New Mexico legislators are jockeying for position in what appears to be a fight brewing between moderate and progressive Democrats over the Speakership of the House. The current Speaker, Brian Egolf, a progressive, is stepping down from the legislature altogether this year, so the position is open. Resentment from moderate D’s against progressive leadership is strong, and has become a driving force behind a move to replace the Speaker with a moderate. If successful, the tone and direction of the House in next few years could change dramatically on the first day of the 2023 legislative session.
Moderates are lining up to support Rep. Patricia Lundstrom, Chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee. She has had a lengthy career as director of the Gallup Economic Development Corporation and, prior to that was director of the NW New Mexico Council of Governments. Progressives are supporting Javier Martinez, House Majority Floor Leader. Martinez fits a classic profile for upward mobility: immigrant parents from Mexico, law degree, and, like Barack Obama, he is a community organizer, having worked in Latin America and in Albuquerque.
Most observers believe moderates will not gain enough seats this election to alter the moderate-progressive balance of power within the Democratic caucus. Why, then, are moderates willing to challenge the dominant faction if they may not have the votes to beat Martinez? Answer: The Speaker is elected by the entire House on the first day of the session, not just the Democratic caucus. If enough R’s pledge in advance to vote for Lundstrom instead of one of their own, Lundstrom would have two pathways to the Speakership. First, should she end up shy of the votes needed among D’s to become Speaker, moderate R’s could add enough votes to elect her. This would shift the ideological direction of legislation in a strong conservative direction, increasing Republican power. The second pathway would be for progressive Democrats to support the Lundstrom bid, in spite of preferring Martinez, so as to prevent a cross-party governing coalition which might well leave progressives out in the cold.
This scenario is not new to New Mexico. In 1978 progressive Speaker Walter Martinez was ousted as Speaker by a moderate-to-conservative coalition of Democrats and Republicans to rule the House. It also happened in the Senate, when in 1988 progressive Senator Manny Aragon became President with a coalition of Democrats and Republicans. And it happened in the Senate again in 2001, when Senator Richard Romero wrested the Presidency of the Senate away from Aragon with a cross-party coalition of his own. On other occasions informal cooperation between Republicans and moderate Democrats has influenced legislation. There is ample precedence.
After years of recruiting and funding local progressive candidates progressive Democrats have eked out a working majority within the legislatures of both chambers. But they have exercised power all-too-often while ignoring the views of moderates in either party; that is to say, the views of the vast majority of New Mexicans. There is a growing sense within the political class that progressive leaders in the legislature are simply out of touch as the state moves beyond the pandemic into fresh territory.
The Senate normally acts as an adult reality check for the House. But Senate leadership this summer during the Ivey-Soto affair was exceptionally clumsy. And the verdict (stripping him as chair of an interim committee and pressuring him to resign as Chair of Senate Rules) while at the same time rewarding Senator Michael Padilla—accused several years ago of similar charges—seemed highly arbitrary and deeply hypocritical. The entire episode was a reminder that the senate has failed to develop a robust code of ethics with strong enforcement teeth. Santa Fe has been awash with conflicts of interest for a long time, but the legislature under progressive leadership has continued to resist all efforts to create meaningful reform.
The Ivey-Soto episode was also a reminder that identity politics is still at the forefront of the progressive agenda. Senate leadership spent enormous energy this summer worrying about accusations made by a lobbyist against a committee chair who turned down her bill. In a state that is increasingly at the bottom the barrel among states in major policy areas—education, mental health, crime, corruption — and at a moment when wildfires and flooding were devastating nearly a million acres of land, legislative leadership issued no statements of sympathy, made no official visits to impacted areas, made no review of obvious mistakes made in setting and dousing the fires, and took no initiative to review land policy as practiced in large portions of the state. Nor were any initiatives forthcoming that would even hint of increasing executive accountability for huge areas of poor state government performance. There are powerful reasons legislators are looking for change.
Dr. Jose Z. Garcia is a retired professor of politics at NMSU. He also served as NM Secretary of Higher Education from 2011-2015.