New House Leader Martinez To Keep it On "Progressive Path, Plus: Radio Talker Aragon Makes Cut; Collects Enough Sigs To Make Mayoral Ballot, And: CYA At CYFD As Secretary Heads To The Exits

Majority Leader Javier Martinez

"He'll keep the House on a progressive path," opined one Roundhouse wag as ABQ State Rep. Javier Martinez was selected as the new House Majority Floor Leader by House Dems. 

Attorney Martinez, 39, replaces the scandal-plagued Sheryl Williams Stapleton who was forced to resign her ABQ SE Heights seat and leadership post as she faces possible criminal charges alleging she stole nearly $1 million from the ABQ Public Schools. 

Martinez's progressive credentials are pretty much impeccable. He was a lead sponsor of the constitutional amendment to increase funding for early childhood which will go before voters next year and he was also a lead sponsor in legalizing cannabis. 

As chair of the House tax committee he pushed legislation that restored some progressive structure to the state's income tax brackets that had been flattened in favor of the wealthy.

Expect Martinez to make more of the post than Stapleton by asking Speaker Brian Egolf to share some of the power. After all, as majority leader he can no longer be a committee chairman. 

Martinez had only token opposition at the caucus meeting, unlike the first time he sought a leadership post and lost. Now in his fourth term and with that substantial legislative record, he has the street cred to help the House recover from the Stapleton debacle. 

ARAGON MAKES CUT

Eddy Aragon

Mayor Keller must have cranked up the heavy metal music on the 11th Floor and done an Irish jig when he heard the news. Conservative radio talk show host Eddy Aragon has submitted 3,305 petition signatures to qualify as the third candidate to make the Nov. 2 city election ballot, a candidate who will very likely eat into the support of conservative Dem BernCo Sheriff Manny Gonzales who until now was Keller's only challenger for a second term.

Aragon's signatures, all submitted to the city clerk electronically and screened for proper residency, will get the fine tooth comb treatment. However, unless there are challenges and over 300 folks who signed more than one mayoral petition--grounds to disqualify a signature--he will be the lone Republican choice for mayor this year. 

That's pretty heady stuff for the staunch Trump advocate who has flirted with politics for several years but never quite made the cut. Now he has and the 46 year old outspoken talker is sure to light up the campaign trail with his unabashed rhetoric. He already is. Aragon says Gonzales should withdraw from the race, telling us:

His campaign is a mess. He can't raise money, he's as responsible for the crime as Keller and he's a Democrat looking for Republican votes. He can stop running. I am the Republican candidate.

Suddenly, the mayoral race got a lot more colorful. 

The voluble Aragon's impressive accomplishment was done in just about two weeks, using his perch at KIVA 1600 AM radio to steer listeners to the web to sign the petitions and get the needed 3,000.

While his candidacy will divide the R's, that division makes it easier for Keller to capture 50 percent of the vote Nov. 2 and avoid a run-off election. But he will have to take his lumps from Aragon along the way. The microphone maven is already slamming the incumbent for allowing the "murder and mayhem" in the city. 

CYA AND CYFD

Barbara Vigil

Outgoing Children Youth and Families Department (CYFD) Secretary Brian Blalock is going to stay one step ahead of the sheriff and hightail it out of this enchanted land before he runs into a subpoena or something worse. 

Blalock, smothered in controversy, including charges of conducting state business in secret, firing two whistleblowers and allegations of rigging a $45 million software contract, announced he is heading back to California from whence he came to indulge his wife's career. 

MLG played along with that charade, lightly calling Blalock's serious troubles "missteps" but the disturbing Blalock tenure, a once promising cabinet secretary widely supported for bringing an outside set of eyes to a challenged agency, can't be ignored. Nor those who preceded him.

It seems every Governor since CYFD was created in 1992--at the urging of then NM first lady Alice King--has had trouble keeping the department in line. 

For example, in the 90's Heather Wilson, later elected to the US House, came under fire for being too austere with the budget and not pushing foster care. Under Gov. Martinez, Monique Jacobson, a professional marketer who led the Tourism Department, was tapped to head CYFD and her lack of expertise showed. 

Now there's Blalock, perhaps the most disappointing as he came from San Franciso highly touted and with high hopes. Not that there hasn't been any progress but Blalock's ethical lapses overshadowed them and he had to go.

Up next is Barbara Vigil, 62, who recently retired as a nine year justice of the NM Supreme Court. She's been tapped by MLG to tame the bureaucracy and improve the culture. But Vigil, who as a district judge presided over the state Children's Court, is in danger of becoming another Jacobson--well-intentioned but without the necessary experience or background to manage a 1,000 employee agency that deals with some of the most pressing and emotional concerns of the state. 

The appointment seems odd, but it does put Blalock in the rearview mirror. 

By the way, rumbling in Santa Fe has possible personnel changes among senior staff already coming to the new Early Childhood Department. 

THE BOTTOM LINES

The PNM-Avangrid merger is valued at $4.3 billion not the $8.3 billion we had it at in a first draft. And Build a Better Burque, the outside committee supporting Mayor Keller, raised about $21,000 in the latest reporting period, not the $9,000 we first had it at. 

This is the home of New Mexico politics. 

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(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2021