Covid brought a renewed focus on conditions at the state's nursing facilities as the pandemic claimed so many lives of the elderly. There was progress in the wake of the tragedy but the latest state report, says syndicated columnist Sherry Robinson, is dismaying, and that's the subject of this edition of Other Voices:

Two recent studies of New Mexico’s senior care facilities ring alarm bells.

In June the news organization ProPublica published a report that ranked New Mexico nursing homes fifth in serious deficiencies (Texas was first!); in the last three years, 28 of 68 homes had at least one deficiency causing “immediate jeopardy.”

And recently the state Department of Health reported that after surprise inspections at one third of New Mexico’s senior care facilities, only 11 of 91 passed muster and about half scored 90%.
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Given my family’s dismal experience with these places, this was better than I expected. But it’s not good enough for Health Secretary Patrick Allen or the governor, who found the quality of long-term care wanting.

Horror stories are common, and the problem is nationwide.

In May Health Department inspectors, armed with questionnaires, fanned out over 13 counties and visited 91 of 268 facilities, noting observations and interviewing residents. Eleven captured a perfect score, and four failed and were reported to the Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation hotline. The state found at least one violation in 88% of facilities.

Residents’ top concerns were food, boredom and how they’re treated. Inspectors also looked at cleanliness, atmosphere, communications and privacy.

Good food is apparently so hard to achieve that otherwise high-scoring facilities struggle. Said one Albuquerque resident, “They deliver breakfast really late ... and it is always cold, and the coffee is cold.” A Belen resident gave her facility high marks for staff treatment and activities but panned the food, saying she wanted more protein and less starch. A Gallup resident was tired of eating mutton all the time.

For too many facilities, “activities” amount to a TV set. In some cases, residents can’t even change channels, and they never get to go anywhere. They’re lonely and sad, said one person. However, at a Taos facility, residents enjoy a variety of activities and praised the activities coordinator.

Treatment of residents is generally good, but a small percentage of staff ignore residents when they need help, don’t bother to knock before entering their rooms, and don’t respond to requests for room repairs. Said one resident in Gallup, “The staff are mean. They will not say hi and will get mad sometimes.” At another facility, a resident said they needed more staff. Wait times were so long that “sometimes a bowel movement happens before they come to help.”

THE SNIFF TEST

Inspectors found that facilities don’t meet the sniff test. The place smells of cleaning agents — or worse. Some areas or the residents themselves smelled strongly of urine and feces. In one incident reported to the hotline, a resident recovering from a recent surgery asked for help changing herself at 9 p.m., but didn’t get it for 12 hours.

The Health Department believes it’s a basic responsibility to make sure residents are clean, groomed, and dressed in clean clothes that fit. Thirteen facilities failed in these categories. Some residents couldn’t shower every day. One woman had only hospital gowns to wear. And residents’ clothing went missing when sent to the laundry.

Inspectors looked at whether the atmosphere was institutional or homey. One Gallup resident said they couldn’t use the phone to call their families, couldn’t put anything up on the walls in their rooms, and had no privacy.

Some of this dysfunction is simply short staffing and high turnover. “Staff keep leaving,” said a resident. “The cook left and now the food is awful. There used to be more activities, but the activities director left so recently there is nothing going on.”

ProPublica recorded turnover at the 68 nursing homes that ranged from 26.1% to 89.3% and was most often in the high ranges. No organization can function properly with this head-spinning level of staff change. If the state isn’t looking at staffing and turnover, it should be.

Sherry Robinson is an award-winning, longtime New Mexico reporter and editor. She began her newspaper career in Grants in 1976 and subsequently worked for the Gallup Independent, Albuquerque Journal, New Mexico Business Weekly and Albuquerque Tribune. She is the author of four books.

This is the Home of New Mexico Politics.    

Bregman and Keller

Will Democratic BernCo District Attorney Sam Bregman be the defacto Republican and conservative candidate for ABQ Mayor next year? There are plenty of signs pointing toward that outcome and they have Team Keller on high alert.

Bregman, appointed District Attorney by MLG in January 2023 to replace DA Torrez who had been elected attorney general, easily defeated Damon Martinez at the June '24 Dem primary for DA. With no Republican running in November, he will be elected to his own four year term.

But the odds are he will interrupt it.

Bregman, unabashedly ambitious and with a hunger for the top city job (he's run before), is beginning to look like the only plausible alternative to his fellow Democrat and Mayor Tim Keller, a sometimes progressive who will be seeking an unprecedented third consecutive term in November 2025.

For a Democrat the tough-talking Bregman is receiving noticeable support from the conservative establishment, including the newspaper, the ABQ Chamber of Commerce and NAIOP, the commercial real estate group. They desperately want a candidate and Bregman seems the natural pick--a crime conservative Democrat in a city where electing a Republican has become next to impossible.

