I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Judging from the Independent’s coverage of the current legislative session in Santa Fe, New Mexico state government hasn’t changed all that much since I watched the lawmakers up close almost 25 years ago. It’s still their government, not ours.
In the mid-1980s they were a fraternity — elected representatives from both parties, lobbyists and (sad to say) many in the press. I watched them get along famously at the Capital and the Bull Ring, a saloon footsteps from the Roundhouse.
These insiders frequently talked about the public, sometimes served it, but didn’t consort with it much. The joy of clubs, after all, lies largely in the excluding.
Over drinks they dealt with the problems of business — oil and gas, coal, agriculture, public utilities and liquor mostly; health care wasn’t industrialized yet. Ideological talk was rare; the focus was on contributions and jobs for the wife’s cousin.
The club intersected with the venerable patron system. (You didn’t have to be Hispanic, of course, to be a patron.)
This culture respected serious drinking and was unselfconsciously sexist. A few credentialed women in the executive exercised power, but uppity female legislators saw their bills shelved.
These memories came rushing back as I read NMI stories (and joyful commentary by Tracy Dingmann) on Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones, R-Albuquerque -– she who dared webcast her committee meetings. The leadership’s shock at her bad manners in inviting outsiders to watch them do the public’s business is so 1985.
It’s poetic justice that a woman upset their apple cart.
The fraternity also came to mind with Albuquerque Journal columnist Thomas J. Cole’s front-page revelation Feb. 4 that lobbyist Robert Rivera –- reportedly delinquent in state taxes by $210,000 – hangs his hat nonetheless in House Speaker Ben Lujan’s office.
Nothing, however, brings back the old days more pungently than the federal investigation into pay-to-play so excellently reported by the Albuquerque Journal and this online publication.
The long list of coincidences (if that’s the word) in state contracts and contributions to Bill Richardson PACs argues that state government remains a club, a Southwestern counterpart to Yale’s Skull-and-Bones, whose dark nichos and crannies may hide secrets ranging from innocent hi-jinks to criminal conspiracies.
Will it ever change? Well, sunshine is a corrective and, thanks to Arnold-Jones’ defiance, there’s some progress — the House voted unanimously for audio webcasting of its proceedings.
More urgently, New Mexico needs campaign finance laws like those proposed by Rep. Al Park, D-Albuquerque, and backed by Lt. Governor Diane Denish. That our current patron, the governor, has failed to grab and run with the football of election reform is puzzling.
The State needs ethics rules, too, and an enforcement mechanism.
The Independent speculated that several new progressive lawmakers might change what happens in Santa Fe. Don’t hold your breath. Not, that is, until Senate Democrats elect, for example, a Cisco McSorley or Dede Feldman to lead them.
A full-time, well-paid Legislature would foster change, too, by attracting a wider spectrum of candidates, out of which might arise a better class of lawmaker and, ultimately, dilution of the club.
The press, meanwhile, needs to keep the heat on, remembering to focus on the johns (corrupt businesses) as well as prostitutes (corrupt officials).
The Bull Ring no longer sits alongside the Roundhouse so the club must have moved. Its demise, though, is a rumor.
