{"id":640405,"date":"2018-11-01T00:04:36","date_gmt":"2018-11-01T06:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=640405"},"modified":"2018-11-01T13:11:16","modified_gmt":"2018-11-01T19:11:16","slug":"oh-susana-how-the-governors-popularity-eroded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/11\/oh-susana-how-the-governors-popularity-eroded\/","title":{"rendered":"Oh Susana! How the governor\u2019s popularity eroded"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_60345\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 650px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-60345\" src=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Martinez-Susana.jpg\" alt=\"Susana Martinez\" width=\"650\" height=\"379\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Martinez-Susana.jpg 600w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Martinez-Susana-336x196.jpg 336w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Heath Haussamen \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gov. Susana Martinez on the campaign trail in 2010.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>In 2010, three Western states elected governors who immediately generated national buzz. Brian Sandoval, a Republican, was the first Latino elected governor of Nevada. John Hickenlooper, who campaigned as a Democratic centrist in the midst of a Tea Party wave, was elected in Colorado. And in New Mexico, Republican Susana Martinez became the nation\u2019s first Latina governor.<\/p>\n<p>All three proved popular in their first terms and easily won re-election. But at the end of their second terms, the three find themselves in much different positions.<\/p>\n<p>Hickenlooper is thinking of making a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2018\/09\/13\/hickenlooper-2020-presidential-bid-821223\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">presidential run in 2020<\/a> and has the highest approval rating of any Democratic governor in the country, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/morningconsult.com\/2018\/07\/25\/americas-most-and-least-popular-governors-2\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Morning Consult<\/a>, a research firm that tracks such things. Sandoval has respect across party lines in Nevada and has the third-highest approval rating among second-term governors across the nation. (The only two ahead of him are Republicans in beet-red South Dakota and Wyoming.)<\/p>\n<p>In New Mexico, however, Martinez will exit as one of the nation\u2019s least-popular governors, with only <a href=\"https:\/\/www.abqjournal.com\/1224500\/journal-poll-martine-zapproval-rating-dips-to-35-percent.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">about a third of voters<\/a> approving her job performance, according to recent polls. Even the Republican who seeks to succeed Martinez, U.S. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pearcefornm.com\/new-beginnings\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rep. Steve Pearce<\/a>, says \u201cNew Mexico is in a crisis moment.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article comes from\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/searchlightnm.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Searchlight New Mexico<\/a>, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to investigative journalism. Read its Raising New Mexico series\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/series\/raising-new-mexico\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">by clicking here<\/a>. Support its work\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsmatch.org\/organizations\/searchlight-new-mexico\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3>Related<\/h3>\n<p>\u2022 <a href=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/11\/understaffing-driven-by-martinez-keeps-nms-kids-at-risk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Understaffing driven by Martinez keeps NM\u2019s kids at risk<\/a><br \/>\n\u2022 <a href=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/11\/rating-martinez-on-education\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rating Martinez on education<\/a><br \/>\n\u2022 <a href=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/11\/grading-martinezs-team\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Grading Martinez&#8217;s team<\/a><\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cClearly you have the two candidates running for governor now who are both running on the same platform, which is we&#8217;re going to undo everything Governor Martinez put into place from the minute we come into office,\u201d said state Sen. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, who lost to U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham in this summer\u2019s Democratic gubernatorial primary. \u201cBoth Congressman Pearce and Congresswoman Lujan are running on a platform of reversing everything that Governor Martinez tried to do or did do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Martinez\u2019s office didn\u2019t respond to a request for an interview for this story. Nor did New Mexico Republican Party Chairman Ryan Cangiolosi and several state Republican leaders.<\/p>\n<p>Martinez, a career prosecutor who served as the elected district attorney of the 3rd Judicial District in\u00a0Do\u00f1a Ana County from 1997 until 2010, was elected governor by a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/elections\/2010\/results\/new-mexico.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">comfortable margin in 2010<\/a> and re-elected by an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/elections\/2014\/new-mexico-elections\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">even larger margin in 2014<\/a>. Her popularity eroded in her second term as she increasingly battled with the New Mexico Legislature, including members of her own party, said <a href=\"http:\/\/www.unm.edu\/~atkeson\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lonna Atkeson<\/a>, a political science professor at the University of New Mexico.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, voters grew frustrated, particularly with the economy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow long can you stay in a recession? Arizona is growing. Colorado is growing. Texas is booming. And New Mexico isn&#8217;t moving at all,\u201d Atkeson said.