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This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by editorial page staff and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers

Friday, November 07, 2008

Finally, Drama in the Results, Not the Vote



      Any election postmortem in New Mexico usually begins with what went wrong — in fact, local media outlets like the Journal plan on there being a “voter problems” story, whether it's about malfunctioning machines and missing precinct boxes, uncounted absentee and provisional ballots, or 10-day-late results.
       Problems, at least for the past two decades, have been a given.
       But this time around, the only real problem on election Tuesday — despite a huge 72 percent turnout — appears to have been running on the same party ticket as a wildly unpopular president.
       It's thanks to conscientious early voters and the hard work and preparation of Secretary of State Mary Herrera and county clerks including Bernalillo's Maggie Toulouse Oliver that the biggest drama of Election Day 2008 in most parts of New Mexico lies in the fallout from voters' choices, not in figuring out what those choices were in the first place.
       And those choices were dramatic. With the retirement of senior U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici and the election losses of U.S. Reps. Heather Wilson in the primary and Steve Pearce in the general (Republicans all), the mantle of senior statesman falls squarely on veteran Sen. Jeff Bingaman's shoulders.
       His new colleague in the Senate, Tom Udall, isn't a Capitol newcomer — having served 10 years in the House of Representatives. So he has a leg up on the learning curve, if not the seniority ladder.
       Reps.-elect Martin Heinrich, Harry Teague and Ben R. Luján still have to pick up school supplies and find their buildings before reporting as freshmen in January.
       So there's no seat at the Appropriations Committee table, no more years of National Security Council experience, no more ranking member of the Energy and Minerals Subcommittee.
       The same goes, albeit on a smaller scale, in the Legislature. Experienced, fiscally conservative Republican legislators either lost (Sen. Diane Snyder, Reps. Eric Youngberg and Teresa Zanetti) or were counting on provisional ballots or recounts to keep them in office (Sens. Steve Komadina and Leonard Lee Rawson, Rep. Justine Fox Young). Come January, crafting a balanced budget in light of falling oil prices and an anemic stock market promises to be a challenge for veteran lawmakers, not to mention the newbies.
       Just as troubling is the loss of Fox Young, Snyder, Youngberg and Zanetti's advocacy for open, accountable government.
       Given the tough economy, the fact that all bond issues and all but two tax proposals passed is a testament to New Mexicans' forward thinking.
       From libraries to hospitals, mass transit to higher education, roads to flood control, New Mexicans committed to pitching in, with many of the projects promising new construction jobs and all counted on to deliver an improved infrastructure. (The county fairgrounds tax in Santa Fe didn't make it to the buzzer and the spaceport tax in Otero County crashed.)
       As for the five constitutional amendments on the ballot, voters smelled a rat and soundly trounced the provision that would have allowed elected county officials to give themselves midterm raises. Of the four amendments that passed, only No. 1 promises to be problematic. Because it proposes two things — adding school board members in Albuquerque (a bad idea) and mail-in school elections — via one vote, it's unconstitutional on its face and bound to draw legal fire.
       Noteworthy results all — but perhaps the most dramatic for New Mexicans is being able to discuss and debate election results so soon after the polls close. And that beats sorting out the problems at a later date.
       

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