{"id":1027,"date":"2006-12-20T08:31:00","date_gmt":"2006-12-20T14:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/12\/should-there-be-more-las-crucens-in-santa-fe\/"},"modified":"2006-12-20T08:31:00","modified_gmt":"2006-12-20T14:31:00","slug":"should-there-be-more-las-crucens-in-santa-fe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/12\/should-there-be-more-las-crucens-in-santa-fe\/","title":{"rendered":"Should there be more Las Crucens in Santa Fe?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lcsun-news.com\/opinion\/ci_4868119\" target=\"_blank\">Las Cruces Sun-News<\/a> ran an editorial today lamenting the dearth of Las Crucens in high places in <st1:city st=\"on\"><st1:place st=\"on\">Santa Fe<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">First, the newspaper grieves over the fact that State Rep. Joseph Cervantes of <st1:place st=\"on\"><st1:city st=\"on\">Las Cruces<\/st1:city><\/st1:place> was unsuccessful in his bid to become House majority leader. Cervantes withdrew from the race at the last moment after Ken Martinez of Grants accepted a nomination to the position following his own loss in the speaker race.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\u201cIt is incredible that the second-largest city in New Mexico has never had a majority leader, and hasn\u2019t had a speaker of the House since W.H.H. Llewellyn held the post in 1917,\u201d the editorial states.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">That lack of representation among House leadership might \u201cbe easier to take if not for the fact that it is coupled with a lack of representation at the executive level,\u201d the editorial states. It notes that, in his four years in office, <st1:city st=\"on\">Richardson<\/st1:city> has appointed one Las Crucen \u2013 former Mayor Reuben Smith \u2013 to a cabinet-level position in <st1:city st=\"on\"><st1:place st=\"on\">Santa Fe<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> as head of the Cultural Affairs Department.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Smith lasted less than a year in that position.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The newspaper notes that Agriculture Secretary I. Miley Gonzales is from and works in <st1:city st=\"on\">Las Cruces<\/st1:city>, but that\u2019s because state law ties that job to <st1:place st=\"on\"><st1:placename st=\"on\">New Mexico<\/st1:placename> <st1:placetype st=\"on\">State<\/st1:placetype>  <st1:placetype st=\"on\">University<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:place>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">There are 21 cabinet secretary positions. <st1:place st=\"on\"><st1:placename st=\"on\">Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> <st1:placename st=\"on\">Ana<\/st1:placename> <st1:placename st=\"on\">County<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place> represents about one-tenth of the state\u2019s population. <st1:city st=\"on\"><st1:place st=\"on\">Las Cruces<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> is the state\u2019s second-largest city.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">It gets even worse, the Sun-News writes. The lack of representation extends to many boards and commissions, including the Environmental Improvement Board, the Game Commission, Medical Board and Racing Commission.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p> <\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\u201cWhen asked about this imbalance, <st1:city st=\"on\"><st1:place st=\"on\">Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> said his first priority is to find the best person for the job,\u201d the editorial states. \u201cFair enough. But are we to believe there are no members of our community qualified for any of these positions? Or is it that he\u2019s just not looking?\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Las Cruces Sun-News ran an editorial today lamenting the dearth of Las Crucens in high places in Santa Fe. First, the newspaper grieves over the fact that State Rep. Joseph Cervantes of Las Cruces was unsuccessful in his bid to become House majority leader. Cervantes withdrew from the race at the last moment after [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}