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

Alamogordo Democrat running for Congress

Leslie Endean-Singh is a lawyer and medical office manager

Leslie Endean-Singh, an attorney from Alamogordo, will announce Thursday that she is running for Congress in New Mexico’s 2nd District.

Endean-Singh is a Democrat who hopes to run against the incumbent, Republican Rep. Steve Pearce of Hobbs.

Endean-Singh, 69, said she has been a prosecutor, a Children’s Court attorney for the state government, a public defender and a magistrate judge.

In addition, she said in a statement, she has been a longtime medical office manager.

She said she would bring a businesswoman’s perspective to Congress, helping to create jobs and assisting workers and businesses with the Affordable Care Act.

Endean-Singh said she would formally declare her candidacy in Las Cruces, largest city in the 2nd District and one with a substantial base of Democrats.

Did judge taint rape trial?

State Supreme Court hears arguments on shield law

 

New Mexico’s Supreme Court took up the question Wednesday of whether a judge misused the state’s shield law for rape victims,  preventing a young man from receiving a fair trial.

The defendant, Vincent J. Montoya, claims a state district judge improperly shut down cross-examination that would have given jurors a clear understanding that he had a two-year sexual relationship with the girl he was charged with assaulting.

Montoya was 17 and his girlfriend 15 when she said he attacked her and pinned her down in a bedroom against her will.

Tried as an adult, Montoya was convicted by a Bernalillo County jury in 2010 of kidnapping the girl. Jurors acquitted him of attempted criminal penetration after the girl said he did not intend to rape her.

Jacqueline Medina, an assistant attorney general, argued before the Supreme Court that Montoya’s conviction should stand. She said his constitutional right to confront his accuser was not violated by the shield law or the judge’s application of it.

The five justices questioned Medina at length about her stand. They asked if jurors had received an incomplete account of the case because the trial judge, M. Monica Zamora, used the shield law to stop defense lawyers from asking key questions.

Will O’Connell, a public defender representing Montoya, said the judge prevented jurors from learning that Montoya had a long sexual history with the girl and that it included “makeup sex” after arguments.

Justice Charles Daniels said these claims seemed central to Montoya’s defense and could have been presented to the jury for its consideration.

Medina told Daniels that the couple’s sexual history was not so important as Montoya’s conduct on the night of the attack.

“What happened was like nothing before,” Medina said.

She said Montoya became violent with the girl, breaking the zipper on her pants as he pressured her for sex and she resisted. Montoya also grabbed the girl’s cellphone and threw it to the floor when she attempted to call her mother for help.

After he let her out of the bedroom, the girl said, Montoya pushed her over a table, causing her to fall and injure her back and head.

Montoya did not testify at his trial, exercising his constitutional right to stay silent. O’Connell said Judge Zamora’s rulings blocked the defense from eliciting details about the makeup sex that would have given a different context to the confrontation between two teenagers in a long  relationship.

Justice Richard Bosson, right, asked Medina if it was fair to keep those details from the jury. If Montoya had had a history of violence with the girl, prosecutors would have wanted jurors to know about it and they would have fought to get it into the record. Why should they not have known about the sexual history? Bosson asked.

New Mexico has had a shield law for rape victims since 1975. O’Connell said the statute was flexible, allowing for relevant questioning but setting boundaries to make sure victims are not badgered or intimidated during court proceedings.

But in Montoya’s trial, he said, Judge Zamora misapplied the law to restrict the jury’s basic knowledge of the case.

State records show that Montoya, now 24, is on parole for his crimes against the victim. In addition to kidnapping, jurors convicted him of aggravated battery and interference with communications for taking the victim’s cellphone. She is now a woman of 22.

The Supreme Court usually takes at least a few months to decide cases such as Montoya’s.

John Arthur's idea for school reform

Senator suggests one cabinet secretary for all of education

State Sen. John Arthur Smith says New Mexico would be better served with one cabinet secretary administering K-through-12 schools and colleges and universities.

Currently, the state has a secretary-designate of public schools in Hanna Skandera, and a secretary of higher education, Jose Z. Garcia, right.

Smith, D-Deming, on Tuesday said the system wouldwork better with one leader designated for the entire education system.

Too many college students need remedial courses, Smith said in an interview. The state education system should be seamless in producing high school graduates who are ready for college-level work, he said.

But would a structural change in which one executive was responsible for all schools translate to  improved student achievement?

Nobody knows. New Mexico's system of splitting education administration has been in place throughout Smith's 25 years as a senator.

Smith says the state's economic struggles are tied to lack of achievement by students and low expectations by schools. He said he was willing on that basis to recommend a new structure.

