NM Capitol Report | A view from the New Mexico state capitol

With turnover, a chance for reform

Newcomers should seek prohibition on legislators becoming lobbyists

State Sen. Dede Feldman was tireless, relentless, peerless.

Across a 16-year career in the Senate, she sponsored bills to prohibit legislators from becoming lobbyists immediately after leaving office.

Feldman was dedicated to her cause. But most of her colleagues had an aversion to making it unlawful for legislators to jump right into the lobbying business.

The result was predictable. Her bills to stop unsalaried lawmakers from re-inventing themselves as well-paid lobbyists were always dead on arrival in legislative committees.

Feldman, D-Albuquerque, is retiring from the Senate at year's end. We can only hope that somebody else will advance the cause of lobbyist reform.

Many longtime legislators want nothing to do with a temporary prohibition on their becoming lobbyists. They do not want to close a door that may hit them in the wallet.

But that door should be slammed shut, and perhaps this is one issue where only the greenest legislators can lead.

A one-year ban on legislators becoming lobbyists would be a good cause for the freshman class of '13 to embrace.

More than 20 people brand new to the Legislature will be elected this fall. These freshmen,
Republicans and Democrats, can demonstrate their idealism by making lobbyist reform their signature issue.

Forget being good followers of the party caucuses. Instead, the freshmen should band together for better government with a bipartisan bill.

If the freshman class puts its numbers behind lobbyist reform, it might shame the established lawmakers into doing the right thing. That would be a belated tribute to Feldman, who was so earnest for so long.

Feldman is writing a book about the Legislature, including sections on New Mexico's repeal of the death penalty and passage of the state law banning cockfighting.

She also could include a page or two about the futility of her efforts to stop legislators from cashing in as lobbyists.

Almost a year has passed since Kent Cravens, right, resigned from the state Senate just after a special session. He immediately went to work for the New Mexico Oil & Gas Association as a lobbyist.

Cravens, a Republican from Albuquerque, did exactly what Republican Gov. Susana Martinez said should be illegal. But the Republicans did not rally to the cause of lobbyist reform.

They, just like most of the Democrats in the Legislature, patted Cravens on the back and congratulated him on his new career in schmoozing for  laws his employer wants enacted.

There was, at least, a wicked irony to Cravens' graceless exit.

A Democrat, Lisa Curtis, ended up winning the appointment to succeed Cravens in the Senate.

Republican regulars in Bernalillo and Sandoval counties howled with outrage. A Democrat should not get a seat that a Republican had been elected to, they said.

But none had the courage to denounce Cravens, who started it all by bolting from the job he had been elected to do to take one that paid better.

If he had not resigned from office, there would have been no vacancy and no chance for Curtis to get the seat.

Cravens looked out for himself, not the people who elected him. He is the one who let down the public.

There was outrage over Curtis getting the appointment, but almost none over Cravens' self-serving maneuver.

Gov. Martinez said Cravens had served in the Senate with class. Sen. Carroll Leavell, R-Jal, told Cravens nobody was reading what the critics were writing about him. Feldman's bill for reform died as usual, never a threat to be approved.

The fact that Cravens was voting on redistricting laws and other bills in the special session, all the while knowing he was about to jump into a lobbyist's job, should have bothered everybody. But only Feldman and a handful of others cared enough to try to change the system.

The freshman class of '13 must lead on lobbyist reform. We already know that most of the veteran  lawmakers do not want to touch this issue.

These established legislators might want to be the next Kent Cravens.

Heaven forbid.

The case against term limits

Who needs them with this kind of turnover?

State Rep. Dennis Kintigh, one of the real gentlemen of the state Legislature, argued this year for term limits on state lawmakers.

Kintigh, of Roswell, watched his bill die a fast and decisive death. Then Kintigh lost his seat, beaten in the Republican primary by fellow state Rep. Bob Wooley.

Rep. Danice Picraux, D-Albuquerque, helped kill Kintigh's bill for term limits. Voters can impose term limits every two or four years on state representatives and state senators, Picraux said.

Or legislators can limit themselves, as Picraux did, by not seeking re-election.

