Martinez, shown here outside her campaign office in Mesilla. (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
‘I have the reputation of being a fighter, and fighting corruption even when it may not appear to be the most popular thing at the time,’ GOP gubernatorial candidate says
In 2005, Doña Ana County was heading for a public-safety crisis. Callers to 911 suffered through long delays. Deputies, spread thin, feared being thrust into dangerous situations without backup. Registered sex offenders weren’t being properly tracked.
District Attorney Susana Martinez and Sheriff Todd Garrison, both Republicans, saw the crisis coming. They decided to publicly float what was an unpopular idea among some local party members.
“We need to increase public safety, and if that means a tax increase, then that’s what it means,” Martinez said in June 2005.
“I agree that a tax increase should be looked into,” Garrison added.
The three Democrats on the county commission were open to the idea. The two Republicans were not.
That changed one weekend three months later, when there were too few deputies available to respond to three incidents, including one in which a woman died at the hospital after having two seizures at her home just outside the Las Cruces city limits. Emergency medical personnel had repeatedly called for a deputy to help, but none was available.
County commissioners – Republicans and Democrats – voted unanimously soon thereafter in favor of a 1/8th percent increase in the gross receipts tax to boost funding for public safety – a proposal supported by Garrison and Martinez, who is now a Republican candidate for governor.
“That is the only time that I have supported a tax hike,” Martinez said in a recent interview, adding that she opposes tax increases “when government has been reckless in its spending and reckless in growing government.”
She makes no apologies for supporting the tax hike. People were dying, and officials could find no other way to increase funding for public safety.
Martinez faces three others in the Republican primary — state Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones, public relations professional Doug Turner and former state GOP Chairman Allen Weh. What sets her apart is her crime-fighting record, and she has staked her candidacy on it, talking about how ending corruption and increasing public safety will benefit the state in other areas, most notably economic development.
But the 2005 tax hike also reveals something about Martinez – she’s not afraid to make tough choices that could be politically unpopular.
Once a Democrat
Becoming a Republican is a decision that wasn’t popular at the time she did it, at least among most of the people she associated with.
Martinez’s parents were Democrats, so she became one as well. As a young prosecutor, she was a rising star in the local party. That changed in the 1990s.
She was already working in the district attorney’s office when Democrat Greg Valdez unseated Democrat Doug Driggers in 1992. The way Martinez tells the story, Valdez gave her a notice of termination after she told him that she’d been subpoenaed to testify at another employee’s grievance hearing.
Martinez sued for wrongful termination, and the state ended up settling with her for well over $100,000.
Around that time, two prominent Republicans initiated a conversation with Martinez and her husband, Chuck Franco, about political issues such as the death penalty, welfare and government growth.
Martinez and Franco realized they had more in common with Republicans than Democrats and decided to switch parties. Both ran for office in 1996. Martinez defeated Valdez, winning 59 percent of the vote, and Franco won a seat on the county’s magistrate court.
Martinez said she and Franco made the switch — though the only close Republican friend she had at the time advised against it if she wanted a political future in an overwhelmingly Democratic county — because “it was who we are, and we were going to be true to ourselves.”
Though many Democratic Party insiders may not like Martinez, Democratic crossover voters are largely responsible for keeping her in office into what is now her fourth term. Martinez has cited her history of winning crossover votes in campaign literature.
She said she’s been able to keep the seat because she stands up for what’s right even when it’s not popular.
“I have a record of leadership within this community,” she said. “I have the reputation of being a fighter, and fighting corruption even when it may not appear to be the most popular thing at the time.”
The corruption record
Martinez certainly has taken on public corruption, but her record of winning convictions is mixed.
Then-Clerk Ruben Ceballos was removed from office in 2003 after being convicted of five felonies for violating the state elections code — failing to file voter registrations in a timely manner, failing to notify voters of precinct changes, appointing unregistered voters as poll workers, unlawfully changing a polling place and failing to destroy unused absentee ballots.
