Getting Her Attention: Relentless Pounding On Crime Prompts MLG To Renew Call For Feds To Step In; Seeks 50 More FBI Agents As GOP Goes All Crime All The Time, Plus: Vasquez Claims Mo Against Herrell, And: The Year Was 1977

Republicans have made crime their Holy Grail this election and it's starting to show signs of success. 

Their relentless pounding of MLG--led by GOP Guv candidate Mark Ronchetti--appears to have prompted her to renew her call for more Federal aid to fight the crime wave, especially in the ABQ metro where the worst of it is concentrated and where the election will be decided. 

She is again asking that another 50 FBI agents be added to the force here:

(MLG) has asked the Department of Justice to support her request to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for additional resources to support state and local public safety efforts amid a nationwide increase in violent crime. . .(She) asked for additional FBI agents to be assigned to New Mexico following a similar request made in June to FBI Director Christopher Wray that did not result in additional resources. The letter sent to Attorney General Garland notes that Director Wray recently reported a 50% decrease in homicides when the FBI initiated a surge of agents and resources to its office in Buffalo.

June letter to the FBI director here. Letter to the AG sent Sept.15 but released Wednesday is here.

The FBI spearheaded a raid by law enforcement in ABQ last month that netted 1 million fentanyl pills, the most apparently in Bureau history, but it also gave Ronchetti and the R's an opportunity to showcase in TV ads how deep-seated the crime wave is here.

MAN OVERBOARD!

MLG & Keller

The Governor's renewed call for a lifeline from the Feds throws overboard the crime-fighting efforts of ABQ Mayor Tim Keller and his police Chief Harold Medina. Their lack of success has voters increasingly restless and could boost the GOP in the Guv and state House races in the metro. 

The crime wave is not as intense or as top of mind in most other areas of the state. 

MLG told the AG:

Once these resources are allocated to New Mexico, I am confident the FBI and state law enforcement officers will achieve similar success as the Buffalo office. Both New Mexico law enforcement agencies and the FBI are partners in addressing and preventing violent crime. It is therefore imperative to provide the tools and support to achieve our common goal of ending violent crime in New Mexico. 

In the first Guv debate MLG pointed to the record public safety spending that she has facilitated. But that rings hollow in the face of a crime blight that crosses the TV screens ad nauseam. 

Her office says:

In the last four years, Gov. Lujan Grisham has invested nearly three times more in public safety infrastructure than in the previous eight years combined. In her letter to the Attorney General, the governor highlighted her recent delivery of more than $40 million to 29 law enforcement departments across the state for the hiring of over 300 new officers. 

Polling shows GOP US Senate candidates closing the gap with their Democratic foes in key battleground states such as Pennsylvania as they fill the airwaves with TV spots aimed at sparking fear and outrage over crime.

NO BIG DAMAGE--YET

Jeremy Gay 

ABQ Democrats have yet to suffer any political damage at the polls because of the unceasing crime. Mayor Keller was re-elected by a large margin last year and in the June primary BernCo District Attorney Raul Torrez defeated his rival for the Dem nomination for attorney general. 

But in that '21 city election there were rumblings. Conservative crime-fighting Democrat Louis Sanchez won a seat on the ABQ city council as did Republican Dan Lewis.

Torrez faces a general election challenge from Gallup Republican Jeremy Gay who has been on the air with a bio spot and is expected to attack Torrez over his crime fighting credentials. And there is this:

Noelle Gemmer, Gay's campaign manager, lists the same business address as well-known GOP consultant Jay McCleskey who is handling Ronchetti.

No R has been elected AG in decades and Torrez remains heavily favored but strategists say he will need to stay aggressive as the Governor's letter to the AG signals damage is being done.

Ditto for Democratic state House candidates. The national mood has the most impact on those races and if crime begins to take more of a hold over voters they could suffer. 

Dem strategists already believe a loss of a seat or two is likely simply because the House is already packed with 45 of the 70 seats. But a GOP pick up of more than that could reshape the policy narrative on crime. 

MLG has crime fighting credentials, such as the increased public safety funding. She just doesn't have results. She joined with conservatives in support of the controversial pre-trial detention bill but it lost. In the process she not only disappointed conservatives but damaged herself with progressives against the measure. 

On the other hand she pleased the left by signing off on a bill that ended qualified immunity in lawsuits  against law enforcement officers but Republicans have used that to press their crime case against her. 

A TIPPING POINT?

Chief Medina

We blogged yesterday that ABQ has little chance of returning to days of yore when crime was high, but nothing like today. However, there must be a tipping point where the city expects progress in at least halting its escalation. 

On that score, APD Chief Medina said expect more of the same when ABQ again crossed 100 homicides for the year. That is proving to be too bitter a pill for many to swallow. 

No doubt Team MLG is exceedingly frustrated with fellow Dem Keller even as they realize the crisis predates him and eludes solution not only here but elsewhere. But the election is about the here and now. Protecting her smallish lead going into the final weeks is MLG's paramount challenge and that means she will throw elbows in any direction she feels is necessary. 

VASQUEZ VS. HERRELL

He had a slow-poke summer but now Dem southern congressional candidate Gabe Vasquez says he is coming on stronger and that his internal polling shows him taking a two point lead over GOP Rep. Yvette Herrell into the final month of the campaign. 

Vasquez also announced a large cash haul of $1.55 million in the third quarter. Herrell had a cash advantage over the Democrat in the last reports. This latest report is not due until Oct. 15 but Vasquez released his early. 

His campaign notes that Biden carried the newly redistricted southern district by six points and that the congressional race remains rated a toss-up. 

Both candidates are labeling each other "extreme" as the contest becomes a battle for base voters in a lower turnout midterm election.

Looking ahead, one of our GOP Senior Alligators offered the opinion that Herrell will win this year but that 2024 could be a different matter. 

Vasquez, a former aide to Sen. Martin Heinrich, obviously is in no mood to wait.

LENTON AND TASIA 

We recently chatted up this year's campaign with Lenton Malry, now 91, and the first Black to win a seat in the NM legislature. Our write-up drew the attention of reader Tasia Young who was chair of the NM Commission on the Status of Women during Malry's heyday in the state House.

Joe, Lenton Malry did indeed have quite a run, as per your blog piece. I remember what I consider perhaps his finest hour--February of 1977. 

Lenton and the Mama Lucy Gang, a liberal caucus that included Reps. Raymond Sanchez and Bill Warren, worked to defeat a proposed constitutional amendment that would have exempted the New Mexico Military Institute Corps of the Cadets from the state equal rights amendment and allow it to remain all male. Malry, who had experienced discrimination in college and had difficulty buying a house when he moved to Albuquerque, told the House that what they were saying if they passed the bill was: “Let’s have a segregated school at the public expense. That’s what we’re saying in 1977. That’s the bottom line.” The House vote that night to kill bill passed by the Senate was 37-30. NMMI admitted women cadets in the Fall of that year. I was there! 

Great memory for you and for our state, Tasia. 

And to the kids tuning in, when your'e just about to give up on La Politica--remember that story.  

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(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2022