Rep. Ken Martinez, D-Grants, says term limits are an ill-conceived idea for a simple reason. Power will exist somewhere in government. If term limits drive out experienced lawmakers, government employees or lobbyists will seize more authority in a Legislature without much institutional memory, Martinez said.

Labor Day means the campaign season goes into higher gear. Here is a summary of the legislators who will not be returning to their seats, regardless of what else happens in the November election.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces -- Giving up his seat to run for the state Senate.

David Chavez, R-Los Lunas -- Giving up his seat to run for the state Senate.

Eleanor Chavez, D-Albuquerque -- Lost in Senate primary.

David Doyle, R-Corrales -- Giving up his seat to run for the state Senate.

Thomas Garcia, D-Ocate -- Lost in Senate primary.

Joni Gutierrez, D-Las Cruces -- Did not seek re-election. She was elected Democratic national committeewoman.

Rhonda King, D-Stanley -- Did not seek re-election.

Dennis Kintigh, R-Roswell -- Defeated in House primary.

Antonio Lujan, D-Las Cruces -- Defeated in House primary.

Ben Lujan, D-Santa Fe -- The House speaker, right, did not seek re-election.

Bill O'Neill, D-Albuquerque -- Giving up his seat to run for the state Senate.

Al Park, D-Albuquerque -- Did not seek re-election. He lost in the primary election for Public Regulation Commission.

Danice Picraux, D-Albuquerque -- Did not seek re-election.

Shirley Tyler, R-Lovington -- Did not seek re-election.

Richard Vigil, D-Ribera -- Lost in House primary.

HOUSE SUMMARY -- Even before the general election, we know that at least 15 of the 70 members will be new in 2013.

SENATE

Rod Adair, R-Roswell -- Did not seek re-election.

Vernon Asbill, R-Carlsbad -- Did not seek re-election. He also has moved out of his Senate district.

Mark Boitano, R-Albuquerque -- Did not seek re-election.

Tim Eichenberg, D-Albuquerque -- Ran in primary, then dropped out of fall campaign.

Dede Feldman, D-Albuquerque -- Did not seek re-election.

Stephen Fischmann, D-Las Cruces -- Did not seek re-election.

Eric Griego, D-Albuquerque -- Did not seek re-election. Lost primary election for U.S. House of Representatives.

Clint Harden, R-Clovis -- Did not seek re-election.

Lynda Lovejoy, D-Crownpoint -- Lost in primary.

Cynthia Nava, D-Las Cruces -- Nava, right, did not seek re-election, ending her Senate career at 20 years.

Bernadette Sanchez, D-Albuquerque -- Did not seek re-election.

David Ulibarri, D-Grants -- Lost in primary.

SENATE SUMMARY -- Even before the November election, we know that at least 12 of the 42 members will be new in 2013.

616,000 who could vote aren't registered

New Mexico has about 1.2 million registered voters. More than 616,000 others are eligible to vote but are not registered.

Representatives of three nonpartisan groups today outlined their strategy to register more people before the November election.

Common Cause, the League of Women Voters and the Voter Participation Center said registration efforts in 15 targeted counties have the potential to reach 82 percent of the unregistered people.

Voter registration is a national failing as well as a problem in New Mexico.

Nationally, 48 percent of Hispanics and 37 percent of blacks are not registered to vote.

To be eligible to vote in November, New Mexico residents must register by Oct. 9

Court strikes down Texas voter law

Photo ID requirement unfair to low-income people, federal panel says

From The Associated Press

A federal court has ruled against a Texas law that would require voters to present photo IDs to election officials before being allowed to cast ballots in November.

A three-judge panel in Washington ruled today that the law imposes ‘‘strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor’’ and noted that racial minorities in Texas are more likely to live in poverty.

The decision involves an increasingly contentious political issue: a push, largely by Republican-controlled legislatures and governor’s offices, to impose strict identification requirements on voters.

The ruling comes in the same week that South Carolina’s strict photo ID law is on trial in front of another three-judge panel in the same federal courthouse.

IN NEW MEXICO

Two Republican legislators in New Mexico, Reps. Dianne Hamilton and Cathrynn Brown, have introduced a range of bills to require photo identification to vote.

Democrats have banded together to kill their legislation.