Last month, former Sunland Park Municipal Judge Horacio Favela was sentenced to 18 months on probation after being convicted of falsely declaring himself a resident of Sunland Park in 2008 so he could run for judge, falsifying a document that declared him a qualified voter, and voting twice in the 2004 general election — once in El Paso, Texas and once in Doña Ana County. He also resigned from office.
Two other cases earned a lot of media attention but didn’t end in convictions. Former Magistrate Judge Reuben Galvan resigned in 2005 after being charged with rape and bribery. Martinez handed the case to a special prosecutor because of a conflict – Martinez’s office had been arguing cases in front of Galvan.
After two hung juries, the special prosecutor dismissed the case, but Martinez has still cited Galvan’s resignation as success.
In the last case, Miguel O. “Mike” Gonzales and his son, Michael Gonzales Jr., the owners of the Welcome Inn bar in Las Cruces, were indicted on racketeering charges in 1999. At the time, the elder Gonzales was the Mesilla marshal. Both were politically connected Democrats.
The Gonzaleses fought to get Martinez and her office disqualified from the case by alleging that past ties — including the fact that the younger Gonzales once worked with Martinez under Valdez — created a conflict. After years of appeals, the state Supreme Court disqualified Martinez and her office from prosecuting the case, saying, regardless of whether there was bad blood, that the prior relationships created at least a perceived conflict.
A special prosecutor dropped the charges in 2006. He said Martinez and her office had done a good job and that the case’s strength was not the issue.
Martinez said she doesn’t regret fighting for the right to prosecute to the Welcome Inn case, which was eventually dismissed because so much time had passed that witnesses had vanished. She contends there was no conflict. And she’s quick to point out that she tried to get the Attorney General’s Office to take over the case, but the AG said it didn’t have the resources for such a massive project.
Martinez cited voluntarily handing the Galvan case over to a special prosecutor as evidence that she “can recognize a conflict of interest” — and do the right thing when one exists.
A message that could resonate
As Martinez tries to persuade voters to make her the next governor, she said keeping corruption out of government is key to turning the economy around, holding the education system accountable and increasing public safety. That message may resonate with some New Mexicans, given the scandals that have plagued state government in recent years.
“I’m running for governor because New Mexico is in need of a strong, ethical leader,” Martinez said.
Transparency is a big part of that. Martinez said the state budget should be online. All legislative proceedings should be webcast live and archived. As someone who has lobbied the Legislature for tougher child abuse penalties and other changes in state law over the years, she knows how difficult it can be to travel from remote corners of the state to Santa Fe.
Her plan also includes accountability. As district attorney, Martinez has partnered with area schools to prosecute the most egregious cases of parents who don’t send their elementary-age students to school, and to force middle- and high-school students with high numbers of unexcused absences into a pre-prosecution program in an attempt to keep them out of the juvenile justice system.
Those students come to Martinez’s office for half of the day to be taught reading and math by two teachers who work there, then return to their schools for the other half of the day. If they ditch, officers pick them up and take them to school.
The effort has reduced absenteeism in area schools, Martinez said.
‘The time… is now’
Instead of operating with such transparency and accountability, Martinez said the current administration in Santa Fe has been plagued by corruption that includes “creating positions for political favors… and so the corruption continues even by the mere growth of unnecessary government.”
Martinez said that’s one reason she favors smaller government and less regulation.
As a prosecutor, Martinez has to make decisions based on evidence. The current administration in Santa Fe has done the opposite, she said, making decisions based on cronyism and corruption – and that has scared business away.
“If they think that there has to be some extra payment… before they can do business here, well, they can get an honest environment in other states,” Martinez said.
“The time for there to be positive and ethical leadership is now, because if we have four more years of the existing administration, we will find ourselves in a much worse situation,” she said.
This article has been updated to include information about the conviction of Favela.