By Ellen Wedum
Former Democratic Party of New Mexico Chair John Wertheim has criticized this blog on Nov. 26 and elsewhere Democrat Tim Jennings, the current president pro-tem of the New Mexico state Senate, for recording a robocall and radio spot critical of an environmental group’s persuasion phone program in support of newly-elected state senator Steve Fischmann. The phone program, conducted just before the Nov. 4 election, told respondents who said they were undecided that Fischmann’s opponent, incumbent Republican Sen. Leonard Lee Rawson, had used some of his 2003 capital outlay funds to pave a road that was not in his district, implying that his only reason for doing so was to increase the value of his own business. To quote the Las Cruces Sun-News, “The funding went to pave a street that wasn’t in his district but that passes by commercial property he owns.”
Rawson served in the Senate from 1987 to 2008. Is this the only thing he did in 20 years that he could be smeared with? I have been doing some research on this project — the appropriation was for $127,097 and the street is 14th Street, which runs north-south for two blocks, from Picacho to Hadley on the west side of Las Cruces. This street is in Sen. Mary Kay Papen’s district. She has not criticized Rawson for the street improvement, and who would know better than she that this was an innocuous use of capital outlay funds?
How much has the average senator had to distribute each year over the last 20 years? It was $4 million this year, but that was a record high. Still it must add up to something in the range of $20 million to $30 million since 1987, when Rawson took office.
In his attack on Jennings, published both in the Democracy for New Mexico (DFNM) blog and this blog, Wertheim’s most offensive comment was, “Fearful of losing his president pro tem job to the cadre of new progressive senators coming into the Legislature, Jennings recorded a robocall and radio spot on behalf of Republican Senator Leonard Rawson…” I object strongly to Wertheim’s claim that Jennings acted out of self-interest. Wertheim recognized in his preceding paragraph that Jennings takes “principled stances,” but made no allowances for the possibility that the senator was voicing his disapproval of the slant of the “phone program” rather than endorsing Rawson.
Sen. Jennings is a conservative Democrat and he and his brother Tom, who is chair of the Chaves County Democrats, run a business that involves leasing land for oil drilling. But in 2006, even though he knew that I am opposed to drilling in the Otero Mesa, he endorsed my candidacy, and in 2008 he donated to my campaign. He also contributes generously to the Chaves County Democrats.
One commenter on the DFNM blog (Wertheim’s article originally appeared there on Nov. 15), in response to my reply to Wertheim, pointed out that Jennings did not support the last two Democrats to run for the House District 58 seat. There’s some Chaves County history that probably explains that, involving Pauline Ponce, the Democrat that held the seat from 2000 to 2004 (when she lost to Candy Spence Ezzell), and the lack of support for her reelection from the 2006 and 2008 Democratic candidates (one of whom actually ran for the seat in 2004 as a Libertarian).
Some positive ideas
I do dislike seeing Democrats fighting among themselves, and Wertheim’s attack (now presented three times, as he also spoke against Jennings at the party’s state central committee meeting on Nov. 15) is not a positive way to spread the progressive message. Let’s think instead about some of the things the new Legislature might be able to accomplish in January.
• Capital outlay is a good place to start. There is currently no transparency in the process of awarding capital outlay money. Every legislator signs every request for money that they receive, usually ending up with requests that total 10 times, or more, the amount of money each one has available. But just try to get a copy of the list of what each legislator actually funded! I got these lists back in 2007 when I personally went to the library on the fourth floor of the Roundhouse and asked for them. But when I phoned the Legislative Council Service last week and asked about getting a list for a specific legislator, I was told by the librarian that the information was not available. Period. Further e-mail correspondence referred to Section 2-3-13 NMSA 1978, which the LCS is now interpreting as preventing them from providing this kind of information.
How about a bill to amend that section and to require that information about each legislator’s actual appropriations be made available at http://nmlegis.gov by, say, the second Friday in November after each regular session? Isn’t this a progressive issue? I’d be pleased to see Sen.-elect Fischmann sponsor such a bill. I’ll bet it would get voted down though, because most legislators don’t want the public to know how they distribute those severance tax dollars.
• Legislative reimbursements: I attended the 2008 regular session at my own expense after Republican objections denied me a second year of employment as a secretary. One of the first times I spoke up in a committee meeting was when the Senate Rules committee met to consider Rawson’s Senate Joint Resolution 2.
Now this resolution is what I would have criticized if Rawson were my opponent! SJR 2 would have put a constitutional amendment on the ballot to pay the legislators 15 percent of the U.S. Congress’ salaries, which as you know are increased every year according to a cost of living adjustment formula. I spoke before the committee and presented an alternative proposal — that they continue to receive “reimbursement,” but that this amount (which currently is also increased every year) be tied to the annual minimum wage in Santa Fe, so that it would not increase unless the minimum wage increased. I think our legislators should be mindful of what our low-income workers have to live on. Shouldn’t minimum-wage workers be the first in line to get a cost of living adjustment every year? Isn’t this a progressive issue?
Jennings voted against SJR 2 mainly because I opposed it, specifically mentioning the “Republican objections” to my being hired — which I believe, but cannot prove, came solely from my Republican opponent in the House District 59 race, Nora Espinoza. The other Democrats voted for Rawson’s bill, but all of Rawson’s fellow Republicans on the committee voted against it along with Jennings, and it died right there. I have the text of the proposal that I presented, if any legislator would like to have it cleaned up by the Legislative Council Service and sponsor it.
• I have one more suggestion that would help save the county governments money. At present the counties are required to purchase ballots for each precinct equal to 1.1 times the number of voters registered in that precinct. A voter turnout of 70 percent is pretty high, and for some city council races the turnout may be as low as 14 percent. So there is a lot of wasted paper and a lot of wasted trees for each election. Basing the required number of ballots to be purchased on voter performance rather than voter registration would save the counties money. The estimate that I have heard is that each ballot costs the county $1.
So change the requirements for county purchase of ballots for elections. For each upcoming election, every county clerk shall determine the equivalent election with the highest turnout in the past four election cycles. The number of ballots to be purchased for each precinct shall be equal to the number of ballots used in that election multiplied by 1.2 (just in case). Again, since I will not be able to introduce this myself, I would be happy to see it “adopted” by someone who can.
I have other ideas for legislation, which is one of the reasons I plan to run for the House District 59 seat again in 2010.
Wedum chairs the Democratic Party of Otero County and plans to once again run for a state House seat in 2010.