One argument by Democrats was that no photo-ID bill can adequately police absentee voting.

If an absentee ballot is mailed to a house with six people, who can say for certain which person filled it out?

Rep. Ken Martinez, D-Grants, right, says voter ID bills would set up two different standards -- a strict one for in-person voters, but little or no scrutiny for absentee voters.

Democrats say this makes no sense because voter fraud is more likely to occur in absentee ballots rather than by people who actually appear at polling places.

In addition, Democrats say the photo requirement would be a hardship for old people and poor people. Many older natives of New Mexico do not have birth certificates and no longer drive, they say.

Though the photo ID issue is certain to be revived in the New Mexico Legislature next year, it will have a fighting chance only if Republicans take control of both houses.

That is unlikely. Democrats hold a 28-14 advantage in the Senate heading into the November election.

The House of Representatives is much closer, Democrats controlling it 36-33-1. A Republican takeover of the House would allow Hamilton or Brown to advance her bill, but Senate Democrats probably would mobilize to stop it in their chamber.

Martinez tells of humble roots, big dreams

She sticks to bio in speech; Democrats will say she juiced a fact or two

Gov. Susana Martinez followed a tough act Wednesday night in former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice. But Martinez stuck to her by-the-bootstraps biography to connect Republican conventioneers.

Martinez, 53, told of growing up in a border town (never mentioning it was El Paso, Texas), and of the risk that her parents took in starting a security guard business with no savings.

"I guarded the parking lot at Catholic Church bingos," Martinez said of the company's start around 1977, when she was 18.

She also said she carried a .357 Magnum, a pistol that by Martinez's remembrance outweighed her.

And yes, she said, in a pointed jab at President Obama, her parents did build their business, growing it to 125 employees in three states.

Martinez also stressed that she was a Democrat in her formative years and until 1996, when she was 36 years old.

She had been an assistant district attorney in Las Cruces, specializing in child abuse and child death cases. Then, she said, her boss in the DA's office fired her, and she suddenly loomed as a potential challenger to him.

Recruiters for the GOP took her and her husband, Chuck Franco, to lunch. Martinez said she expected to have a free meal, be polite and move on. Something else happened.

After hearing their thoughts on taxes, size of government and personal responsibility, "I looked at Chuck and said, 'I'll be damned. We're Republicans."

Her story, though told many times in New Mexico, drew a rousing cheer from conventioneers who had never heard it.

Martinez's account of her start as governor in 2011 will earn her the most darts back home.

She told conventioneers she inherited "the largest structural deficit in state history," government jargon to be sure.

Democrats in the state Legislature have pointed out that, because New Mexico law requires balanced budgets, she inherited no deficit at all, only paper, pencil and legislators with whom to build a budget.

Indeed, state Sens. Howie Morales and Mary Jane Garcia, both Democrats from southern New Mexico, have said enormous budget cutting occurred before Martinez was ever a gubernatorial candidate. New Mexico legislators and Martinez's predecessor, Democrat Bill Richardson, chopped spending when the economy plummeted in 2008, they said.

Cutbacks were still a way of life in 2011, so Martinez and the Democrat-controlled Legislature held the line on spending through frugality. But Democrats have for 18 months objected to Martinez's claims that she wiped out a large deficit.

"Balanced budgets. We've always had balanced budgets," Garcia said earlier this year, when she criticized Martinez for claiming individual credit that Garcia said was undeserved.

But that inside story was not what conventioneers focused on. Martinez's personal story was more important and more powerful to them.

As for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, Martinez said he stands alone as the candidate who can revive the country's fortunes.

Martinez said her belief in Romney, the son of a Michigan governor, came despite their different cultural and economic backgrounds.

The Obama camp in New Mexico quickly criticized Martinez for her embrace of Romney as a candidate she believed in.

It sent out media coverage from earlier this year when Martinez questioned Romney's plan for "self-deportation" of illegal immigrants.

Obama's side quoted Martinez from an interview in May with The Daily Beast:

‘Self-deport?’ What the heck does that mean?’ Martinez snaps. ‘I have no doubt Hispanics have been alienated during this campaign. But now there’s an opportunity for Governor Romney to have a sincere conversation about what we can do and why.’ ”

Will Martinez be a difference-maker for Romney in the presidential election?

