Two Perspectives as Legislature Rolls on

I am old enough to remember what it was like to watch two smart, service-minded people disagree on nearly every aspect of how government should function without unsheathing shiny, edged weapons to engage in ritual ripping and tearing. Alas, those memories feel dusty, old and grey in this age of CNN “panel discussions,” podcast “owns” and legislative mud wrestling spectacles.
 
Imagine my delight, then, as I sat in the NMPBS control booth to produce a mid-session accounting of this year’s action from the state Capitol. The cool breeze was unmistakable as Mark Moores, a conservative Republican who chose to forego reelection to the New Mexico Senate this year, and Eric Griego, a progressive who served as a Democrat in the upper chamber from 2009 to 2013, laid out informed, impassioned analyses of how things are going in the state they both call home. 

The come-froms could not have been further apart had the whole of North America separated them. 

Griego praised the $10.8 billion budget that seems destined — with some light tailoring in the Senate — for Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s desk as the right way to spend a record-breaking pile of cash: on housing, health care, public employee raises and more. 

Moores called the spending plan a “socialist’s dream” and repeated the dreaded “s” word several times as he carved the majority Democratic party’s handiwork into chum for the few fish that remain in the parched Rio Grande.  

With NMiF Politics Correspondent Gwyneth Doland leading the conversation, Moores and Griego went at it for nearly half an hour, over two segments that touched a wide swath of the politics and policies driving the Legislature during this 60-day session. They reached common ground on the malign influence of lobbyists in the Roundhouse — and pretty much nothing else.  

There were some smirks and perhaps a muffled guffaw or two as a point was made, but never did this conversation so much as threaten to drift into disrespect. Instead, here were two competing visions for how this state should move forward from former legislators who know how to listen as well as they can speak.

This is our show at its analytical, subject-matter-expert-driven best. We hope you enjoy it. 

– Jeff Proctor, Executive Producer