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Thursday, July 24, 2008

Gov.: No Public Vote on Regents

By Jeff Jones And Martin Salazar
Journal Staff Writer
       A national Hispanic group is calling on Gov. Bill Richardson to back a change in the New Mexico Constitution that would strip him and future governors of the power to appoint university regents, but Richardson isn't biting.
    The politically powerful League of United Latin American Citizens wants voters to select regents.
    The group also wants the nation's only Hispanic governor to back the formation of a top-level state office to address Hispano issues.
    Richardson spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said Wednesday that the governor opposes changing how regents are picked, but he did not specify whether Richardson would back a new Cabinet-level Hispanic affairs department.
    "Gov. Richardson demands full accountability from each regent and will not accept any division of that accountability. These universities receive funding from the state and must be accountable to the state," Gallegos said.
    "We have not gotten support from the Governor's Office for an office of Hispano affairs — yet, in New Mexico, there's an office of Native American affairs and (another for) African-American affairs," said Ralph Arellanes, a state LULAC district director who has been a vocal Richardson critic. "We're perplexed. We don't know what it takes."
    New Mexico's Hispanic population is 45 percent of the total state population, according to one recent estimate.
    Arellanes charged that Hispanics have been underrepresented on regents' boards under the tenure of Richardson and past governors. But Jamie Koch, president of the University of New Mexico board of regents, said Wednesday that Richardson has worked hard to make such boards diverse.
    UNM's seven-member board has three Anglos, two Hispanics, an American Indian and an African American. UNM's student population in fall 2007 was 31 percent Hispanic and 48 percent Anglo.
    "I would be willing to bet my bottom dollar that there would not be four minority people on the board of regents if it were elected," Koch said.
    "Hispanics are very well-represented in state government, including the governor, the speaker, the senate majority leader and chief justice of the state Supreme Court, as well as other statewide offices," said Gallegos, the governor's spokesman.
    While Arellanes was pointed in some of his criticism, the national arm of LULAC was much less so.
    National executive director Brent Wilkes said Wednesday the call for changes in New Mexico by the 115,000-plus-member organization is not meant to be a slam on one of the nation's highest-profile Hispanic elected officials.
    "He's done a lot to be an important force for Latinos in this country," Wilkes said of Richardson.
    The resolutions, which were first approved by the New Mexico LULAC chapter in April, were approved at the national level earlier this month at a convention in Washington, D.C. — meaning they became part of the national group's goals for 2008 and 2009.
    Hispanic voters are seen as a key voting bloc in the upcoming presidential election, and Democratic candidate Barack Obama and Republican contender John McCain both spoke at the convention.
    Some of the many other resolutions approved during the convention are sure to be controversial: One resolution, posted on the group's Web site, calls for a "moratorium on immigrant raids, detentions and deportations."
    The proposal to have elected regents in New Mexico has been floated in the past.
    The vast majority of the state's colleges have elected governing boards. But the New Mexico Constitution requires that the state's six public universities be overseen by regents appointed by the governor. Changing how regents are selected would require voter approval.
    Pablo Martinez, director of the state chapter of LULAC, said regents under the current system aren't directly accountable to the public.
    Koch said making boards of regents elected bodies likely would result in fewer minorities on the boards. It would also turn universities into "political ball games," he said.
    New Mexico State University in Las Cruces has a five-member board of regents made up of four men and one woman. One NMSU regent has a Hispanic surname. NMSU's student body as of last fall was 52 percent Anglo and 41 percent Hispanic.
    The LULAC resolution supporting the creation of a state Hispanic affairs department maintains that Hispanics in New Mexico are "losing our meager gains in hoping to reach parity with our Anglo counterparts."
    State Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez has pushed legislation to create a Hispanic affairs department, but it has failed.
    Martinez, the state LULAC director, said he has asked repeatedly to speak with Richardson about the issue.
    "I've been postponed and postponed and postponed," he said.