Probably not. Obama won New Mexico by 14 points in 2008 and is leading again.

But America saw a striver in Martinez. Democrats will also say they saw someone who revised history to make her record as a rookie chief executive look better to a national audience.

 
Via C-SPAN’s Video Library, you can watch Martinez's speech here:http://www.c-span.org/RNC/Events/Susana-Martinez-at-the-2012-Republican-Convention/C3731659/

Ron Paul casts quite a shadow

Even GOP staff gets the wrong Paul at convention

We received an unintentionally funny press release tonight from the media staff at the Republican National Convention.

It began this way:

The Hon. Ron Paul
U.S. Senator, Kentucky
 (Remarks as Prepared for Delivery)
August 29, 2012

Eighteen minutes later, the Republican staff resent the release with a corrected headline.

It said the Kentucky senator is, of course, Rand Paul, the son of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul.

Given the nervousness that Ron Paul caused Mitt Romney during the campaign, the slip was a 5 on the 10-level embarrassment scale.

In his speech, Rand Paul said President Obama's healthcare program is unconstitutional, no matter what the U.S. Supreme Court said.

"I think if James Madison himself -- the father of the Constitution -- were here today he would agree with me: The whole damn thing is still unconstitutional," Rand Paul said.

Rand Paul, right, is an ophthalmologist.

Real NM lobos in courtroom clash

   State spends $216,000 in 5 months to defend anti-trapping suit

MARTINEZ ADMINISTRATION VS. WILDEARTH GUARDIANS

The lobo lawsuit escalated to six figures in five months.

State wildlife managers spent more than $216,000 on outside attorneys in less than half a year to defend against a claim that they violated the federal Endangered Species Act relating to Mexican gray wolves.

This confrontation began when the New Mexico Game and Fish Department last year lifted a ban on trapping in southwestern New Mexico, where the federal government reintroduced the endangered wolves. It meant state lands again were open to potential adversaries of the rare wolves.

WildEarth Guardians sued the Game and Fish Department, alleging a state agency had created a system that could harm or kill wolves guaranteed protection by federal law.

The suit, filed in February in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque, named state Game and Fish Director James Lane and Game Commission Chairman Jim McClintic as defendants.

“No permit is necessary to trap skunks or coyotes. Wolves that should enjoy protection are in danger of being harmed or killed,” said Wendy Keefover of WildEarth Guardians.

Every death of a Mexican gray wolf is statistically significant, she said, because its population in the wilds of New Mexico and Arizona numbers no more than 42.

Lane, through a spokesman, said money the state is using to defend against the lawsuit came from fishing, hunting and trapping licenses. He declined to say anything else.

State records show that most of the money spent so far by the Game and Fish Department has gone to the law firm of Kelley Drye in Washington, D.C. It had received $199,801 through June, the end of the state government’s budget year.

Another $16,238 for the wolf case went to the Albuquerque law firm of Keleher & McLeod.

The suit is still being litigated, and seven agencies opposed to wolf reintroduction have intervened as defendants.

They include the New Mexico Council of Outfitters and Guides, the New Mexico Farm & Livestock Bureau and the New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association.

Caren Cowan, executive director of the cattle growers, said her group opposes the wolf as an unwanted and dangerous predator. She said she also resented WildEarth Guardians trying to create policies for the state.

“We need the ability to use our own lands,” Cowan said in an interview.

Keefover of WildEarth Guardians said federal protection for the wolf trumps the state trapping program. Her group maintains the wolf’s future is being threatened because of political maneuverings in New Mexico.

When Democrat Bill Richardson was governor, he issued an executive order prohibiting leg-hold and body-crushing traps within the Mexican gray wolf’s New Mexico recovery area. He said he wanted to protect the wolves as much as possible until their population grew.

Richardson’s order came in July 2010, six months before he left office.

Republican Susana Martinez succeeded Richardson. The Game and Fish Department, as part of her administration, rescinded Richardson’s trapping ban in July 2011.

It meant that trapping could occur year-round on lands where it had been prohibited. They included portions of the Wild Rivers Recreation Area of the Rio Grande, the Valle Vidal, Vermejo Ranch and the Valles Caldera National Preserve.

