COMMENTARY: Gary Johnson has always been stubborn. During his eight years as governor, he was notorious for refusing to compromise or find middle ground once his mind was made up.
When he didn’t get his way he vetoed budgets, pulled funding for infrastructure projects, and even blocked pay raises for teachers. Johnson didn’t care if his punitive temper tantrums hurt New Mexicans — it was about imposing his vision of how the world should look, even when there was clear evidence that he was wrong.
Courtesy photo
Selinda Guerrero
In a recent column, Heath Haussamen pointed out Johnson’s ardent support for private prisons. He noted that Johnson’s justification was saving taxpayers money, and that private prisons “offer the same services and goods as the public prison services at two-thirds the cost.”
The problem with Johnson’s claims is that they aren’t backed up by facts. The question of saving taxpayer dollars is debatable. But the notion that private prisons maintain the same standards as government-run facilities has been proven by a mountain of reporting to be demonstrably false.
There have been many lawsuits against private prison companies. In fact, one of the worst offenders is the GEO Group, the same company that Johnson contracted to run New Mexico’s private prisons. According to a review by the Federal Office of the Inspector General, “in most key areas, contract prisons incurred more safety and security incidents per capita than comparable Bureau of Prisons institutions.”
Johnson hasn’t just defended his push to privatize New Mexico’s prisons; he’s actually expressed regret that he wasn’t able to privatize all of them. Why does he continue to eagerly promote the private prison system? It must be willful ignorance or his ego — neither answer is the kind of quality you want in a person who is running to be our next United States senator.
Johnson’s cheerleading for the private prison system also runs counter to the narrative he has carved out for himself as an advocate for criminal justice reform. His push for marijuana legalization and ending the War on Drugs is completely negated by his advocacy for a system that profits off of locking people up.
In the age of Trump, many of us have become desensitized to politicians who traffic in lies. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t hold leaders accountable for their mistakes or their dishonesty.
Johnson was wrong to grow private prisons in New Mexico, and his continued support of the industry, in spite of the body of evidence that contradicts his position, is a problem.
But this is not new. This is the same Gary Johnson we’ve known for decades. While his eccentricities might be fun for late night television shows, he should never be placed in a position of power again.
Selinda Guerrero is a human rights activist and community organizer with the Millions for Prisoners New Mexico Chapter. Agree with her opinion? Disagree? NMPolitics.net welcomes your views. Learn about submitting your own commentary here.