Post-Election Reflections

Las Cruces voters got it right this week. Kudos to candidates, canvassers, and voters – on both sides. Special congratulations to Mayor Ken Miyagashima for a resounding victory. 

But let's not dance in the streets just yet. The closeness of the council races sent a message to both sides: we must work harder at talking with each other and collaborating. Conservatives and the Chamber of Commerce lost the election; and the recent recall efforts, plus misleading personal attacks by an outside PAC, have alienated many uncommitted voters. Progressives should note that two council seats were decided by 18 and 11 votes, respectively. Slightly better decisions by candidates or their backers could have changed the outcome. 

Further, the outside PAC could be back next election with a bigger budget or smarter operators. (The super-PAC attacks made some voters vote against PAC candidates, but undoubtedly led others to worry about PAC-alleged scandals. I'll leave it to Steve Pearce to figure out whether the attacks ultimately helped or hurt PAC-favored candidates.) Conservatives could have won Tuesday. (Since I'm not a Republican campaign consultant I won't suggest how.)

The PAC further damaged the community's ability to move forward as a community. Not something Pearce or Mack Energy cares about, obviously. If I were Miyagashima, I'd be sorely tempted to tell some PAC allies to put their requests and ideas where the sun don't shine. Fortunately, Miyagashima will surmount any such temptations. 

Progressives and other citizens must go forward working as collegially as possible with folks they disagree with. I don't say blind ourselves to the fact that some people mean us no good. I do say that with our eyes open we should work with everyone we can, without pride in our “victory” or our supposed righteousness. None of us is always right about everything. Nor is anyone I've met always completely wrong.

If we can talk honestly across the ideological divide, we will find some areas of agreement; where we disagree, groups can understand each other better, perhaps avoiding misunderstandings and personal animus, (Understand others' assumptions. Confront others' arguments without rejecting the persons, the neighbors, making the arguments.) Together, we may be able to hammer out workable compromises. Ultimately, we all want to improve Las Cruces, although we differ on how to do that and on precisely what constitutes improvement. 

Above all, this is a community. If it degenerates into armed camps, perpetually at war, we all lose. And although each “side” may blame the other's close-mindedness and arrogance, we might dp better to glance inward for a moment and see how we can each improve our own tolerance, open-mindedness, communication, and genuinely cooperative attitude.

Examples? Conservatives complain the City is tough on businesses. If that means businesses don't want any safety and health regulations, I'd say too bad. But if it means city officials drag permit processes out unreasonably, because they enjoy power or because inaction is safe when you're unsure what to do, or because they think councilors are anti-growth, we all need to try to change that.

Another: how much and what kind of growth would be best is a fair but complicated question. We all need better information about water, for example. How much is there? How bad is it? And what would be the actual costs and harms of trying to improve water quality? All sides should collaborate on gathering information – and on educating each other honestly about the facts. Assuming mindlessly that all growth is good or bad won't cut it.

Staying in perpetual campaign mode would expand that leak in the bottom of the rowboat we all share.

                                                         -30-
[The column above appeared this morning, Sunday, 8 November in the Las Cruces Sun-News -- which, coincidentally, also editorialized on the same subject from a somewhat similar point-of-view.]  It will also appear on the KRWG-TV website today.]

 [If I didn't make it clear enough: 
"Yo, conservatives: you lost, despite a Congressman and a PAC and $100,000.  The city council majority is what it is -- and even if you win Olga's and Gill's seats two years from now, you likely won't have a majority.  Deal."
"Yo, progressives: you damned near lost two council seats -- and 49% of the voters did not vote for Mayor Miyagashima.  That means someone other than the Greater Chamber and the Tea Party may have had some issues with you.  Deal."
Some progressives feel as if it's like the gridlock in Congress, where folks urge both sides to compromise, but the Republicans won't/can't because of Pearce and his ilk, extremists who'd rather make a point to their wealthy supporters than run a country in some sane fashion.  Is that true here?  The way to find out is to treat complaints or critical questions with respect and a cooperative spirit.  Where some legitimate problems turn up, try to deal with them non-ideologically.  Where not, shrug and go on to the next issue.]