Bregman raised nearly $500,000 for his successful DA ran, an impressive sum and the most of any candidate in the state in the 2024 primary. He has the organizational flair to qualify for nearly $700,000 in public financing available to mayoral candidates or he could reject public financing and raise more than that from private donations.

If Bregman did go for public money it would likely be joined with an outside PAC that could raise another $500,000 or more, giving the DA the financial strength to compete.

Keller is expected to again qualify for public financing and have an outside PAC formed for him.

Who else could play in this rarefied mayoral atmosphere? Who else wants to? There are no eager beavers in the early going.

A Keller-Bregman face-off dotted perhaps with a few second-tier hopefuls would make for a classic conservative vs. progressive campaign over crime.

Bregman would bring with him loads of political baggage from his stints as state Dem party chair and as a criminal defense attorney but his more recent performance as DA has been ratified by the public and given him the hope that his past will not drag him down.

Keller is an experienced and effective campaigner. If Bregman takes a pass on the mayoral race, it could mean Keller's persistence in the face of adversity could pay off with that unprecedented third term in a row. If Bregman runs, the race is tossed high into the air.  

BLAME GAME

Rep. Chandler

If Bregman does take the mayoral plunge he'll have to stop blaming the legislature for the ongoing crime wave in ABQ and put blame on the mayor and police chief. Of course, his performance as DA would also come under intense scrutiny. 

As we've been reporting top lawmakers are now turning against the city for constantly blaming them for the stubborn crime. The latest:

At an interim meeting of the Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee, the chairwoman, Rep. Christine Chandler, D-Los Alamos, said the Legislature has allocated "hundreds of millions of dollars" to agencies that leave money on the table. 

"There's been laser focus by this Legislature to ensure that those with the responsibility of enforcing the laws have the resources that they need. They're not being utilized. It's just not happening, and we need to start calling it for what it is." Chandler also said the state has "hundreds and hundreds of criminal laws" that need to be enforced. 

"We have a city (ABQ) here that suffers from a serious crime problem. It's the mayor and it's the police department that's primarily responsible for ensuring [laws are enforced], not the Legislature. We have been providing the resources that they ask for and that they need, so let's just call it as it is."

If Chandler came down here and ran for mayor, she just might win--and without a runoff.

DON'T GET BLUE 

At the risk of getting blue in the face, we again urge state policy makers to seriously consider providing high speed internet to rural New Mexico via Starlink and its satellites that are so successful across the globe--and more cost effective than rolling out fiber to remote households. But the window is closing. The latest:

Sec. Haaland

Those backing and hoping that Sec. of Interior Deb Haaland will launch a 2026 campaign for Governor could lose some bragging rights for their favored candidate should she enter the Guv fray:

If Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are elected this fall, not only would a woman of color lead the country for the first time, but a Native woman would govern a state for the first time in U.S. history too. Peggy Flanagan, the lieutenant governor of Minnesota and a citizen of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, is poised to serve as the state’s next governor should Walz step down to accept the role of vice president. Her rise to power has been watched closely by Indigenous peoples in Minnesota and across the country who see her as a champion of policies that positively affect Native Americans.

Flanagan would fill the unexpired portion of Walz' term which ends in 2026. If she sought election and won she would  then become the "first elected" Native American woman governor. If Haaland ran and own in 2026 she would then be the co-owner of the title.

That's not a position Haaland is unfamiliar with. When she was elected to the ABQ congressional seat in 2018 she became the first Native American woman elected to the US House but it was an accomplishment she shared shared with Kansas Rep. Shaurice Davids who was elected at the same time. 

The AP reports: "Thirty-six state women lawmakers nationwide who identify as Native Americans were elected to office in 2023, a record, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University."

WEATHERMAN WINDFALL

Ronchetti

If the legal fees don't take too much, former TV weatherman Mark Ronchetti will make up a good part of the $223,000 a year salary he has missed making since leaving KRQE in October 2021to pursue a run for governor.

An ABQ judge ordered Ronchetti's campaign media firm--Go Big Media--to pay him $386,000 in damages for announcing too early in 2021 that Ronchetti was running for Governor in 2022. 

Full court order here.

That web site announcement made him an official candidate and federally-licensed KRQE had to take him off the air before he was ready. He had to pay the station $40,000 for an early termination of his contract.

Parts of the order from Judge Lisa Ortega Chaves seemed over the top. For example, she wrote:

It is incomprehensible and inexcusable that Defendant, responsible for handling political campaigns would be ignorant of the requirements to maintain the confidentiality and security of individual pages of a campaign website. 

How so, Judge? When that same firm in 2020 leaked prematurely the news that Ronchetti was going to run for US Senate? It seems more incomprehensible that Ronchetti would use them again. Also, campaigns are not run by brain surgeons. Mistakes are more common than the Judge seems to be aware.

Ronchetti's lawsuits aren't done. GOP attorney Matt Chandler has filed a suit against an auto company that Ronchetti is accusing them of selling him a defective 2003 Land Rover. (Lawsuit here.)

