Gov's Veto Pen Loaded With Party and Ethnic Politics
By Sen. Rod Adair
Roswell Republican
The Journal story about capital outlay vetoes Tuesday allowed the governor to get out his denial of "targeting any individual legislator."
This, of course, is answering a very different question from that which has been raised. And with no follow-up question, the governor and his staff were allowed to skirt the entire point: The governor targeted people (mainly school children) who happen to live in Republican districts. Period.
This is not a discussion about whether or not capital outlay is a wise use of tax dollars. This is merely to point out that once entered into, the capital expenditures should be distributed to people, not to political parties.
Capital outlay is largely derived from oil and gas proceeds (though it also comes from gross-receipts taxes.) The oil and gas deposits we are blessed with do not belong to the governor. They are natural resources, like water, that belong to all the people equally.
Richardson is the first governor to use capital outlay monies for partisan political purposes and not to allow it to be distributed to the people of New Mexico. Under Richardson, school children are not considered as individuals. The criteria is whether they live in a district whose legislator is a Democrat or a Republican.
For Richardson, a kid who lives in a Democrat district is worth $465.41, or 17.3 percent more than one who lives in a Republican district ($396.93). As a part of the East Coast Democrat clique that believes in The Perpetual Campaign, Richardson cannot stop the partisan politics after the election, as was the tradition in New Mexico till he took office.
No one on his staff has had the guts, or perhaps the inclination, to say, "Hey Bill, let's stop the campaign and govern."
Below are the real figures about capital outlay in 2006:
The House's 42 Democrats on average lost $212,714 apiece to the governor's veto pen, about 8.8 percent of their projects.
The 28 Republican representatives on average lost $503,464, or 21.3 percent.
Richardson cut $466,875 on average from the Senate's 24 Democrats, or 11.7 percent of projects.
The 18 Republican senators had $898,111 on average whacked from their projects for cuts of 22.5 percent.
From his own capital outlay total of $416 million— larger than the allocations of both chambers put together, Richardson trimmed 0.5 percent.
Some might say that a youth soccer complex in Las Cruces is just as valid a project as a duplicate one in Santa Fe, or expenditures for school kids in Lovington should be given the same consideration as similar ones in certain parts of Albuquerque. Not this governor.
With his East Coast style of machine politics he says to his staff, "Let's show 'em how it's done by a real power politician. Let's cut the Republican districts two to three times as much."
What Richardson doesn't realize is that what he is cutting is money for kids, not for legislators. In addition to his power politics inclinations, some of his motivation is also based on his own ignorant and misguided appeals to ethnic bias— something he has brought to the state with a vengeance. They are ignorant because Richardson doesn't know the state.
The fact is, there are just as many Hispanic kids in districts that happen to be represented by Republicans as there are in those he thinks he is favoring. And because Hispanic kids are now a solid majority of school kids in New Mexico (54 percent), Richardson hurts them even while he thinks he is playing clever politics.
Since he really isn't from New Mexico, he probably doesn't know that 73 percent of school kids in Dexter are Hispanic, while only 53 percent of Wagon Mound's kids are Hispanic. Roswell is 62 percent Hispanic, while Bernalillo is 49 percent.
But enough of this. We need a governor who is not constantly thinking in terms of ethnic politics, but who cares about people— all the people of our state— and who puts all the people ahead of partisan political calculation.
This governor has never done that, and as it turns out, he hasn't exactly grown in office— at least not in character and knowledge.
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