WildEarth Guardians is no happier with President Obama’s administration than it is with Martinez’s.

In 2010 the conservation group filed petitions with the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in hopes of receiving an emergency exclusion of trapping in the Mexican gray wolf’s range.

The Forest Service rejected the request and the Fish and Wildlife Service ignored it, Keefover said.

The wolf’s territory also extends into Arizona, where it is safer.

Trapping is outlawed on Arizona’s public lands. Voters, not politicians, made that decision in a public vote in 1994.

Cowan of the cattle growers association said the lawsuit amounted to little. Even the U.S. government describes Mexican gray wolves in the wild as a “nonessential experimental population,” she said.

Cowan also said the chances of wolves dying or being hurt in traps were small and had occurred infrequently since their reintroduction in New Mexico and Arizona in 1998.

A study by the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Department of the Interior found that 14 Mexican gray wolves were captured in foothold traps set by people other than Fish and Wildlife employees. Thirteen of the trappings occurred in New Mexico.

Two of the wolves died and two others were hurt severely enough that leg amputations were necessary.

The same study found that 37 wolves were illegally shot, 12 were hit by vehicles, 11 were “lethally removed” by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, one was shot legally by a member of the public, and one died from a trap injury that was part of government research operations.

Given the Mexican gray wolf’s minuscule population outside captivity, Keefover said, the species could vanish, especially with programs such as state trapping that allows for year-round, unlicensed operations.

New Mexico residents pay $20 for a license to trap furbearers. But, as Keefover pointed out, no license for state residents is needed to trap coyotes or skunks.

Nonresident trappers can buy a license for $345. They must be licenses for coyote and skunk trapping.

Politico says Wilson losing ad support

Report: national party to cancel buys because of Heinrich's lead

Politico, citing unidentified sources, reported tonight that Republican U.S. Senate candidate Heather Wilson would receive less advertising support from the national party.

Wilson, a former congresswoman from Albuquerque, is running against Democrat Martin Heinrich.

Heinrich, the sitting congressman in the Albuquerque-based 1st District, had a 7-point lead over Wilson, according to an internal poll released last week by his campaign.

The Politico story by Alexander Burns says, in part:

The National Republican Senatorial Committee is rolling back its investments in two battleground states and investing heavily in North Dakota, where the GOP is facing an unexpectedly difficult fight to pick up an open Senate seat.

Several strategists told POLITICO that the campaign arm of the Senate GOP will begin running ads in North Dakota starting Wednesday. The NRSC is booking $3.1 million in airtime there between tomorrow and Election Day, a committee source said.

The source said the NRSC is also canceling its ads in New Mexico, where Democrat Martin Heinrich, right, appears to be pulling ahead of Republican Heather Wilson, and Missouri, where Rep. Todd Akin’s comments about abortion and rape have damaged his campaign and caused national Republicans to flee the state.

Wilson served 10 years in the U.S. House of Representatives before trying for the Senate in 2008. Republican Rep. Steve Pearce defeated her in a primary, but lost the general election to Democrat Tom Udall by 20 points.

Wilson, 51, had a relatively easy time of getting the Republican nomination this year. Her camp often has called her race with Heinrich a dead heat, but the Politico account means that the national party views her as a dark horse.

Heinrich, 41, succeeded Wilson in Congress. He is an engineer who has been in politics since 2003, when he won a seat on the Albuquerque City Council.

If the national party is shifting it resources to North Dakota, Wilson's uphill climb has become steeper.

Brian Walsh, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told Politico it does not comment on advertising buys.

NM governor's big night just ahead

She was a district attorney in Las Cruces 2 years ago. Now Susana Martinez is on the Republican Party's biggest stage.

Susana Martinez, the first Hispanic female governor in American history, knows she is a symbol of change.

The country will know it too when Martinez speaks in primetime Wednesday at the Republican National Convention.

Martinez, 53, said she would not tailor her speech to Hispanics. That is because she says everybody, regardless of ethnicity, has the same aspirations — a job, opportunities to advance and good schools for their children.

Even so, Martinez said her biography brings with it “a huge responsibility” that is always on her mind.