Stuck in the recession

Cabinet secretary says state's economy has not bounced back

The economy has improved in much of the country, but not in New Mexico, a state executive told legislators on Tuesday.

“We really have not come off the bottom of this recession,” said Tom Clifford, cabinet secretary of the Department of Finance and Administration.

He was among a half-dozen state officials who briefed the Legislature’s interim committee on revenue and tax policy.

Clifford even sounded a cautionary tone when discussing the oil industry, a beacon of success during dark times for much of the state.

He said oil exploration typically is cyclical, marked by ups and downs. An abiding concern is that the oil boom, which has created a strong economy in southeastern New Mexico and bolstered state tax revenues, could end, he said.

Clifford said state government itself had recovered to a large extent since the worst of the five-year recession.

This year’s state budget of $5.88 billion is almost as large as the one of five years ago. Even more encouraging, general fund reserves have been rebuilt to more than 10 percent, he said.

He said diversifying the state’s job base was one goal of Gov. Susana Martinez’s administration.

Clifford told legislators that manufacturing, not a strong element in New Mexico, was a sector to build on. A renaissance in U.S. manufacturing is occurring, and New Mexico has a chance to join in it, he said.

Demesia Padilla, secretary of taxation and revenue, said in a separate presentation to the committee that she was optimistic because of a new law cutting the corporate tax rate to make New Mexico more competitive with the rest of the region.

The state will lower the rate from 7.6 percent to 5.9 percent across five years, starting in 2014. New Mexico’s existing rate was the highest among neighboring states and above the national average of 6.4 percent.

Martinez pushed hard for the tax reform during the last hours of this year’s legislative session, saying it would lead to job growth.

Clifford said some of New Mexico’s economic problems were historical, not of recent making and not attributable to the national recession.

“We really have continued to lag behind the national economy, and that has not changed for 25 years,” he said.

State Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, said the state’s struggling economy was rooted in an underachieving school system.

He said his home county of Luna has an unemployment rate of more than 20 percent, yet he sees companies advertising for workers. Smith said the workforce coming out of public schools and colleges simply was not be skilled enough to fill certain jobs.

“I don’t think we have high expectations in our schools. We do in some, not all,” Smith said afterward.

Like his one-time political opponent, Republican Congressman Steve Pearce of Hobbs, Smith also questioned the work ethic of some residents in southern New Mexico.

“Anybody who really wants to work can find a job,” Smith said in an interview after the hearing.
He told the committee that New Mexico had a deficiency that hurts it nationally: “We’re perceived as a welfare state and an entitlement state.”

Las Cruces says its population tops 100,000

Mayor hails new estimate as sign of good economy

By its own count, the city of Las Cruces has broken the 100,000 population mark.

This estimate was based on building permits for housing units.

"The milestone was reached between July 1, 2012, when the population estimate was 99,665 and April 1, when the population estimate was 100,984," the city said in a statement.

Mayor Ken Miyagishima said cracking 100,000 residents was "tremendously important news for us as a community. It signals a continued healthy economy, and proves Las Cruces remains a desirable place to live, work, play and retire."

If the estimate is correct, Las Cruces would be second city in New Mexico with a population of at least 100,000. Albuquerque's estimated population by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2011 was almost 553,000.

Maestas likely to skip governor's race

State representative would have to give up his seat to run for top job

State Rep. Antonio Maestas said Monday he is unlikely to run for governor, even though he considers incumbent Republican Susana Martinez to be vulnerable.

Maestas, D-Albuquerque, said in an interview that he was "still mulling" a run for the state's top office in 2014, but the odds were against it because he would have to relinquish his seat in the House of Representatives.

"It's something worth considering. But at this point, I'm contributing to the House," said Maestas, right.

House members have two-year terms, meaning Maestas could not keep his seat if he entered the 2014 governor's race.

In contrast, state senators have four-year terms. All of them will be in the middle of their terms when the race for governor occurs.

Maestas said this gives them a built-in advantage over him. Any senator who runs for governor and loses will still have a seat in the Legislature.

State Sen. Linda Lopez, D-Albuquerque, already has announced that she is running for governor. Fellow Democratic senators Howie Morales of Silver City and Timothy Keller of Albuquerque also say they are considering gubernatorial campaigns.

"I've gotten a very positive response, but I don't have a decision yet," Morales said Monday.

Maestas said running for governor was tempting because Martinez is vulnerable.

"I'd love to debate the governor on her economic record and her lack of accomplishments," he said.

Maestas said he had not talked with Lopez or Morales about the governor's race, but he had spoken with Keller a few times.

