David Abbey’s “Forty Years in the New Mexico Roundhouse” is a remarkable book, written by one of the most experienced and capable insiders in recent New Mexico political history.
Abbey spent 26 years as executive director of the Legislative Finance Committee, one of the few legislative bodies in the country to propose a budget independent of the governor’s budget. The LFC also evaluates the performance of state programs; it forecasts incoming revenues, an annual ritual that helps shape spending expectations; it advises legislators.
The single-most powerful committee in the legislature, The LFC’s manager has a ringside seat in the dark political alleyways where money, power, and ambition slug it out for their piece of the legislative pie each year.
Frequently, for example, major priorities in the annual budget are determined in the wee hours of the morning of the day the legislative session ends, as the governor and leaders of both chambers try to iron out their differences in meetings with five or six key players, under the pressure of the clock. For a quarter of a century Abbey participated in those meetings; reason enough for citizens to pick up this book.
The strongest chapters of the book deal with the complicated financial structure of state government — sources of revenue, fiscal stability, budget development, and the capital outlay and capital appropriations processes. They stand as the best written thus far on these subjects and ought to become required reading for every new legislator, wannabe lobbyist, and student of New Mexico government.
Another chapter summarizes major accomplishments and disappointments of the eight governors Abbey worked with in his long career, beginning with Toney Anaya (1983-1987) and ending with Michelle Grisham Lujan.
To my knowledge, no one has published such a summary until now. Significantly, he finds each governor wanting in lasting accomplishments, except for Republican Garrey Carruthers (1987-1991), who he credits as being the “strongest” of the eight.
The tone of this book suggests an insider sharing a beer with a friend after a long day during a legislative session; that is, it recounts some of the play-to-play without revealing anything other insiders might find too sensitive to let out.
In this sense, throughout the book he remains a loyal member of the insider team. Irritatingly, his account of the workings of state government is almost purely descriptive, a surprising disappointment coming from one of the finest analysts of state government in New Mexico history.
This lack of analysis is not a trivial lapse. During Abbey’s 40 years in the Roundhouse New Mexico collapsed from roughly the top of the bottom third among states to the bottom of the bottom third, in many of the very metrics Abbey monitored each year. LFC reports evaluated every agency and program in state government; many of these were brilliant, and Abbey deserved his reputation as a savant with a spreadsheet. He knew the shortcomings of the ship of state better than anyone.
If you were one of the key stewards on a ship that was sinking slowly during your tenure, it is helpful to let your readers know the design of the engine room, the operating procedures on the bridge, and the organization of the crew. It is also fascinating to learn how decisions were made about where the ship was headed and how fast, or some of the changes each captain made as he or she took the helm.
But what people will remember is that the ship was sinking, and that none of the actions of the crew prevented it from sinking further. People will ask, and deserve to know, why this was so. It is the dominant question about New Mexico state government in our time. Unfortunately, despite his ringside seat at the fulcrum of political power in New Mexico, Abbey never offers a clue as to what he thinks might have happened, although he offers a section of brief comments by others about this.
Jose Z. Garcia is a former New Mexico secretary of higher education.