Mike Lillis lays out the trouble New Mexico faces with the coming loss of its Congressional clout as Pete Domenici retires and everyone else scraps their current seats to run for Senate:

The shakeup could be particularly tough for New Mexico, which receives more federal dollars per capita than all but five other states, according to the most recent U.S. Census report. Salting the wounds, the state is set to lose two spots on the powerful appropriations committees. Both Domenici and Udall have seats there now, but freshman lawmakers almost never gain membership. The loss of appropriators, combined with the loss of incumbency, will be a double-blow to the state's influence over federal politics and policies, some experts say. The influx of federal dollars, they add, will almost certainly fall.

I think Lillis gets it wrong when he suggests that Los Alamos has "a history of securing federal funds regardless of the political climate in Washington." The bipartisan pressure the last several years has clearly been in the opposite direction, and it's only been Domenici's clout and seniority that have prevented deeper cuts than those we're now seeing. But Lillis's underlying premise here is sound.