"Keller wants to do it. I understand that. Whoever wins the Democratic Party nomination is going to be the next governor," Maestas said.

Maestas, 44, recently got married and has a private law practice.

A former prosecutor in Bernalillo County, he has been a House member for seven years and made a mark with crime and justice bills.

Working single-handedly, Maestas in 2012 got through a bill to remove the state public defender's staff from the governor's control.

Voters then approved his idea for a stand-alone public defender office as a constitutional amendment. Legislators passed the enabling law this year.

Also in 2013,  Maestas sponsored a bill to increase state tax rebates for producers who shoot television series in New Mexico.

Martinez initally vetoed his bill, but she signed it after it was revived and packaged with a measure to reduce the state's corporate tax rate, one of her legislative priorities.

Shifting gears across America

More states issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants

Gone are the days when New Mexico and Washington were the only states to issue driver’s licenses to immigrants in the country illegally.

This week, the governors of Oregon and Maryland signed bills that will allow state residents without proof of immigration status to obtain driver’s licenses. Illinois authorized a driver’s license law for illegal immigrants earlier this year.

Colorado legislators on Wednesday approved a similar bill, though no Republicans voted for it. Colorado’s governor, Democrat John Hickenlooper, has not said whether he will sign the bill into law.

Rhode Island, Connecticut and Washington, D.C., are considering expanding their driver’s license laws to include those without proof of immigration status.

Until the wave of recent changes, New Mexico and Washington state stood alone by granting driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. Utah issues driving privilege cards to people without documentation of immigration status.

Unlike the driver’s licenses issued in New Mexico, Utah privilege cards are not supposed to be used as identification to board an airplane or to gain access to a secure government building, such as a federal courthouse.

The laws in New Mexico and Washington state have been controversial in the last couple of years, generating repeal attempts.

State Rep. Paul Pacheco, R-Albuquerque, predicted that his repeal bill would clear the Legislature last winter. He pushed it with the backing of Republican Gov. Susana Martinez, but it did not win approval in either the House of Representatives or the Senate.

Pacheco, right, called his bill a compromise because it would have allowed for younger immigrants with a designated lawful presence in America to obtain temporary driver’s licenses. Many Democrats, led by Rep. Miguel Garcia of Albuquerque and House Speaker Ken Martinez of Grants, fought hard to block Pacheco’s bill in favor of keeping the existing licensing law.

New Mexico Sen. Pete Campos, D-Las Vegas, introduced a bill to counter Pacheco’s. It would have provided two-year licenses to foreign nationals without proof of immigration status. Many New Mexico licenses are good for four or eight years.

But when Pacheco’s bill was bottled up by House committees, Campos did not press for his proposal to receive hearings. In the end, both bills died.

So did a proposal by Sen. Stuart Ingle, R-Portales, that was similar to what Pacheco proposed.

New Mexico since 2003 has licensed illegal immigrants who have proof of state residency.

The Rev. Holly Beaumont of Interfaith Worker Justice-New Mexico said the law has worked well, helping people drive to their jobs, support their families and pay their taxes. No change is necessary, she said.

Gov. Martinez disagrees. She described the licensing law as dangerous and said it invited fraud because illegal immigrants living elsewhere try to obtain New Mexico licenses.

Of late, many politicians in other states have adopted a stand similar to that of state Rep. Antonio Maestas, D-Albuquerque. Maestas says that granting driver’s licenses to those without documentation of immigration status actually improves public safety.

People with driver’s licenses have to pass tests demonstrating they know the rules of the road, and they are listed in police databases,  said Maestas, right.

In Oregon, no proof of immigration status was required to get a driver’s license until 2008. Many Oregon lawmakers said illegal immigrants began driving without auto insurance after that. They could not get insurance without a driver’s license.

Most Oregon legislators decided the roads would be safer with licensed motorists who pass driving tests and can buy auto insurance.

Six Republicans joined Democrats in the Oregon Senate in voting for the driver’s license law, enabling it to pass with ease, 20-7. One Republican senator even cosponsored the bill.

The Oregon law provides for licenses good for four years, but it contains restrictions preventing them from being used as identification to board a plane.

Even so, the law remains controversial. Two Republican legislators say they will petition for a ballot issue in hopes that Oregon voters would  overturn it.

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley last week signed a licensing law similar to Oregon’s. Numerous Republican legislators in Maryland fought the measure, saying it merely created an incentive for illegal immigrants to come to the state.

New Mexico state Rep. Candy Spence Ezzell, R-Roswell, has been among the leading critics of licensing illegal immigrants.