Just before she was named a convention speaker, Martinez was in a restaurant when she attracted  the attention of three people far too young to vote.

“Two little boys and a little girl said, ‘That’s Susana Martinez.’ Then they asked for a picture. I know what I do as the first Hispanic female governor is paving a path,” Martinez said.

But, she said, nothing will be gained in the long term unless she performs well as a role model.
“I have to do it right. I have to do this job right,” she said.

Martinez grew up in El Paso, Texas, a stronghold for Democrats. And she was a Democrat at the beginning of her professional career as a prosecutor in Las Cruces.

But as she assessed her beliefs on issues such as taxes and the death penalty, she said she realized she was a Republican at heart.

As a newly registered Republican in 1996, she won the job of district attorney of Dona Ana County in an upset. Voters re-elected her three times.

Martinez ran for governor in 2010 while in the middle of a term as district attorney. She defeated Democrat Diane Denish, who had been lieutenant governor for eight years.

In confrontations with the Democrat-controlled Legislature, Martinez has lost many battles.

Legislators three times have stopped her initiative to repeal a 2003 law that enables illegal immigrants to obtain New Mexico drivers licenses.

Martinez also has failed in attempts to reinstate the death penalty (legislators outlawed it in 2009), and to require physicians to notify the parents of minor girls seeking abortions.

She has had a few notable successes too.

Martinez championed a bill that requires everybody arrested in New Mexico on suspicion of a felony to provide police with a DNA sample. She said the law will get violent criminals off the streets sooner and exonerate innocent people.

Martinez also succeeded in changing the way New Mexico’s 831 public schools are evaluated. All receive A-through-F letter grades now.

She said was humbled after being chosen as a speaker for the convention in Tampa. Under a revamped scheduled, Martinez is to appear after former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and before the vice presidential nominee, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan.

Her speech will begin about 8 p.m. Mountain Time, according to convention organizers.

Chris Christie's keynote clunker

NJ governor is easy to like, but his speech was sad, cynical

Christie says Democrats 'believe in teachers' unions. We believe in teachers.'

 

CHRIS CHRISTIE, a heavyweight politician with a bare-knuckles style, is a man many see as presidential timber in four or eight years.

He is funny, smart, likable and, at his worst, seething with cynicism. Christie, 49, was at his worst Tuesday night.

His keynote speech at the Republican National Convention was so contradictory, so over the top,  that it was worthy of John Belushi's character in "Animal House."

"Let’s be clear with the American people tonight. Here’s what we believe as Republicans and what they believe as Democrats," Christie said.

And then:

"Seniors are not selfish. They believe seniors will always put themselves ahead of their grandchildren.

"So they prey on their vulnerabilities and scare them with misinformation for the cynical purpose of winning the next election."

There you have it. Democrats, an evil monolith, want to exploit old people.

Christie had more pronouncements that proved his insincerity, something he claims is against his blunt personal style.

In Newark and Jersey City and Trenton and Asbury Park, he no doubt has met many fine Democrats and even more fine schoolteachers.

But in his speech, Christie portrayed a bunker arrangement on the schoolyards.

"They believe in pitting unions against teachers, educators against parents and lobbyists against children," Christie said.

"They believe in teachers' unions. We believe in teachers."

Hold on, governor. The other side revels in division between parents and teachers? To what end?

Also, sir, if the Democrats pit unions against teachers, who makes up the membership of those teachers' unions that the Democrats allegedly pay homage to?

It hardly gets worse or more simplistic than the level that Christie sunk to on education issues.

But in this very speech, Christie talked about teamwork and respect. Incongruous as it seems, he said:

"We are beginning to do what is right and what is necessary to make our country great again.

"We are demanding that our leaders stop tearing each other down, and work together to take action on the big things facing America."

Can you imagine what Christie's speech would have sounded like if he were ripping the other side instead of working with all for the good of a country?

His message was mixed and strange. Christie began the night by crediting Democrats, at least a bit, for his appearance on the grand GOP stage.

"A New Jersey Republican delivering the keynote address to our national convention, from a state with 700,000 more Democrats than Republicans. A New Jersey Republican stands before you. Proud of my party, proud of my state and proud of my country."

Proud he might be. Lucid he was not.