<\/p>\n<p>New Mexico\u2019s economy has been largely stagnant during Martinez\u2019s term, even as other states showed strong recovery from the Great Recession. The gross domestic product in the Land of Enchantment grew by an average of 0.6 percent a year between 2010 and 2017, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the ninth-worst performance among U.S. states in that time. Under Sandoval, Nevada\u2019s economy grew by about 1.6 percent annually, right at the national average. In Hickenlooper\u2019s Colorado, the annual GDP growth has been 2.9 percent, almost five times that of New Mexico. The story is similar in other states bordering New Mexico. Arizona\u2019s growth has averaged 1.9 percent; Utah, 2.9 percent; Texas, 3.5 percent.<\/p>\n<p>Martinez\u2019s 2010 election campaign focused heavily on a promise to grow jobs in the state. New Mexico\u2019s job growth averaged just 0.5 percent a year between 2010 and 2017, a third of the nationwide job growth rate.<\/p>\n<p>Martinez has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.susanamartinez.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">created a website<\/a> to outline her legacy, but it contains very few mentions about the state\u2019s economy during her tenure. The only section on economic performance is labeled \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.susanamartinez.com\/economy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Diversifying Our Economy<\/a>,&#8221; which claims: \u201cBy enacting job creation measures, investing in infrastructure, and cutting taxes and fees 61 times, our economy is now more diverse than ever. Our unemployment rate has dropped from 7.8 percent to 4.7 percent, while adding 60,000 new private sector jobs and attracting companies like Facebook, Safelite, and Union Pacific.\u201d<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Only four states and the District of Columbia had a higher unemployment rate than New Mexico as of August, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bls.gov\/web\/laus\/laumstrk.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But weak economic performance isn\u2019t the only explanation for Martinez\u2019s tumbling popularity, her critics say. Her style of governance, including with fellow Republicans, limited her effectiveness.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHer style with the Legislature increasingly became combative, even on issues where there should have been agreement between the branches,\u201d Atkeson said. \u201cBy the last session, members of her party, both inside and outside the Legislature, were disappointed by her rhetoric and didn&#8217;t understand why on bills they agree with she would say, well, I&#8217;m not going to pass those because you guys won&#8217;t play ball over here. That&#8217;s just not how separation of powers works. It&#8217;s not productive for anyone, and it led to her increasing unpopularity over time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cervantes, the Las Cruces state senator, was a contemporary of Martinez\u2019s in Do\u00f1a Ana County politics. He has known her for 25 years and said he was hopeful when she took office that she would work with Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature to accomplish her goals.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI asked Governor Martinez to appreciate what I&#8217;ve come to respect as a great deal of knowledge and skill from a lot of legislators,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are a lot of legislators who are very, very knowledgeable, very intelligent, very experienced in areas of state government, experience they&#8217;ve acquired over decades.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Martinez needed to work with legislators because her career as a popular district attorney in southern New Mexico didn\u2019t prepare her for the role of the state\u2019s chief executive, Cervantes said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe really had no background in most of the major areas of state government; she had zero experience in education, zero experience in job creation, economic development trade, taxation, revenue, budgeting, zero experience in those areas,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Martinez not only rebuffed those efforts, she quickly became combative with the Legislature. She targeted Senate President Pro-tem Tim Jennings, D-Roswell, in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.watchdog.org\/new_mexico\/tim-jennings-on-losing-re-election-after-years-in-the\/article_46833b66-6ee2-5288-b124-c8cf4e7a219e.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bitter 2012 election<\/a>. Jennings lost his re-election bid after serving 34 years in the Senate, but the battle also proved costly to Martinez. It <a href=\"http:\/\/www.santafenewmexican.com\/news\/local_news\/oilman-s-feud-with-top-adviser-to-governor-heats-up\/article_1adec133-b7f9-5639-a95c-fff648db4f09.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">severed her relationship<\/a> with oilman and longtime Republican activist Harvey Yates Jr., who was close to Jennings.<\/p>\n<p>In 2016, her target became Democratic Senate leader Michael Sanchez of Belen. Sanchez lost that election, but he said her <a href=\"https:\/\/www.abqjournal.com\/887728\/senate-majority-leader-says-he-willingly-endured-loss-for-good-of-party.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">singular focus on him<\/a> helped Democrats regain control of the state House of Representatives.<\/p>\n<p>UNM\u2019s Atkeson said the Sanchez feud was an example of Martinez personalizing politics to her own detriment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was so personal: I&#8217;m going to get this guy who&#8217;s been an asshole to me,\u201d Atkeson said. \u201cShe really should have should have been focusing on trying to keep the House Republican. That would have done more good for her than going after this one particular Democrat, spending all these resources.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Martinez\u2019s website on her legacy includes a section called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.susanamartinez.com\/working-across-party-lines\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201cWorking Across Party Lines,\u201d<\/a> which collects various compliments to her from Democrats. All the examples she lists come from her first term; none of the examples include Democratic lawmakers praising her for regularly seeking to work with them. Her style of governance &#8212; often the adversarial approach of a career prosecutor &#8212; is not directly addressed on Martinez\u2019s website.<\/p>\n<p>Her website makes no mention at all of Jose Z. Garcia, a former New Mexico State University political science professor and Do\u00f1a Ana County Democratic chairman who headed \u201cDemocrats for Susana\u201d in 2010. He said he was attracted to Martinez because he admired her \u201cspunk,\u201d and he was deeply angered over what he saw as the corruption and ineffectiveness of Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson\u2019s administration. Martinez made him secretary of higher education upon taking office, then had her Chief of Staff Keith Gardner unceremoniously fire him just after the 2014 election.