Since losing the Guv's race Republican Ronchetti, now 50, has been doing a podcast on politics, his TV career an apparent victim of his political ambitions.

THE BOTTOM LINES

In a first draft Monday we had Sen. Pete Domenici winning re-election in 2008. His last re-elect was 2002 and that was when the last Republican in NM was elected to the US Senate.

Harris in NM (2023)

Some fresh polling in the New Mexico presidential and US Senate contests leave both races where they were before the historic tumult that occurred with President Biden stepping aside and VP Harris becoming the Democratic nominee who then named Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate. 

The new polling comes from a firm commissioned by The Telegraph newspaper in London and confirms what most longtime observers say is the current trend--Harris is is on course to win the state's five electoral votes and Heinrich is on track to secure a third six year term in the Senate 

The firm, Redfield and Wilton, whose surveys are also being carried by Newsweek, conducted the poll from July 31-August 3, well after Biden made his July 21 decision to withdraw and before Harris named Gov. Tim Walz to the ticket. 

The number of likely voters interviewed in New Mexico was 585. The survey here was part of a ten state poll of possible presidential swing states where the firm says "8,229 swing voters" were interviewed.  The political site 538 ranks the firms accuracy at 1.8 stars out of 3.0

With that pointed out, Harris leads Trump in the state by seven points, 44 to 37 percent with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. getting 8 percent. Undecideds were at 8 percent and other candidates received one percent. 

In a June 13-14 PPP poll among 555 likely voters, Biden beat Trump 48 to 41, the same seven point margin Harris wins in The Telegraph poll.

That NM percentage for Kennedy is the highest among the 10 states surveyed and appears to speak to the enduring popularity of the Kennedy family among Hispanic New Mexicans, especially in the north. 

However, support for third party candidates traditionally peaks in the summer and then begins to fall. An educated guess would put Kennedy's ultimate showing at about half of his 8 percent support in this poll.

The Telegraph poll gives Harris a 41 percent approval rating in New Mexico and a 42 percent disapproval rating. 

Biden's NM approval rating in in the July 31-Aug. 3 poll was 41 percent and disapproval was 45 percent, slightly worse than VP Harris.  

While Harris and Biden both beat Trump in the polling by seven points, there was an internal Dem poll following the Biden debate disaster that pointed to New Mexico being in play in the race and prompted MLG to express concern. Shortly after Biden withdrew from the race. 

No Republican presidential candidate has carried New Mexico since 2004 and currently all statewide executive offices are held by the Democrats as well as both chambers of the legislature, the governorship and the five seats on the state Supreme Court. 

Trump has twice lost the state decisively in 2016 and 2020. But Hispanic support for Biden/Harris has been a concern for the Democrats.

The state continues to track more progressive with heavy emphasis on social issues such as abortion and climate change and leaving behind bread and butter issues important to working class voters.  

HEINRICH VS. DOMENICI

Heinrich polls at 40 percent to Domenici's 34 percent. A large 21 percent say they they are undecided; 3 percent say they won't vote if Domenici and Heinrich are the candidates and 1 percent said they would vote for other candidates. 

In the June 13-14 PPP poll Heinrich received 47 percent and Domenici 40 percent and 13 percent undecided. The margin of error was 4.2 percent.  

In a July poll sponsored by Republicans that Heinrich is using to raise money from, he leads Domenici 41 to 38. His fundraising missives repeatedly call the race "competitive" but that view is not yet shared by the major DC handicappers who all rate the race solid or safe Democratic. 

Still, Heinrich continues to be a late closer with anemic numbers for an incumbent at the start of his race. 

Domenici has come with $1.5 million of her personal money for her campaign but she has not blanketed the state with the heavy messaging that might move her numbers in advance of the fall campaign.

No Republican has been elected to the US Senate from NM since Domenici's father, Sen. Pete Domenici, won a re-election bid in 2002. 

No sitting US Senator has been defeated for re-election here since 1982 when Democrat Jeff Bingaman beat Republican Jack Schmitt.  

ABORTION UPHEAVAL 

Domenici is getting some good news. The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NSRC) has come into the came into the state with a TV buy on her behalf that brings a new spin to the abortion debate. 

Campaign operatives report the ad buy is for "several hundred thousand." That does not yet signify that the race will be targeted by the national GOP with much greater funding. Far from it. But the ad buy does test the waters to see if this could be fertile ground for an upset in the fall.

Here's the new Domenici abortion ad and here's the transcript.

Family Planning (and) giving birth are some of the most important issues a woman has to deal with and New Mexico has already decided its policy. I oppose any federal ban. Abortion should be safe legal and rare. Women should be trusted respected and babies should be loved and wanted. We need to do a much, much better job of helping women have the best education access and the best choices available to them. I'm Nella Domenici. I approved this ad.