Deb Haaland for Governor

As racism, incompetence and intimidation gain an evil momentum across our country, New Mexicans have a chance next year to vote for one of the most gracious, open minded and straight arrow politicians in recent memory, a person who also happens to be among the best prepared and most deeply experienced candidates for governor in its history, former Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland.

Along with administering one of the most complicated departments in the federal government, Haaland is a former Chair of the New Mexico Democratic Party and a former U.S. Representative from New Mexico’s 1^st Congressional District. As Interior Secretary, she oversaw plans for an $8 billion project of complicated and vital infrastructure renovation and repair along the Colorado River, among the most important public improvement efforts in decades, until, that is, Trump Republicans defunded the effort this year.

Along with her administrative expertise and her knowledge of how government works, Haaland’s political sophistication and deep commitment to environmental justice make her the ideal candidate for wielding even-handed executive authority in perhaps the most culturally diverse state in the Union.

When it comes to battling against racist conservative attacks directed at diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), Haaland, as an enrolled member of Laguna Pueblo, is an uncompromised civil libertarian with life-long experience of the subtle and often brutal impacts of America’s racial politics.

Given the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent 6-3 decision in Noem v. Perdomo to temporarily allow law enforcement agencies and the National Guard to continue racial profiling of anyone, basically, with brown skin, the next few years ahead are turning out to be a defining moment in the history of American civil rights. The major electoral issue ahead won’t be crime or the economy, but rather protecting bedrock constitutional guarantees of equal justice under law. In these matters, Haaland is a proven champion of social justice. Her leadership in our state is critical to the safety and peace of mind of most New Mexicans.

 The infamy of Noem v. Perdomo shows us that the stakes involved in the midterm elections next year are higher than ever before. To its endless shame, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court has made it possible for anyone who doesn’t look white to be arrested, interrogated and detained indefinitely without due process. This includes the 61% of New Mexicans who are Hispanic and Native American, according to the last census. Nationwide, it amounts to 75 million or so Native and Latino citizens who make up almost a quarter of our total population.  

Noem v. Perdomo is the most debased Supreme Court decision in my lifetime. It joins a line-up of notorious decisions that include Dred Scott v. Sandford, 1857, which ruled that African Americans were property not U.S. citizens and that they couldn’t sue for freedom in federal court. Noem v. Perdomo joins other judicial abominations that traumatized the country, including Korematsu v. United States, Plessy v. Ferguson, Elk v. Wilkins, Buck v. Bell, and Pace v. Alabama. In Korematsu v. US, the Supreme Court ruled in 1944 that forced internment of Japanese American citizens was constitutional. In the 1899 Plessy v. Ferguson decision, the Court ruled that “separate but equal” racial segregation laws were constitutional. In Elk v. Wilkins, 1884, the Supreme Court actually declared that Native Americans were not U.S. citizens and therefore were not protected from governmental abuse by the 14^th Amendment. In Buck v. Bell, 1927, the Supreme Court ruled that compulsory sterilization of the “unfit” was legal. And in Pace v. Alabama, the court upheld a state law criminalizing interracial marriage.

Noem v. Perdomo makes it possible for federal agents to come into our state and harass and terrorize over half our population. That alone would be incentive enough for me to endorse Deb Haaland who I am sure would oppose such horrendous judicial behavior with every fiber of her being.

But Haaland’s credibility as a candidate for governor whose time has come rests on much more than that. She actually knows how to govern and how to effectively manage a huge administrative structure like state government. It’s her experience as the Secretary of Interior which tells us all we need to know about her competence and expertise.

The Department of Interior manages about one-fifth of the land in our country. Through the Bureau of Reclamation, it builds, repairs and oversees most federal water infrastructure including that of the Colorado River upon which 40 million Americans in the West depend. Our national parks, monuments and historic sites, all 433 of them, have informed and delighted countless millions of Americans. Every one of them is staffed and overseen by the Department of Interior through the National Park Service. The joy and inspiration that so many of us experience when we visit some of the country’s 544 national wildlife refuges, overseen by the Fish and Wildlife Service, is also under the administrative guidance of the Secretary of Interior, as is the Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. About the only parts of the federal bureaucracy that the whimsically termed Department of Everything Else isn’t involved with are the Departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security.   

As the first Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary, Haaland’s commitment to the Green New Deal with its emphasis on clean energy, her administrative support of President Biden’s creating of new national monuments and her creation of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative to investigate the history of abuse at residential boarding schools, demonstrate her executive prowess and devotion to civil rights. She also worked to implement President Biden’s efforts to protect endangered habitats in more than 30% of Federal Lands and Waters, to curb oil and gas leases that threatened ranchers, wildlife and national recreation areas. She also created six new wildlife refuges and managed some $45 billion in investments for tribal infrastructure.

Her opposition to anti-environmental policies of the Trump administration is decisive. She ended a Trump order that would have despoiled some 28 million acres in Alaska by permitting oil and gas drilling. She opposed Trump’s threats to end offshore wind and other clean energy initiatives. What I’m most impressed by is her creation of the Department of Interior’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility Council. And I’m inspired by her congressional co-sponsorship of the Envronmental Justice Legacy Pollution Cleanup Act, which aimed to invest $100 billion to finally start getting rid of the water, soil and air pollution generated by federal agencies and the military that is culpable in the poor health and compromised well-being of countless families and children who live in close proximity to federal waste.

In the many years I’ve been covering state politics, Deb Haaland is, from my perspective, far and away the most principled and experienced gubernatorial candidate I’ve encountered. In the waning years of the conservative domination of the federal government by Trump and his supporters, Deb Haaland’s character, expertise, and courage could well prove to be the deciding factor in New Mexico’s continued evolution as a progressive state that respects the diversity of its people and cares for them when they are in need.