COMMENTARY: One of the great gifts of being secretary of state is that I get to travel all around New Mexico and talk to voters about their concerns, and listen to their ideas about how to build a stronger democracy.
Over the last year I’ve spent a lot of time in Doña Ana County. We held a hearing for the recently created campaign finance rule at the Doña Ana County Government center last summer; in the fall, I spoke at a commemoration of women’s right to vote in Las Cruces, and I attended the Doña Ana County Clerk’s National Voter Registration Day training. Most recently, in May, I was honored to be the keynote speaker at the LULAC state convention held at the Hotel Encanto.
Courtesy photo
Maggie Toulouse Oliver
As a border community, Doña Ana County and Southern New Mexico have unique challenges and opportunities that the rest of the state is more insulated from. Every time I visit, I’m reminded of the gift of your perspective and input. Like all New Mexicans, you are smart, tough and resilient.
But you are also on the frontlines of many of the most critical issues of the day — border security, family reunification, the War on Drugs, education, conservation, sustainability and many others. This means that you deserve elected leaders who will listen to your specific concerns and who will stand up and fight for your values every single day.
To be frank, that has always been my motivation to serve.
It was my motivation when I told President Trump and his voter fraud commission that I wouldn’t hand over your personally identifiable information. Twice.
It was my motivation when I adopted a campaign finance rule to shine a light on dark money in New Mexico politics and force special interests to disclose their activities — because you have the right to know who is spending money to influence the outcomes of our elections.
It was my motivation when I made a commitment before I even took office to crack down on campaign finance violations that, too often, had been willfully ignored by my predecessors.
It was my motivation when I asked lobbyists to disclose whether or not they had taken sexual harassment prevention training in the past year so we can finally begin to confront sexual harassment at the Roundhouse.
While I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished my first 18 months in office, we still have a lot of work to do.
We still need to establish an independent ethics commission to review and investigate ethics complaints filed by everyday citizens. The Legislature has not given the resources or authority to my office to sufficiently track down these ethics violators and bring them into compliance. This commission would have the necessary resources and authority.
Fortunately, voters will be asked to approve the creation of an independent ethics commission thanks to a constitutional amendment that will appear on the general election ballot this fall. I’ll do everything in my power to educate voters about the importance of this commission to ensure that the amendment passes.
Additionally, I’ll keep pushing for reforms that make it easier for New Mexico’s voters to participate in democracy. That’s why I recently announced my intention to push the Legislature to create an open primary system in New Mexico so independent and minor party voters can have a say in the candidate nomination process. No registered voter should be forced to sit on the sidelines of the electoral process, so I’ll keep working to guarantee that they don’t have to anymore.
While I’m confident that all of these reforms are possible and within reach, I need your help to make them become something more than good ideas.
In the meantime, I eagerly look forward to my next visit to Doña Ana County so we can talk about all the ways we can continue to improve our democracy.
Maggie Toulouse Oliver, a Democrat, is New Mexico’s secretary of state. Agree with her opinion? Disagree? NMPolitics.net welcomes your views. Learn about submitting your own commentary here.