Jerry Ortiz y Pino (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
Democrats have used progressive activists for a long time, lieutenant governor candidate says — but electing him would help change that
Jerry Ortiz y Pino says progressives have been “used” by the Democratic Party in New Mexico for a long time.
“We do the work. We lick the stamps… and do the rest of the grunt work,” he said, adding that, after Democrats win elections, they “turn to the business at hand, which is imitating the Republican Party.”
“How many times do we have to have the ball kicked out from under us before we realize this team isn’t for us?” asked Ortiz y Pino, a Democrat who’s running for lieutenant governor.
He’s banking his entire candidacy on motivating the party’s progressive base to support him.
“This is a great opportunity for the progressive wing of the party to assert itself,” he said during a recent interview in Las Cruces.
There are six Democrats in the race. The others are former state Democratic Party Chairman Brian Colón, State Rep. Jose Campos of Santa Rosa, state Sen. Linda Lopez of Albuquerque, former Mid-Region Council of Governments Executive Director Lawrence Rael and Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano.
Colón and Rael established themselves as formidable candidates in October by posting impressive fundraising reports, and Campos put in $50,000 of his own money to keep himself a contender. Ortiz y Pino said he hopes Campos also attracts significant support.
“If the three of them are busy cutting up the centrist wing of the party and split that vote, I have a chance to win,” Ortiz y Pino said.
He’s raised between $50,000 and $60,000 thus far, and is making a strong fundraising push before the legislative session begins in mid-January – when he’ll be barred from raising funds for 30 days. Ortiz y Pino said he hopes raise about $200,000 for his race.
That would put him at only about 40 percent of the $500,000 he expects Colón and Rael to raise.
Ortiz y Pino doesn’t plan television ads, saying he’s instead focusing on a ground game and motivating new voters who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 to come out again in 2010. Ortiz y Pino noted that those same voters didn’t turn out in the October municipal election in Albuquerque, but said there wasn’t an obvious progressive candidate in that race.
“We’ve got to give them a reason to come out,” he said.
Focusing on six issues
With motivating progressives in mind, Ortiz y Pino is focusing on six issues:
• Ethics reform – Ortiz y Pino said he supports Think New Mexico’s proposal to ban campaign contributions from state contractors and lobbyists. He also supports the creation of a 5-7 member ethics commission, whose members would be appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate. And he favors the enactment of a whistleblower protection law.
“The Democratic Party has somehow gotten itself into this pay-to-play culture,” Ortiz y Pino said. “… We’ve got to change it.”
• Education – Ortiz y Pino wants to return the focus to a “varied curriculum” that includes more vocational education. Such education, he said, “has largely disappeared from our curriculum, and that was a huge mistake.”
“We don’t need No Child Left Behind testing to tell us education isn’t working when 50 percent of our students are dropping out,” he said.
He also wants to expand pre-Kindergarten and afterschool programs.
• Environment — Ortiz y Pino said the state must protect itself from the “assault” from the oil and gas, dairy and uranium industries on the state’s ability to enforce environmental regulations.
He said, regardless of what the oil and gas industry claims, that drilling is dropping in New Mexico not because of regulations, but because of “the glut of oil and gas drilling” around the nation.
• Economy – Instead of giving in to industries’ demands for less regulation, Ortiz y Pino said the state should focus its economic development efforts on building the renewable energy industry by investing perhaps as much as 20 percent of the state’s severance tax funds – roughly $3 billion – to build transmissions lines and storage facilities.
“We can become a leader nationally in alternative energy,” he said. “We’ve got to think forward with this.”
Ortiz y Pino also favors raising taxes on the wealthiest New Mexicans and enacting some “sin taxes.” He said fixing the state’s budget crisis next year will probably involve a mix of $300 million or more in tax increases and perhaps $300 million in budget cuts, though he’s hoping for more federal stimulus money to reduce the amount that must be cut.
• Universal health care – Ortiz y Pino wants the state to enact the N.M. Health Security Act – a proposal 15 years in the making that’s never had a hearing on the floor of the House or Senate.
The act would replace private insurance as the primary insurance for New Mexicans with a cooperative system in which people could choose their own doctors and benefits packages. Ortiz y Pino said the state would save billions of dollars over 10 years if it implemented the act. Insurance companies could still sell supplemental insurance.
The health-insurance industry opposes the act, but Ortiz y Pino said it’s time to tell the industry, “You guys have dropped the ball. You had your chance.”
Ortiz y Pino said he hopes pending federal reform will leave states with the ability to enact such a system.
• Gay marriage – Ortiz y Pino favors legalizing gay marriage.
“It’s just discriminatory to say you can’t get married,” Ortiz y Pino said.
Winning the progressive vote isn’t a given
Winning the progressive vote isn’t a given for Ortiz y Pino. Though he appears to be the favorite candidate of many die-hard progressives, Colón also enjoys a great deal of support from progressive activists.
“Brian is one of the most likeable persons in the world,” Ortiz y Pino said, but added that he’s “clearly Bill Richardson’s candidate in this race.” Ortiz y Pino said that “scares me.”
That’s because, though Richardson has been good on some issues like the death penalty and domestic partner benefits, he has also reduced taxes on the wealthy “so that we’re now upside down.”
“I don’t think this has been a progressive administration,” said Ortiz y Pino, who has also taken Richardson to task recently over his proposal to end double dipping but exempt current double dippers.
“With Brian, what you get is the Bill Richardson machinery for eight more years (as lieutenant governor), and then eight more years as governor,” Ortiz y Pino said.
Ortiz y Pino, by contrast, said he’ll be 76 when the 2018 election comes around, and won’t be running for governor. He said he’s not looking to the office of lieutenant governor as a stepping stone.
Ortiz y Pino had kind words for Rael, who he once worked for at the City of Albuquerque, but said the job of lieutenant governor isn’t the right fit for him.
“Lawrence is very good at what he does,” Ortiz y Pino said. “My concern is that he doesn’t have much vision about what he would do as lieutenant governor. He’ll get done what the governor wants done.”
“It’s the wrong job for his talent,” Ortiz y Pino said. “He probably would make a good governor, because it’s more of a management position.”
Ortiz y Pino said Rael also might make a good chief of staff for the next governor.
The only Democrat in the race for governor, Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, is nearly certain to win in November, Ortiz y Pino said, so the Democratic lieutenant governor primary is the real battle over what type of administration the next will be. And while Denish is good on some progressive issues, Ortiz y Pino said she has more of a “low-key, moderate style.”
“I think the safest thing for her is to have a running mate who’s not a clone of herself,” he said.