Carter Bundy
House Speaker Ben Luján has not only led, but he has done so with a serenity, grace and skill that is unmatched in New Mexico politics, and I daresay in political circles anywhere in America. It’s hard to put into words how much Speaker Luján has meant to working people throughout the state.
This year’s legislative session starts on a particularly sad and tragic note, but one that gives us time to reflect on the courage and strength of one of our greatest leaders: Labor’s true champion and hero in the New Mexico House of Representatives, Speaker Ben Luján, announced Tuesday that he has been quietly fighting lung cancer for the last few years, and that he is now at stage 4 and won’t run again.
It’s hard to put into words how much Speaker Luján has meant to working people throughout the state of New Mexico over the last four decades. He was himself an ironworker, and believes his cancer is a direct result of his years of exposure to asbestos. He put in long, hard, dangerous work for decades, and then turned around and decided to help shape our laws to protect everyone from building trades workers to manufacturing sector workers to educational employees to other public employees.
He not only believes in the missions that union workers — and all workers — carry out every day, but he believes deeply in giving those workers a path to America’s great middle class.
His battles have been our battles
His battles have been our battles, and our battles have been his battles. He was instrumental in guiding public sector collective bargaining through the House in 2003. He sponsored the bill, facing difficult opposition even within his own party at times, to raise our state minimum wage, which still sits above the federal level.
Speaker Luján ensured that corrections officers were treated with the same respect as other law enforcement personnel, played a key role in allowing child-care workers to have a voice in the regulations affecting them and thousands of children, and made health care more affordable for hundreds of thousands of New Mexicans, from state employees to low-income children to seniors.
He has successfully fought for prevailing wages, protected Little Davis-Bacon, killed right-to-work-for-less, and helped every kind of worker under the New Mexico sun year after year. He didn’t do it alone, of course. His tremendous staff, including (among many others) the supremely talented, bright, and calm Regis Pecos, and the friendliest, best-juggling, sharpest, hard-working administrative team led by Lisa Ortiz, played a key role.
That’s to say nothing of legislators and governors in both parties who have given him the support he needed to advance his vision of opportunity for all New Mexicans.
He didn’t just support regular working New Mexicans; he stuck his neck out time and time again and refused to back down on workers’ issues. He hasn’t just been a political leader; he has been a leader in the movement for basic human rights, civil rights, and social and economic justice. Not only has he led, but he has done so with a serenity, grace and skill that is unmatched in New Mexico politics, and I daresay in political circles anywhere in America.
Keep the Luján family in your prayers and thoughts
Please keep the whole Luján family, particularly his beautiful, courageous, charming, and loving wife Carmen, in your prayers and thoughts. If at all possible during this legislative session, come to the Roundhouse to let him know how much New Mexicans of all political stripes respect and admire his unrelenting efforts on behalf of New Mexico’s workers and families.
Bundy is the political and legislative director for AFSCME in New Mexico. The opinions in his column are personal and do not necessarily reflect any official AFSCME position. You can learn more about him by clicking here. Contact him at carterbundy@yahoo.com.