The New Mexico State Ethics Commission has acknowledged that its general counsel improperly granted Democratic state Rep. Andrea Romero additional time to respond to an ethics complaint — after her taxpayer-funded attorney obtained the extension through private communications that the commission’s own executive director later called improper.
The admission adds another controversy surrounding the Santa Fe lawmaker, who has already faced scrutiny over her former employment with the First Judicial District Attorney’s Office and her leadership of the Legislature’s Jeffrey Epstein “Truth Commission.”
According to documents obtained by the Santa Fe New Mexican, Ethics Commission General Counsel Zach Goodrich gave Romero’s attorney, Rodney Gabaldon, an additional 30 days to respond to a complaint filed by Española resident Pablo Lujan.
The problem: Goodrich did not have the authority to grant it.
Commission Executive Director Jeremy Farris acknowledged the issue after Lujan challenged the extension, also describing the private text exchange between Goodrich and Gabaldon as improper “ex parte” communication.
“This is what political corruption looks like: state institution after state institution bending [its] rules around Andrea Romero,” Lujan told the New Mexican.
“Regular New Mexicans do not receive backchannel favors sealed with a ‘no problem,’” he added.
That reference came directly from the text exchange.
Gabaldon wrote Goodrich on Sept. 29 seeking a month-long extension in three cases, including Romero’s, citing personal health reasons.
“No problem,” Goodrich replied before saying he would send an email confirming new dates.
“Thanks brother,” Gabaldon responded.
The exchange was not initially included in the commission’s public proceedings portal.
Under the Ethics Commission’s published guidance, a respondent may file an answer within 15 days after receiving notification of an administrative complaint.
The 30-day extension granted to Romero would have pushed her response until Nov. 2 — just one day before New Mexico’s Nov. 3 general election.
Lujan argued that timing deprived voters of an opportunity to see Romero’s explanation before casting ballots.
“By moving that response to the eve of the election, the Commission has not merely given a politician more time — it has denied voters a meaningful opportunity to examine her account before casting their ballots,” he wrote.
After acknowledging the problem, Farris said Romero and her attorney should file any intended response “expeditiously.”
Complaint stems from Romero’s DA job
The underlying complaint concerns Romero’s decision to simultaneously serve in the Legislature while working part time for the First Judicial District Attorney’s Office.
Romero eventually resigned from the prosecutor’s office after Attorney General Raúl Torrez clarified that district attorneys should not employ sitting legislators except under the narrow circumstances addressed in a 2024 legal opinion dealing with special assistant district attorneys. That opinion specifically examined whether a legislator could serve as a special prosecutor in a particular capacity — not simply become an employee of a prosecutor’s office.
Romero maintained that she had relied on previous guidance from the Attorney General’s Office, while Torrez disputed the broader interpretation placed on his office’s earlier opinion.
The controversy has been especially notable because Romero herself holds powerful ethics-related positions in the Legislature. She currently chairs the House Rules and Order of Business Committee, serves as vice chair of House Judiciary, and chairs the House Special Investigatory Committee created to examine Epstein’s activities in New Mexico.
Richardson relationship raises another question
Romero’s role in the Epstein investigation has also drawn scrutiny because of her previous public praise for former Democrat Gov. Bill Richardson.
After Richardson’s death in 2023, Romero praised the longtime Democrat political figure on Facebook and shared photographs of herself with the former governor.
Those posts take on additional significance because Richardson later became an important subject of the state’s Epstein inquiry.
Richardson had documented contacts with Epstein and visited Zorro Ranch. Newly released material has prompted the Truth Commission to seek government records concerning Richardson and Epstein, while commission documents have listed Richardson among passengers connected to Epstein’s aircraft.
Virginia Giuffre also alleged that Ghislaine Maxwell directed her to have a sexual encounter with Richardson. Richardson emphatically denied the allegation, said he had never met Giuffre, and was never charged with wrongdoing related to her claim.
Romero’s past praise of Richardson does not by itself establish any impropriety. But it adds another political relationship surrounding a commission whose stated mission is to scrutinize how powerful people and institutions interacted with Epstein.
Haaland disappears from ‘Truth Commission’ report
Even more contentious was the commission’s handling of Democrat gubernatorial nominee Deb Haaland.
Records released this year showed that Haaland, then Gary King’s 2014 lieutenant governor running mate, traveled aboard a private aircraft arranged through Epstein during the campaign. The King-Haaland campaign announced the return of more than $36,000 in Epstein-linked campaign contributions around the same period. Haaland’s campaign has said she had no relationship with Epstein and did not know how the aircraft had been arranged.
Republican Truth Commission members Andrea Reeb and Bill Hall subsequently said the panel had agreed to include a reference to Haaland’s flight in its interim report — only to discover that her name was missing from the final document.
The report did, however, name other prominent figures appearing in Epstein-associated flight records, including Richardson and former President Bill Clinton.
Reeb publicly accused the commission of protecting Haaland during her gubernatorial campaign.
“The only justifiable reason to remove Haaland’s name from the report is to protect her from any political fallout while she is campaigning to be New Mexico’s next governor,” Reeb said.
Romero denied that characterization. She said all four commission members participated in developing the report and said the panel had collectively chosen not to identify victims or people whose connections to Epstein were considered merely “tangential.”
That dispute has never fully gone away.
Senate Republicans had previously asked the commission to subpoena Haaland over the flight, arguing the panel should apply the same scrutiny to powerful New Mexico politicians that it was applying to agencies, banks and other individuals.
Lujan: institutions are being ‘corroded’
Now Romero faces questions not about how she is handling another politician’s ethics, but about how state ethics officials handled a complaint against her.
Lujan said he intends to pursue disciplinary complaints against both Goodrich and Gabaldon over the private communications.
He also contrasted Romero’s response to the controversy over her prosecutor job with former Republican Rep. Andrea Reeb, who recently stepped down from the Legislature after a federal judge ruled her simultaneous legislative and prosecutorial roles ran afoul of separation-of-powers requirements.
“In my view Romero is no longer involved in isolated ethics disputes,” Lujan told the New Mexican, arguing that the controversies now touch the DA’s office, Legislature, Epstein commission and State Ethics Commission.
For an elected official who is simultaneously helping oversee legislative ethics and chairing a commission built around the promise of exposing institutional failures and politically connected figures, the latest acknowledgment from the State Ethics Commission creates a particularly uncomfortable question:
Are New Mexico’s accountability institutions applying their own rules consistently when the person under scrutiny is one of the Legislature’s most powerful Democrats?