New Mexico’s Democrat governor is on the defensive after a report this week detailed her office’s spending from a taxpayer-supported expense fund.
Records show Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham spent nearly $13,500 over a six-month period in 2020 on items such as groceries, dry cleaning and alcohol, the Sante Fe New Mexican reported.
The booze spending included a purchase in September of more than $200 for five bottles of tequila, two bottles of vodka, two bottles of Merlot and single bottles of whiskey and gin, the report said.
In the same report, the newspaper disclosed that Grisham was hosting in-person staff meetings at the governor’s mansion at the same time that she was urging the public against mixing households in order to help stop the spread of the coronavirus.
About half the $13,500 went toward food for the governor’s Cabinet members and staffers during those meetings, Grisham spokesman Tripp Stelnicki told The Associated Press.
State Republicans were outraged by the governor’s use of taxpayer cash.
“I didn’t realize the governor was so underpaid that she has to use discretionary money for things that she should be paying for herself,” state House Minority Whip Rod Montoya, a Republican, told the New Mexican. “Legislators are all up here doing our job, and we’re doing it on per diem.”- READ MORE
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