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Photo by David Alire Garcia
LAS CRUCES — In the end, few would say Steve Pearce didn’t stand by his principles.
As the Republican congressman from southern New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District prepares to leave office and face an uncertain future, one thing that can be said about him is that he has consistently held to his right-wing values during his six years in office and his failed campaign this year to replace Pete Domenici in the Senate.
Many would say Pearce’s campaign went down in flames at least in part because of his refusal to budge. Conventional wisdom has it that a Republican has to be somewhat moderate to win statewide office in New Mexico, but Pearce didn’t move to the center during the general election campaign against Democrat Tom Udall and he lost by 23 points.
“I was surprised about that,” New Mexico State University government professor Jose Z. Garcia, a Democrat, said.
“I guess I would simply conclude that either Steve Pearce is not ready for the state of New Mexico as a whole, or the state of New Mexico as a whole is not yet ready for Steve Pearce, because if he really believes these things, then he’s out of step with the majority of voters in this state.”
Whatever the case, Pearce is about to be replaced in the House by Harry Teague, the first Democrat to hold the seat in 28 years. Whether someone wedded to right-wing values in a left-of-center state can come back after such a crushing defeat is unclear, but Pearce has already revealed his intention to run for public office again.
Pearce’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment for this article, but he has said elsewhere that he is considering running to become chairman of the state GOP in January, and many Republicans expect him to run.
And he has also said he will consider running for governor in 2010, and has told other Republicans that, if he becomes party chairman, he may have to step down from that position halfway through the two-year term to run for elected office in 2010.
Another option frequently mentioned for Pearce is running against Teague in two years to try to reclaim his House seat, then running for Senate again when Jeff Bingaman retires, which might happen in four years.
Ginny Robertson, a Las Cruces Republican who is active in the county party and has worked with Pearce on various issues, said she expects Pearce to run for state party chairman, adding she’s “thrilled that he has decided to continue his public service.”
“As we regroup and rebuild, I think he’s a great pick for GOP chairman,” she said. “I just think he is a great asset to our state and if we’re lucky enough to get him as chairman, oh, I’ll just be so pleased.”
Though many Republicans have complained about how the Pearce/Wilson primary divided the GOP, Robertson said Pearce “would be great in unifying the party” because of his “servant heart” and his ability to get past north/south rivalries in the state.
Garcia said he would advise Pearce against challenging Teague, “because 99 percent of all incumbents get re-elected and I’m not sure that people, certainly the 11 percent that Teague won by, would just be given right back to Pearce. Harry is a likable person, among other things, and if he doesn’t screw up it should be easy for him to win re-election.”
If Pearce wants to be governor, Garcia said, he’s going to have to “change his approach to political discourse,” talking less about big ideas about government and focusing on more pragmatic ways to solve New Mexico’s problems with tangible proposals.
Pearce opted to watch his Senate campaign crash and burn this year, rather than shift gears as Garcia suggested, so why would he change now? Garcia says he might not.
“I’m not sure he has it in him to make that kind of a transition, since in the public service we’ve seen so far from him, he never showed a lot of flexibility in his approach to politics,” Garcia said.
Pearce’s Record
Pearce spent much of his time in the U.S. House opposing tax increases and government spending, including one proposal to increase the number of Border Patrol agents, because he said the agency is fraught with waste.
He was often the lone member of the New Mexico delegation who refused to compromise, which meant he opposed a lot of proposals in Washington.
“I have done it time and time again in the New Mexico delegation, standing alone,” Pearce said during a primary debate against outgoing U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson, the more moderate of the GOP primary candidates, in Alamogordo in February.
Two of Pearce’s last acts in Congress were opposing the $700 billion financial bailout and later the $14 billion bailout for the American automobile industry — proposals that were loathed by the libertarian wing of the GOP. Pearce’s staunch opposition to government spending and taxes earned him the adoration of the libertarian-leaning Club for Growth, which spent hundreds of thousands of dollars this year promoting Pearce’s Senate campaign.
Opposing spending and taxes isn’t all that Pearce’s tenure in the House will be remembered for. He has been a strong supporter of the war in Iraq, even when the rest of the delegation expressed doubts, and he visited that country in February 2007 and again in September 2007 to report home on the situation there.
He’s advocated increased drilling as a way to help America become energy independent. He was an outspoken opponent of the expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program approved by Congress and the president last year, even as the rest of the delegation voted to approve it.
Pearce also broke with the delegation in voting in 2005 for the base realignment plan that included closing Cannon Air Force base. Cannon was later given a new mission and kept open. He has also been a vocal opponent of designating any areas in Doña Ana County — including the pristine Organ Mountains — as wilderness, breaking even with Domenici on a proposal to protect the mountain range.
He was an assistant Republican whip and is the outgoing ranking member on the House Natural Resources Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources. In 2007, he also tried to become vice-chairman of the Republican Conference, the fourth most powerful Republican position in the House, but was easily defeated by another member of his caucus.
Back home, Pearce got high marks for his relationships with his constituency.
Robertson, the Las Cruces Republican, said the congressman has been “easily accessible,” particularly when she took concerns related to her small business to him.
Garcia, the NMSU professor and political analyst, agreed.
“I do think that he will be remembered as having pretty good constituent services, and I think that the record will indicate that, at least in this county, he did reach out to Hispanics,” Garcia said.