[Everyone asks me "Why does Pearce hate Miyagashima so much?" or "Why do these guys care about who's a city councilor in Las Cruces?"   Obviously I don't know, although I doubt Pearce particularly hates Miyagashima and I doubt he was involved in detailed discussions of the nearly-libelous mailings by the PAC.  I do believe he wants a more Republican / conservative Las Cruces, and is working to make it happen.  The Congressman from Hobbs lost last year to a professor's wife (now, sadly, widow) who had never held public office.  I don't mean to belittle her, because I like and respect her; but if I were a five-term U.S. Congressman who kept losing the biggest city in my district to unknown Republican opponents, I'd probably want to urge Hobbs to get a little more progressive.  Don't know as I'd do it the same way, but that's why I'm not holding any elective office and am highly unlikely to seek one!]

[But it isn't just Pearce -- or, in his interest, Mack Energy.  From a recent piece by "Money in Politics Reporter" Paul Blumenthal in the Huffington Post:
     :
"Super PACs have also played key roles in city elections for mayor and city council members across the country this year. . . . 

"A debate over the development of a toll road in Dallas led businessmen involved in city council races to create opposing super PACs. Wealthy businessmen including billionaire Harlan Crow, oilman Ray Hunt and investor Al Hill Jr. made five-figure donations to For Our Community, the pro-toll road super PAC. Coalition for a New Dallas, the anti-toll road super PAC, received $150,000 from Trammell Crow Jr.

"Small cities are not immune to super PAC involvement either, as two northern New Jersey cities found out in 2015.

"In Little Ferry, New Jersey, a group called Focus on Families is circulating flyers attacking Mayor Mauro Raguseo. “These fliers are ridiculous in their attacks, and I think the people of Little Ferry know that,” Raguseo told The North Jersey Record. The biggest problem is that Focus on Families has not filed a single disclosure report detailing who its funders are.

"Just slightly to the west, New Jersey Future First, a super PAC run by a Democratic Party consultant, got involved in a Republican township council primary election in Parsippany, New Jersey. The super PAC's involvement was confusing to residents at first, and especially to the officials it targeted.

"The group stated that all of its funding came from America’s Future First, a 527 group registered with the Internal Revenue Service. That confusion was cleared up when America’s Future First disclosed that its donors were Fairview Insurance Agency and Adams, Rehmann & Heggan Associates. Both companies held contracts with the city’s government, and the council members they opposed were critical of the contracts.

. . .
"Super PAC involvement continues even further down-ballot: Lately, billionaires can be found influencing races for school board and district attorney in Louisiana.

In short, it's the new political reality: money dictating to politics in U.S. towns more directly than it had since more than a century ago.]

Pearce Super-PAC Muscles into Municipal Election - Why?

Why is a PAC backed by Steve Pearce attacking Las Cruces candidates with misleading ads? In trying to influence the city election, why did it not even register as a PAC with the city? And why do monied interests elsewhere want to influence city council elections? 

Las Crucens should care who's mayor here. Las Crucens should care who's on the City Council. County residents, myself included, have reason to care too.

But why should oil-and-gas interests from Hobbs tell us how to vote here? Why should a super-PAC attack local candidates such as Kasandra Gandara and Ken Miyagashima?

“GOAL West PAC” has a Hobbs address. Pearce has donated some of his excess campaign funds to the PAC, and his brother Phillip is its Treasurer. 

Many citizens have recently received the PAC's mailers. 

So far, the content is pretty lame. For example, Kassanda Gandara is a mother (son a veteran, daughter in med school) who started as a PTO member fighting for her kids, and also became a social worker – but the oil-and-gas PAC calls her “a lifelong bureaucrat.” (To me, a “bureaucrat” shuffles papers. A social worker affecting people's lives, like a law enforcement officer or doctor, does something more, even if employed by the public, (As Pearce is.) Another mailer uses a funny picture of Mayor Miyagashima and talks about “lipstick on a pig.” (Las Cruces is the “pig”; the “lipstick” means comments that Las Cruces is a great place to live. Which I think it is.) The mailer blathers about “small business” without suggesting any real ideas – except that we shouldn't increase the minimum wage.

It's negative campaigning. By ousiders with money. Based on the old premise that if you repeat something long enough people will eventually believe it. And it could get uglier right at the end.

I don't much want Steve Pearce telling me whom to vote for. I don't give a rat's posterior what Pearce or his brother has to say about Ken Miyagashima. It even seems a little arrogant that no one even bothered to use the available legal methods to obscure Pearce's connection with the PAC a little, to make at least some effort to blunt the naked truth that Steve Pearce figures he can tell us whom to elect to local office.

