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Monday, September 08, 2025All Crime All The Time Fading? Guv's Special Agenda Veers To Other Concerns, Plus: Lujan Vs. Kennedy Gets Heated, And: Readers Write Of The Quantum Quandry And Alligators Forever! Has all crime all the time seen its day in the sun in Santa Fe? That's the question percolating as Wall-Leaners, Alligators and legislative sages assess the initial agenda Gov. Lujan Grisham put forth for the special legislative session she has called for October 1. Even though it was the issue that MLG first said would lead her to call her seventh special, crime was nowhere near the top of the agenda she released but reduced to a sidebar that a spokesman says is still being worked on in advance of the session. But no deals have been cut on long stalled major crime bills such as criminal competency standards and juvenile crime--and none seem to be in the making. And she won't force a showdown with the Feds by attempting to shut down immigrant detention centers. For a decade New Mexican politics has been drowned in legislative sessions and political campaigns dominated by crime but is there even one legislator who has been bounced from office over the issue? It is the polling numbers of the now lame-duck Governor and ABQ mayor that have taken hits during this long crime fight, but even they have been safely re-elected in its midst. The utter failure of the '24 special session MLG called on crime, after which she never regained momentum on the issue, was an early sign that crime may have peaked politically. As one of our Alligators analyzed: Crime, its causes and political impact can be mysterious to analyze but we do know that economic concerns are mounting. BREAD AND BUTTER
Passage of Trump's Big Big Beautiful Bill gave MLG the perfect excuse to pivot off of crime and onto the bread and butter issues. Her special session heads there with proposals to address federal cuts in food stamps, Medicaid and health delivery to rural areas. These are matters of utmost importance in a quasi-welfare state like ours and ones in which Democrats have the sympathy of voters. Not that the GOP doesn't have a point when they argue that the cuts are not scheduled to take effect until 2027 and there is no need for a special. State Sen. Crystal Brantley comes with this forceful video on MLG abandoning the crime agenda and putting softballs on the agenda like funding for public broadcasting. If there is indeed a shift underway in the state political narrative the immediate beneficiary would seem to be progressive Dem governor candidate Deb Haaland and not moderate Dem contender and District Attorney Sam Bregman or fellow moderate Ken Miyagishima. Haaland fighting crime is like watching a fireman with an empty hose. But on bread and butter issues she can relate. Bregman? Not as much. In the ABQ mayoral and Santa Fe races a legislative pivot to the economy and health does not necessarily lessen the potency of the crime issue. There may be even more emphasis now on the responsibility of local leadership--mayors and city councils--to deal with crime spikes rather than watching Santa Fe continue to tie itself into knots. NOT 25 Our Aug 21 blog had September 25 as the probable date for the special session but did not say it was definite. The Alligators get a pass for that minor miss since they came close. No lashes with the wet noodle this time. LUJAN VS. KENNEDY
Senator Ben Ray Lujan's clash with Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. at a Senate Finance Committee hearing last week was met with mixed reviews across the socials. Some supported Lujan for calling out Kennedy's performance while others labeled Lujan's behavior theater that veered to the bizarre when he wondered if Kennedy could understand his "New Mexico accent." The cabinet secretary bristled under Lujan's questioning, accusing him of reciting "gibberish" and "showboating" for the cameras for his 2026 re-election campaign. Lujan says Kennedy's health policies are endangering the public health and he should resign. The seven minute exchange with Kennedy is here. Lujan reported $2.68 million in cash on hand as of June 30. No Republican has yet announced a challenge to Lujan. One other note. How unusual was it to see a scion of the Catholic Kennedy family, one of the most popular political clans ever in northern New Mexico, tangle with a Hispanic Democratic Catholic Senator Ben Ray Lujan? Surely that is politics turned upside down. QUANTUM QUANDRY Reader Phil Leckman offers thoughts on our blog of last week pointing out that the excitement over quantum computing as an economic boost for the state follows so many others that never panned out: While not disputing the overall point of the blog post, I think you are pushing your argument a little too vigorously. I imagine that many in Rio Rancho - population less than 10,000 in 1980 when Intel set up shop, and more than 130,000 today - would disagree with you that Intel's operations there have had "no lasting legacy." Intel remains Rio Rancho's largest industry by far, with more than 3,000 employees and an annual economic impact of more than a billion dollars. And while Schott Solar's local tenure was brief, Albuquerque's long-term support for the solar industry also led to the rise of Array Technologies, now a publicly-traded multi-billion-dollar company with a manufacturing presence on three continents that's still headquartered here in New Mexico. Array - which is also responsible for New Mexico's only resident billionaire - is only one of many successful, profitable solar-industry firms that have taken root here. Are any of these game-changers on the scale of a Microsoft or Amazon? Perhaps not, but their long-term economic impact is profound and it seems misguided to minimize it.  Our "legacy" reference to Intel was not meant to demean the company but to point out that the metro area has not gotten much spin off of other high tech firms from Intel's presence here. Also, Intel now employs less than 3,000 after 227 layoffs the company announced in July. As for Array, the founder of Array Technologies who became a billionaire is Ron Corio. He founded the company in 1989 in Albuquerque, initially focusing on solar tracking systems. Following Array Technologies' IPO in 2020, Corio sold his 38% stake for an estimated $1.2 billion. Phil offered some exceptions to the rule that when econ planners and politicians promise big. look for a bust. Reader Alan Schwartz added to our list of imagined economic booms: Joe, don't forget the 2010 Greeen2V billion dollar investment plan that tanked. It proposed to turn "sand into killowatts." And don't forget the "we're in the running" stories for Tesla Model S, or was it their battery factory? Then there was the Space Force. And how's that Hydrogen hub coming along? We know about Maxeon but what's the status on Ebon Solar? Some days I think there is a stack of preprinted forms on the 11th floor reading: "We're in the running for _____hundred high paying jobs, with an economic benefit of _____ billions over the next _____ decades. Ron Nelson chimes in: Once again you hit the nail on the head. However you left out the multi-million dollar “super computer” that Gov. Richardson bought that never made it out of the packing crates. ALLIGATORS FOREVER  We, the Alligators of New Mexico, protest your use of AI to run odds on the mayoral races. We resent those artificial prognosticators who know nothing of NM Politics aka the “dark arts." AI robots weren’t there when the deals got struck and they’ve never done a single lap around the Roundhouse. Where were these robots when us Alligators were suffering through our 15th statewide party convention or spinning a candidate’s poll with a local reporter? AI doesn’t know the difference between a chicharrón and a chico. They don’t know what we know here in the swamps of La Política! We’re the political odds makers in NM! Alligators forever! Yikes! Taken to the woodshed by my own Gators, proving again that no one controls those wily creatures. Yes, long live the Alligators and our beloved La Política. This is the Home of New Mexico Politics.
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