She said the system had not increased the number of insured motorists, and she feared that the law would devalue New Mexico licenses to the point that they will not be considered valid identification. Ezzell said she feared that someday New Mexico residents would need a passport to board a plane for domestic flights.

Marcela Diaz, executive director of the immigrant group Somos Un Pueblo Unido, said the fact that more states are licensing undocumented immigrants was recognition of their importance to the business world.

Diaz says immigrants are critical to numerous New Mexico industries, including dairy and chile farms and oil and gas exploration.

“Washington and New Mexico opened the way for other states to look at this issue in a more pragmatic way,” she said.

But Demesia Padilla, Gov. Martinez’s cabinet secretary overseeing the state Motor Vehicle Division, told legislators that fraud was rampant because of the driver’s license law.

Padilla said con artists forge documents in hopes of convincing workers in MVD field offices that they live in New Mexico. She says the law creates burdens on her staff and and combating fraud is time consuming.

Supreme Court rules for Las Cruces

In 5-0 decision, it rejects piracy claim by Moongate Water Co.

The state Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the city of Las Cruces did not unlawfully take away business from a private water company.

In a 5-0 ruling, the court rejected Moongate Water Co.’s claims that the city stole its customer base and that it deserved compensation for projected losses.

The court found that Moongate did not have a right to provide water within a designated area to the exclusion of Las Cruces. It also ruled that Moongate was not entitled to compensation from the city for a possible loss of customers.

“... On the record before us, Moongate has not proven that it had established infrastructure and was already serving customers in the annexed area. Absent such proof of a tangible loss, a public utility is not entitled to just compensation when a municipality lawfully exercises its right to serve in the public utility’s certificated area,” Justice Edward L. Chavez, right, wrote for the court.

Moongate initially won the case before then-District Judge Robert E. Robles of Dona Ana County. The state Court of Appeals reversed Robles’ decision. With Thursday’s ruling, the Supreme Court affirmed the appeals court’s decision.

In arguments before the Supreme Court last December, Moongate attorney Steven Tucker said the company served thirsty parts of the desert when nobody else would.

Tucker conceded that Las Cruces did not take the water company’s pumps or pipes or even any of its existing customers. But when the city annexed three subdivisions that were in Moongate’s service territory, the company lost something just as important — the opportunity for more business, Tucker said.

Moongate calculated a loss of $3 million in potential customers to which it claimed an exclusive right. The subdivisions taken in by the city were Dos Suenos, Los Enamorados and Rincon Mesa.

Tom Bird, an attorney who represented Las Cruces before the Supreme Court, argued that the Legislature intended that there be competition in cities for water service. Las Cruces, with about 100,000 people, is not a place where a regulated utility gets a monopoly on the marketplace, he said.

Bird hammered at the point that Moongate could show no actual losses, but sued when the city became a competitor for new business.

The Supreme Court’s decision probably will end a case that had been in litigation for more than six years.

A morning with Lonesome Dave

Former governor Cargo is a Lincoln Republican to the end

THE COLUMN

David Cargo was a 28-year-old lawyer when he moved to New Mexico in 1957. Nine years later, the state's voters elected him governor.

His was an ascent of stunning speed. Cargo was so young, bright and driven that he never listened to people who said he should wait his turn, that he could not win the highest office in his adopted state until he was more seasoned.

At the State Capitol, legislators and lobbyists nicknamed Gov. Cargo “Lonesome Dave.” He went his own way, and he defied political convention.

Cargo, now 84, is a Republican, but he insists on being more specific than that.

“I believed in civil rights. I was a Lincoln Republican,” he said one day this week, sitting in a wheelchair in the nursing home where he lives.

Then he condensed his political philosophy into two sentences: “Stand up for what you believe in. I believe in honest government, sound budgeting and civil rights.”

Cargo was governor from 1967-70, a pair of two-year terms that saw him leave a lasting imprint on New Mexico.

His administration was the catalyst for clean-air and clean-water acts. Cargo created statewide kindergartens. He started the state film office to recruit moviemakers to New Mexico.

He demonstrated that a fiscal conservative could have an abiding commitment to conservation, and that both stands were good for business.

Cargo could be a bridge-builder and a political maverick, sometimes in the same day. But there is no question that he was a fulltime extrovert. A champion of the film industry, Cargo had parts in 22 movies.

“Some of them were pretty bad. Oh, God, they were awful,” he said.