This is the same Steve Pearce who played chicken with shutting down the government and helped cost us all billions ($1 billion in interest alone) merely to make abstract ideological points. Same Pearce who's ex-military but has a miserable record on veterans' issues. Same guy who's trying to cut back on public lands because they're inconvenient for the interests who fund his campaigns – and because he thinks government should be minimized at every turn, no matter how that harms us.

Ironically, the PAC blames Miyagashima for southern New Mexico's economic problems; but who could have done more in recent years to improve New Mexico's economy: Miyagashima (with one vote on a city council) or Steve Pearce and his ally Susana Martinez? Hi, Steve! 

If I lived in the City I'd be tempted to vote against the Pearce candidates, Miguel Silva and Eli Guzman, just to send Pearce a message. (There are other reasons.)

Guzman and fellow Chamber of Commerce endorsee Hall stiffed the Las Cruces Sun-News candidate forums. They preferred to avoid probing questions from journalists but let the Chamber (or Pearce and his big-money folks) send out misleading flyers attacking their opponents. You can't ask a flyer hard questions.

A vote for Guzman, Hall, or Van Veen is an implicit approval of running for office that way.

                                                          -30-

[The column above appeared in the Las Cruces Sun-News this morning, Sunday, 1 November, and will also appear later today on the KRWG-TV website.]
[I wrote this while traveling, and sent it in Tuesday, and of course lots has been published since then on this subject.  This is simply politics at its worst: an oil company and a few rich folks, all from far beyond the borders of our county, paying to spread misleading attack ads against local candidates here.  It's a hate-group ultimately controlled by Hobbs's U.S. Congressman, Steve Pearce, who's developing an interesting habit of trying to meddle in local politics.  Sad.  Sadder if it succeeds in outweighing the will of the actual citizens of Las Cruces.  Should add fuel to the anti-Pearce fire in Las Cruces next year; but as I recall, he lost the Las Cruces portion of the 2014 vote to a gutsy, hard-working neophyte.   Folks here generally see him for what he is already.]
[For the record: I hope Miyagashima wins re-election.  I don't always agree with him, but I've found him reasonably candid with me and I think the City is generally doing some good things -- and getting attacked viciously for it.  I like Miguel personally; but I see no reason to believe he'd be a better mayor than Ken; his charter-breaking misconduct (along with other councilors) regarding minimum wage doesn't entitle him to a promotion, and the big bucks and energy of the super-PAC and the Chamber of Commerce on his behalf suggest he'd be their mayor, not the people's.  Ms. Montoya-Ortega seems a nice lady, possibly well-intentioned, and if she indeed wants to help Las Cruces perhaps she'll get more involved in local government and politics than she has been in the past.  She has shown no experience, education, or new ideas that should excite anyone about the idea of making her mayor. 
District 1? Kasandra Gandara, whom I haven't yet met, seems the far stronger candidate than Eli Guzman, whom I've only spoken to on the phone.  Gandara has done good things as a social worker, eventually got promoted to oversee a five-county region, and started as a mother fighting for her kids' education.  Guzman is personally appealing, as a local kid teaching martial arts, but he reacted badly to the effort by city codes enforcement folks to ensure that the new dojo he was building would be safe.   Further, it's hard not to assume that based on his loud opposition to freedom of choice for women wouldn't lead him to help with efforts to initiate a local anti-choice vote along the lines of the one that wasted time and money in Albuquerque.  (I hear such an effort is likely, but don't actually know so for a fact.)  
District 2? This is the closest we have to a reasonable race.  I'd vote for Greg Smith.  Reluctantly, because his conduct regarding the minimum-wage issue was not to his credit and his failure to speak out against the recall effort more vigorously was a failure to stand up for Las Cruces when it counted.  However, he does really care about improving Las Cruces, has done some things to actually improve it, and has the energy and experience to continue making a real contribution as councilor.  Philip Van Veen strikes folks (including me, during our one brief conversation) as more thoughtful than some of the Chamber-of-Commerce candidates; but I've seen and heard nothing from him that suggests he'd be anywhere near as useful and productive a councilor as Smith has been.  It's also not clear to me that he cares about aspects of the city other than making things easier for businesses and developers, or has the experience or perspective to do much good.  Maybe.  But Greg Smith can be counted on to think hard and work hard on a variety of issues that come before the council.
District 4: Jack Eakman has the background and perspective to be a very good councilor.  If the alternative is a Tea Party denizen who loathes Obama, loves Pearce, and didn't even dare show up to visit with Sun-News journalists, there's no serious alternative.  (Voting for Gilbert Vasquez would be a wasted vote, since he'd be legally precluded from taking office.) ]