Many candidates to attend League of Women Voters forums, but not Richardson and Pearce

The League of Women Voters is holding two upcoming candidate forums in Las Cruces.

The first will be held on Oct. 17 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Munson Senior Center, 975 South Mesquite Street. The second will be held Oct. 25 at the same time and place.

Those who have confirmed they will attend the first forum include all 11 candidates for state representative seats in Doña Ana County, all four candidates for county commission seats, and the candidates for county sheriff and assessor. All magistrate judge candidates have confirmed except Judge Richard Silva, a Democrat, who has not yet responded. Probate Judge Alice Salcido, a Democrat, will attend. So will Al Kissling, the Democrat challenging U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M.

Those who will not be attending are Republican probate judge candidate Patrick Curran, who will be out of town, and Pearce, who declined an invitation, the League of Women Voters said.

Attending the second forum will be all candidates for district judgeships, Public Regulation Commission and Public Education Commission seats and the candidates for land commissioner and attorney general.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., has indicated that he will try to attend. All other candidates for statewide races have not yet responded, with the exception of Gov. Bill Richardson, who declined an invitation.

Richardson, you see, doesn’t plan to appear in the same place as his Republican challenger, John Dendahl, anytime before the Nov. 7 election. Pearce gave his token appearance with Kissling in August, but doesn’t plan to do it again.

Though Pearce’s action is egregious, Richardson’s is worse. At least Pearce made one appearance with Kissling. I’m still working on getting my hands on video of that candidate forum so I can publish it on this site.

There has been no such forum in the gubernatorial race, because Richardson won’t allow it.

Because Richardson has still not agreed to a live, televised debate, here is a column Dendahl wrote on a Richardson proposal to change the capital outlay process in New Mexico, taken from Dendahl’s Web site. It was published in the Albuquerque Journal on Dec. 26, 2003.

‘Reform’ Could Be a Grab for Pork

By John Dendahl

“Sooo-eee, sooo-eee! Gov. Bill Richardson is after the pork!

“More on that shortly, along with a suggestion to look to the state constitution, but first some back-ground.

“Very shortly after last year’s general election, Richardson claimed a mandate. It wasn’t long before his handpicked party chairman, James Koch, let Democrat legislators know they would do Richardson’s bidding — or be squashed like bugs.

“Richardson’s claim of a mandate was and remains dubious. Despite an impressive margin of victory, he brought not a single candidate from his party into office riding on the broad coattails of a winner with a mandate. Richardson’s coat had no tails.

“Nonetheless, the $10 million spent on his campaign, and the huge agglomeration of press secretaries and other flacks in his administration — many from the ranks of New Mexico news media — were apparently enough to make even the toughest Democrat legislators come to heel.

“Before becoming speaker of the House, Rep. Ben Luján, D-Santa Fe, was a political enforcer for his predecessor. Luján spent eight years making sure personal income tax reforms proposed by Republican Gov. Gary Johnson were dead on arrival at the Legislature. However, when Johnson’s tax reform was proposed by Richardson, Luján marched at the head of the parade as the sponsor of the bill!

“Unfortunately for New Mexico, nearly all the tax reform was deferred well into the future, long after Richardson had taken his bows as a Democrat governor who ‘cut taxes.’ One can speculate it will be Luján, again, who will lead the way to rescinding the tax cuts.

“That will likely happen in another year or so, when it will be said the state can’t afford the revenue hit, because there won’t be another permanent-fund-raid rabbit to pull out of the hat to finance rapidly growing state expenditures Richardson and the Legislature refuse to rein in.

“Richardson’s other legislative priorities similarly sailed through with little or no visible opposition from the Democrat majority. We now have, for example, a Cabinet member responsible for much of the public education monopoly, just as Johnson long proposed to the deaf ears of Democrats in the Legislature.

“Now the pork. Under an arguably unconstitutional gentlemen’s agreement, state money available for public works projects — capital outlay — has been divvied up in thirds, one each for distribution by the House of Representatives, the Senate and the governor. Money is then allocated to projects in individual members’ districts by a byzantine combination of power, negotiation and even occasional statesmanship. It’s known as The Christmas Tree bill.

“The results have little or nothing to do with a rational ranking of needs throughout the state. What they reflect much more closely is individual politicians’ needs to be seen as ‘rain-makers’ by special interests in their districts or elsewhere — public schools and university constituencies being common examples.

“As with his embrace of Johnson’s tax reform, Richardson now echoes past criticism of this arbitrary and dysfunctional capital outlay process. He says he wants to deep-six the process of thirds and subject capital outlay decisions to a more rigorous ranking of the state’s needs.

“His proposal could be accepted less skeptically if Richardson weren’t so transparently inclined to brute power.

“What makes even better sense is a provision al-ready in the constitution but ignored. Section 16 of Article IV prohibits any money bill, except general appropriations, from including more than one subject. The definition of ‘general appropriation’ does not include capital outlay.

“Separate bills for capital outlays would assure participation by the governor, because each would require his signature. Frantic horse trading for votes would be an inevitable, possibly unattractive result of separate capital outlay bills, but that’s in the nature of lawmaking in a republic. At least the process would be pried out of the closets of bosses like Luján, and not just transferred to another boss like Richardson.

“Absent a legal challenge, it seems inconceivable Richardson and the Legislature would subject capital outlay decisions to this constitutional process. The abominable record of state Supreme Court decisions on legislators’ usurpation makes a constitutional challenge unpromising.

“Parceling out pork will likely continue as an insiders’ game played in the closets of the state Capitol.”