He played a newspaper reporter in “The Good Guys and the Bad Guys,” a cavalry corporal in a frontier Western called “The Gatling Gun” and a  state trooper in “Bunny O'Hare.” Filmmakers sometimes credited him as Gov. David Cargo. Bette Davis, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Mitchum and Martin Balsam were among the stars he worked with.

There was no acting in government service, and that was Cargo’s first calling.

He moved to Portland, Ore., in the mid-1980s, but returned to New Mexico after 14 months because Republicans needed a challenger to a seemingly invincible congressman, Democrat Bill Richardson.

That comeback might have been Cargo’s worst race. Richardson took 71 percent of the vote.

But Cargo nonetheless finished ahead of Richardson in one respect.

“I am the only governor since statehood to have his bust in the State Capitol,” Cargo said.

Legislators unanimously voted for the Cargo sculpture two years ago.

I walk by Cargo’s bronze bust most days. He was at the Capitol two summers ago, when it was placed in the rotunda during a public ceremony.

After learning that he was in a nursing home, I drove down to Albuquerque to see him.

He told me he still reads The New York Times everyday. Cargo himself still delivers quotes better than pearls.

“They used to tell me I wanted an idealistic world. I said, ‘Why not? I hope we do have an idealistic world.’ ”

In truth, Cargo always cared more about good government than he did about politics.

Through colleagues at his old law office in Albuquerque, Cargo became friends with U.S. Sen. Dennis Chavez. Those were simpler times, when party labels were not such obstacles. Cargo said Democrat Chavez helped him win his first elective office, a seat in the New Mexico House of Representatives, in 1962.

Chavez died that November, just after the election. “I sat next to Lyndon Johnson at the funeral,” Cargo said.

Cargo was the only Republican House member from Albuquerque in that era. He stood out by leading the way on reapportionment, a dull but critical topic. Harding County, with 542 people, had a far greater percentage of representatives in the Legislature than Bernalillo County did, a political calamity, Cargo said.

We might have talked all morning, but a nurse pushed her way into our midst to order me out of the nursing home. The governor’s family, she said, insisted that he give no interviews.

Cargo said this was nonsense, that the topic had never even come up. “You can’t censor me,” he said.

I left him with reluctance. Lonesome Dave should not be a nickname that means Cargo sits by himself.

During our conversation, it was clear that his famous optimism had faded.

“They bring you here to die, not to live,” Cargo said.

The lion at dusk, his legacy is secure. He grew up in Dowagiac, Mich., which he describes as between Pokagon and Cassopolis. He headed to New Mexico in a 1949 Ford, purchased for $50, and made a mark so deep that we still talk about him and write about him.

Cargo believed government’s job was to make the world better. He put his theory into practice, a lesson for us all.

PRC rejects electricity rate hike

Wholesale supplier to rural companies says it needs to recoup costs

For the second time in two months, the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission has denied an interim rate increase sought by a wholesale electricity supplier.

The commissioners voted 5-0 Wednesday against a rate increase for Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, which sells power to 12 rural electric cooperatives that serve thousands of customers in New Mexico.

Three of Tri-State’s customers — the electric companies of Continental Divide, Kit Carson and Springer — protested the higher rates. Under New Mexico law, objections by three or more cooperatives trigger the PRC’s authority to decide whether an electricity rate increase is justified.

Tri-State has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court challenging the statute that gives the PRC this power. But for the short term at least, the PRC’s ruling against Tri-State has force of law.

“Allowing for (higher) interim rates would increase the burden on customers before those rates have been determined to be reasonable” by a hearing examiner and the commission itself, PRC members said in their order denying Tri-State’s request.

Commissioner Patrick Lyons, R-Clovis, said Tri-State simply did not make its case for an increase. Moments later, the rest of the commission joined with Lyons, pictured above, in rejecting Tri-State’s proposal.

The PRC amplified on Lyons’ points in its written order, saying: “Tri-State also claims that interim rates will benefit the non-protesting cooperatives. It has presented no specific facts to support this claim.”

Lee Boughey, a spokesman for Tri-State, said he was disappointed in the PRC’s decision.

“We will review the commission's written order and then determine appropriate next steps,” Boughey said in an email.

Tri-State, he said, saw costs of service increase in the last year and needs a higher rate to recover its expenses.

“As a not-for-profit cooperative, Tri-State must pass its cost to serve to its members.

Based on average member wholesale rates, the 2013 cost of service results in an average 4.9 percent wholesale rate increase to Tri-State’s members,” Boughey said.

Tri-State’s clients across New Mexico include cooperatives headquartered in Deming, Cloudcroft and Elephant Butte.

PRC members first rejected Tri-State’s interim rate request in March. They reconsidered the proposal at Tri-State’s request.