Manny Aragon, we hardly knew ye

The last time I saw Manny Aragon, we were at a backyard gathering of Democratic activists honoring women who’d stuck their necks out for the right reasons. It had been years since I’d seen him, and nothing was the same.

He sat a patio table with other guests in a corner so secluded that it took awhile before I even noticed him. His state Senate powerhouse days were long gone. His leadership of New Mexico Highlands University was but a lingering notch in the loss column. Federal corruption charges were upon him.

His friends — reportedly a dwindling lot — had told me he’d become reclusive. They worried about his health.

On that autumn day last fall, he looked much the same as always — minus the tailored suits, high-end cufflinks and protective entourage. We spoke only briefly as he left alone, just how-ya-doin’ talk. An unspoken sadness hung between us. I didn’t have the heart to follow him and see what kind of car he was driving these days.

With his plea in Albuquerque’s federal court Wednesday to one count of conspiracy and two counts of mail fraud, the loss column grew longer. And his enemies gained one weapon to wield against him.

Add convicted felon to a list of descriptors that already bulges with bully; tyrant; spiteful; erratic; dictator; iron-fisted; and king of the backroom, closed-door deal.

This one he had coming in spades. Gleaning taxpayer dollars from public projects that earned their funding through his legislative machinations was out-and-out criminal. No question. His long sojourn — through months of rumors that federal investigators were poking around, through submitting himself to a paparazzi-style perp walk, through finally taking his medicine and awaiting a fate that could mean more than five years in prison — hurt more than him.

It hurt every politician who tries to do the right thing. It hurt every voter who places their trust in the people they elect. It hurt the many, many people who once were able to call Aragon far more flattering words — hero, advocate, champion.

That’s the Manny I once knew and admired. The Manny I ended I up knowing proved himself as weak, devious and criminal as any other stereotypical, on-the-take, ethics-dodging politician.

Back in the day, when Aragon was president pro-tem of the Senate, nothing was as thrilling — and, yes, sometimes as exasperating — as watching him on a roll. Microphone in hand, he would tumble out stream-of-consciousness debate points more tightly wound than a Chimayo blanket.

As reporters, we thought it was great: Golden quotes in every utterance! And, as reporters, we fought to get one golden quote written down before the next one out-gleamed it. All too often, I ended up with pages of hastily scrawled half-sentences.

His passions on the Senate floor were devoted to people squashed at society’s margins. He fought to reduce the state’s abysmal waiting list for developmentally disabled people in need of services. He fought for gay rights, even when the vote tallies told more cautious legislators to stay silent.

He fought for Hispanic students, and their potential to become the state’s next leaders. He fought for people too poor to pay for necessary medications, much less the taxes New Mexico, at that time, levied on prescriptions.

He fought for people with mental illnesses, low-end jobs and terminal illnesses.

At times, he brought fellow legislators to shame for caring more about their own community’s pork projects than the lives of people without homes or hopes.

Up in the media gallery, I listened in wonder at his intellect and his speaking ability. For all I knew, when he was finished, when his points were made, he went behind closed doors to unleash his ruthlessness on whichever hapless legislator happened to cross him.

Once, during one of those classic end-of-session all-nighters, a House member denounced him from the floor, declaring that Aragon had threatened to kill all of the representative’s bills in retaliation for a single “no” vote on one of his own.

In the middle of that long night, I raced down to the Roundhouse basement, tracked down Aragon in a hallway, and related the incident.

In a fog of his ever-present cigarette smoke, he scowled at me and said, “Do I look like a threatening person?”

I was, quite frankly, too frightened to sputter out a response.

When he left the Senate to take over Highlands’ reins, I thought he’d found his niche. He could put his supreme budgetary knowledge to work and carry the university into a more abundant future. He could knock heads together and get rid of the deadwood that, let’s face it, plagues every higher-ed institution. He could put to work his ideals and claim deserved credit for lifting students beyond their northern New Mexico poverty and into shining careers.

Instead, he ruffled too many collegiate feathers, drew too many lawsuits, and, with a federal indictment staring him down, was forced to step away from what many considered his all-time dream job.

What happens now to the turreted adobe castle he built in the South Valley? (The same castle that features marble slabs he took from the Metro Courthouse construction, by the way.) What happens to the pursuit of grand dreams for New Mexicans who might otherwise have none?

Any more, the under-new-management Senate he left can barely agree on its own budget each session. The king-making happens on the Roundhouse’s fourth floor, where Gov. Bill Richardson can only reign for two more years, barring a bidding from Washington, D.C.

I’m not sure what I would have said to Manny had I followed him that evening. That I admired what he once was, sure, but that his baser intents left me saddened and dismayed?

He didn’t need to hear it from me. And I didn’t need to struggle for words of admiration for a man I no longer admired.