<\/p>\n<p>Garcia describes his tenure as four years of frustration, largely because Gardner and Martinez political adviser Jay McCleskey controlled access to the governor, freezing out ideas from her Cabinet and others. Every meeting he scheduled with her was cancelled, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere was absolutely no intellectual curiosity on her part. She never asked me about my goals, my philosophy, a comprehensive view of where we were at,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cWe never had periodic reviews of the way I was looking at the issue of higher education in the state. She just seemed completely oblivious and incurious &#8212; in fact, one of the least curious people that I&#8217;ve ever met and at that level.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cervantes said Martinez never understood the nature of her office, and how to exercise power.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think Susana had a misunderstanding of what it meant to be elected governor,\u201d he said. \u201cI think that Susana thought that by being elected governor she would have a mandate from the public to enact her own policies. And it didn&#8217;t work that way because of her lack of experience and knowledge about the subject matter. She never gained the respect of legislators.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lawmakers of both parties grew frustrated with her lack of leadership, and her habit of claiming success for the work of others, Cervantes said. He said the best example is the budget bill in her first legislative session of 2011.<\/p>\n<p>Martinez\u2019s legacy website cites balancing the budget as one of her greatest accomplishments. \u201cGovernor Martinez came into office facing the largest budget deficit in state history of $450 million. Through common-sense reforms, cutting waste, and prioritizing spending, she turned that deficit into a surplus,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.susanamartinez.com\/balancing-the-budget\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the website states<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s nonsense, Cervantes said. \u201cNot long after Susana was in office, she began a narrative of proclaiming that she had inherited a $100 million or $200 million deficit. And because she didn&#8217;t get challenged by anybody, the media or the Legislature, the story got better and better. It went from \u2018I inherited a $100 million deficit\u2019 to \u2018I inherited a $200 million deficit.\u2019 If you were to do the research, you&#8217;d find that at some point in time they began to claim that she inherited a $500 million or $600 million\u200b deficit and turned it all around in her first 60 days in office.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>New Mexico\u2019s Constitution requires a balanced budget. The 2011 budget for which Martinez claimed credit was largely shaped by the Legislature, not a novice governor, Cervantes said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRemember, she comes into office two weeks before the session begins having no experience in Santa Fe, no experience in the state budget,\u201d he said. \u201cEssentially, the governor adopted the legislative budget.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Martinez came into office as a prosecutor, a job that requires different political and executive skills than a governor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou&#8217;ve got to have a thick skin to be a politician, to be an executive of a state. And I just don&#8217;t think she got that kind of experience as a prosecutor because she was always either not in the public eye or positively in the public eye for doing good things,\u201d Atkeson said. \u201cThere&#8217;s nothing controversial about putting child abusers behind bars. So she comes to a world where there&#8217;s much more controversy and much more conflict. And she&#8217;s just not ready to handle that and she doesn&#8217;t have experience to depersonalize politics.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Garcia, Martinez\u2019s former secretary of higher education, offers a harsh assessment of her tenure.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSusana is responsible for eight wasted years of governance,\u201d he said. \u201cI can&#8217;t think of a single area where policy was actually advanced.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cervantes contrasts Martinez with another Republican governor elected in 2010 and re-elected in 2014, <a href=\"https:\/\/usun.state.gov\/leadership\/7653\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nikki Haley<\/a> of South Carolina. Haley is the daughter of Indian immigrants, an accountant by profession and served in the South Carolina Legislature for six years before being elected governor. She now serves as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, a job she plans to leave at the end of the year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey were both governors of states, they were both women, they were both from ethnic minorities in our country. And they both were the promising face of the new Republican Party &#8212; female, diversity, executive leadership,\u201d Cervantes said. \u201cNikki Haley has continued to ascend to the highest levels of the national government. Susana will leave office going in the opposite direction. And I think the difference is that Susana was a prosecutor throughout it all. And somebody like Nikki Haley understood how to work with people and to be a little more receptive of others\u2019 input.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><i>Robert Moore is an El Paso-based independent journalist who has covered Western states\u2019 politics for 35 years.<\/i><i><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gov. Susana Martinez will leave office as one of the nation\u2019s least-popular governors, polls indicate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":60345,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[107,208],"class_list":["post-640405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-roundhouse","tag-susana-martinez","series-raising-new-mexico"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640405","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=640405"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":640993,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640405\/revisions\/640993"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}