The trust Krahling earned makes his betrayal more devastating

COMMENTARY: I remember interviewing former Doña Ana County Clerk Scott Krahling in April about his office’s work to increase voting and civic engagement, which was fairly visionary.

Krahling spoke about expanding the work of county clerks to include coordinating community-wide partnerships to encourage participation. He expressed a deep trust in systems – though always needing improvement, they’re generally forces that empower people, he said.

Krahling talked about his efforts to improve elections systems. And he expressed dismay that a large percentage of Americans don’t trust elections. As someone who administered voting, he told me, “I know that people should have confidence.”

That statement, which was essentially a plea to trust him, makes Krahling’s betrayal of the public trust even more devastating.

Krahling resigned last week after an internal county investigation determined that his “intimate relationship” with an employee over nearly two years violated county policies and had a “negative impact” on the office, creating “the perception among some employees of favoritism and preferential treatment.”

The open secret, and Rose Ann Vasquez’s promotions and salary increases, created the perception, at least, that a willingness to have sex with the boss got you special treatment. While Krahling was being publicly praised for empowering voters, behind the scenes he was creating a disempowering work environment for the employees he supervised.

I admired Krahling’s ability to earn bipartisan trust in his work. And I devote a lot of time to reporting on voter turnout, which is why, earlier this year, I profiled his efforts to increase voting and spoke about them during a lengthy radio interview.

So I was devastated to get a call a couple of weeks after that article published from someone who told me what Krahling had done.

I began digging and reporting. As I asked around, I learned that lots of people knew long before me and had done nothing. When I obtained a public record that confirmed the county was investigating the situation, I told Krahling’s attorney I was writing a story. Krahling submitted his resignation that day.

But I’ve been up at night lately wondering if I could have done something sooner. Did I miss signs while reporting about the efforts to increase voting? I also have questions about why the county investigation moved so slowly. It appears to have stagnated from March until about the time I began asking about it in August. Then it was suddenly completed within a couple of weeks.

I know this: The system was way too slow to protect employees in the Clerk’s Office from Krahling’s actions. Once again, a man got away, for too long, with mistreating people over whom he had power.

That many people knew and were silent furthered the perception among some of Krahling’s employees that they were trapped and powerless.

The situation impacted those employees’ work. The office has a high vacancy rate, which is no surprise given what we know now. I’m hearing about other problems, including a backlog in mailing out voter registration cards. Voters who put Krahling in office have also been impacted.

Krahling’s efforts to increase voting were worthy of attention. I’m glad I wrote that article. But that good work makes the way he simultaneously treated his employees even more egregious. I worry that the damage done by the hypocrisy of it all will spread a greater distrust of government – the very thing Krahling was publicly working to combat.

And I want to know how we’re going to address these abuses of power more quickly in the future. We can’t keep letting people in power act this way.

Heath Haussamen is NMPolitics.net’s editor and publisher. Agree with his opinion? Disagree? NMPolitics.net welcomes your views. Learn about submitting your own commentary here.