventually become a paper
entitled, "Medicaid Payment Holds Due to
Credible Allegations of Fraud". This became
the road map for yanking the contracts from
NM providers. Even before any "audit"
looking for credible allegations of fraud was
requested, HSD staf along with PCG staf
(the company who later performed the
"audit") went to AZ to meet with company
reps of the AZ behavioral health frms that
later got the contracts. PCG also happens
to have a large donor to the RGA among its
ofcers. Money given to RGA winds coming
back to NM, and also going to the company
in which McCleskey's wife is an ofcer. PCG
audit is then used to yank the contracts
from NM providers using the deputy general
counsel's paper as the basis for doing so.
Public Education Quid Pro Quo: In
September 2011 FEE (Jeb Bush's group
that also controls PAARC), which is funded
by K12, Inc., and Pearson Education,
(private for proft virtual education
companies) paid for Hanna Skandera to fy
to Washington DC to ask congress "to
consider fexibility for states in the use of
federal dollars to pursue robust virtual
school oferings for students in under-
served areas." Skandera then let both K12,
Inc. and Pearson start up virtual charter
school academies in NM-- in violation of the
state charter school law that prohibits
private for proft companies from running
private schools.
PAARC appointed Hanna Skandera to its
board of directors, pays for her to fy to DC
and other places, and despite NM already
working with another Common Core group,
dumped that group and gave a contract to
PAARC to do the common core testing.
That contract by the way, required APS, the
state's largest school district to have to
spend an additional $17 million on new
technology equipment, which had not been
required by the other common core testing
company already working with NM.