The Roundhouse in Santa Fe (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
It was a black day for the citizens of New Mexico when members of the House of Representatives voted to retain Ben Luján as speaker and rejected Joseph Cervantes’ bid for this office. Shamefully, the Democrats did not back Cervantes, and the Republicans shot themselves in the foot by not supporting him.
Under Luján’s tyrannical style of governing, many of those who oppose him find themselves stripped of their chairmanships and favorable committee assignments and relegated to the equivalent of Siberia in the Rounhouse. To get bills to committee and onto the legislative floor for action means pay to play, or at least making a deal – no matter how much it costs or how damaging it is to the citizens of this state.
Andy Nuñez and Joseph Cervantes are two good examples (here and here) of challenging the speaker and getting brutally punished. In the end, their constituents pay the price, and those who bend to the speaker’s will, no matter how corrupt or costly, will be his chosen ones.
Ben Luján’s unethical behavior as an elected official appears frequently on the front pages of newpapers in Albuquerque and Santa Fe. He attempted to stop legislation that would have provided oversight of funding to housing authorities, aided and abetted by his stooges in the House. He has defended his cronies engaged in allegedly corrupt and illegal practices in spite of audits that uncovered their fraudulent activities.
His fury and punitive temperament are feared by elected officials who are so intimidated they dare not speak out against him for fear of not getting their legislation passed. This, in turn, denies their constituents projects in their districts and makes them vulnerable to defeat in the next election. So they go along to get along, fearing to challenge this cancer in our legislative system.
When Joseph Cervantes challenged the speaker previously, he and those who joined in the coup de tat lost their chairmanships and committee assignments. Joseph was among those who paid the price, and had his chairmanship of the House Judiciary Committee taken from him by Luján.
When asked about the price he paid for his opposition to the speaker, Cervantes said, “I did not come to Santa Fe for a title or an office. I came to serve the citizens of New Mexico.”
A Machiavellian scheme and Democratic ineptitude
This latest challenge to the speaker by Cervantes and Nuñez is an example of just how ugly and oppressive the speaker can be.
Cervantes appeared to initially have the support of the Republicans to become speaker. The Democrats, opting for the status quo, shamefully supported Luján.
The Republicans may have gotten their marching orders from someone high in the food chain of the Republican Party to withdraw support for Cervantes and maintain the speaker in power, providing them the opportunity in 2012 to take over the Roundhouse. With this Machiavellian scheme, and the ineptitude of the Democrats, we the citizens of New Mexico will pay the price for their naked political ambitions by once again being 39th in the nation in education and poverty, and 7th in corruption.
The Democratic platform never addressed the problem of corruption during the election. Governor Martinez made that the certerpiece of hers.
We had a golden opportunity with Cervantes to put an honest, ethical individual in power who could bring us into a new era of transparency and ethics in government. Both parties blew it, sacrificing us on the altar of their political ambitions. We now can look forward to two years of gridlock.
Williams, a Democrat, is a former Region VII Housing Authority board member and the whistleblower who first exposed the problems with the housing authorities several years ago.