New Mexico Politics with Joe Monahan: Merry Christmas, New Mexico

Talk about a Happy New Year. Outgoing Attorney General Hector Balderas will be paid $232,500 a year on a three year contract as the new president of the Northern New Mexico College and

Garnett Stokes, who speculation had possibly ending her career as president of UNM, has been offered a new deal for $662,000 a year by the UNM Regents. As the song says, nice work if you can get it. . .

From the Regents to the UNM community:

Noting the exceptionally positive outcome of a comprehensive evaluation process that included over 320 stakeholders, The University of New Mexico Board of Regents unanimously approved to extend the contract of Garnett S. Stokes for an additional three-year term, with an option for an additional two-year extension at the mutual agreement of the Board and the President. . .The amended contract increases Stokes’ total annual compensation from $601,000 to $662,000.

That ought to be enough for some nice stocking stuffers at the Stokes' household.

Balderas is making $95,000 a year as AG. Does his new salary mean he will make his home in Espanola?

HISPANICS AND REPUBLICANS

Call it the big fizzle--the talk about NM and Southwest Hispanics heading over to the GOP in '22. It didn't happen, although Hispanic men needed extra wooing to stay in the Dem column:

In Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, Latinos have stuck with Democrats, and that has helped power the party's gains across a region where Latino population growth has exploded. It belies a conventional narrative that Democrats were universally ceding Latino voters to the Republican Party, a story line repeated throughout the run-up to the Nov. 8 midterms.

Instead, indicators show the GOP in danger of losing Latino voters in this region, a prospect that could mean being boxed out of the Southwest for the long term. Dan Sena, whose firm Sena Kozar Strategies was involved in Spanish and English-language ads as well as strategy for races across the Southwest, said if there’s erosion within the Democratic Party, it is among Latino men.“The good news is at least in New Mexico, they were heavily persuadable through the course of the campaigns. We were able to help win them back in relatively stronger numbers,” Sena said. But he predicted it would be a fight that comes up every election year. “The challenge we have is you can’t treat them like they’re base voters. Hispanic men are no longer base voters. They are true persuadable voters.”

QUESTION CORNER

Reader Carmie Toulouse has a question about Hispanic leadership in the NM senate:

I have a question for you Joe, under the leadership of Senate Pro Tem Mimi Stewart and Majority Leader Peter Wirth, where are the Hispanic women in the NM Senate when it comes to committee chairs??

Well, there are currently none, although a Native American female senator--Shannon Pinto--chairs the Indian Affairs Committee and Sen. Nancy Rodriguez is vice-chair of Senate Finance, considered the most powerful of the standing committees.

THE TOP 7

What were the top seven political stories of 2022? We have our picks and shared them with Santa Fe talker Richard Eeds. Hint: #1 is not the mid-term election

MERRY CHRISTMAS

In this space on the cusp of Christmas 2006 I wrote this of our state:

We live in a wonderful, almost fantasy-like environment in this Land of Enchantment. It is a gift that gives year round--the sunsets that make hearts soar; the mountains that inspire dreams; the never-ending landscapes that give a spiritual dimension to daily life. The contrast of this earthly perfection with our crazed, but beloved La Politica makes us that more inscrutable to the outside world.

Thanks for joining me today and all the days of 2006 (and 2022). I look forward to more special times with you when we return in the new year.

Merry Christmas, New Mexico!

Frank, take us out of here . .