New Mexico in Focus; 1223; U.S. Representative-Elect Deb Haaland

Funding for New Mexico and Focus, provided by the McHughn Charitable Foundation and viewers like you. This week on New Mexico and Focus, an in-depth conversation with New Mexico's history-making Congresswoman-elect, Deb Holland. It's pretty amazing to be sitting in this room with legislators from all over the country who want to make a positive difference for their communities. Making the battle to lead the state's Republican Party back from a tough 2018 election season. The Mexico and Focus starts now. Welcome to New Mexico and Focus. I'm Gene Grant. Coming up this week, the line panelists discuss the news. The Archdiocese of Santa Fe will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Plus what that all means for the victims of priest-sex abuse in New Mexico. What up first are new revelations about the handling of rape kits in our state. We've talked a lot in recent years about the backlog of testing on rape kits here in Albuquerque.

At last reporting, that backlog was still at about 4,000 here in the Duke City. Now comes news that some police departments are destroying those rape kits prematurely. Let's go now to the line-opinion panelists for reaction and analysis. Welcome to the line. CNN is responsible for the reporting on the destroyed rape kits. The network looked at a couple of dozen law enforcement agencies across the U.S. and found police destroyed at least 400 rape kits before the statutes of limitations expired or when there wasn't a time limit to prosecute. Included in the investigation were the Farmington Police Department, which, according to the report, destroyed 14 rape kits. In addition, CNN reported 22 destroyed kits in Las Cruces and one here in Albuquerque. Here to discuss this investigation, the local response to it are this week's line-opinion panelists, joined the table by Daniel Foley, former State House Minority Whip. Meredith Allen is with us. She's the owner and executive director of Vox Optima LLC. Sophie Martin, she's an attorney here in Albuquerque and one of our regulars. In Adrian Carver, executive director of the quality in New Mexico, thank you all for being

here. Merit, we seem to be making some progress in this area with legislators passing bills last year to require the Department of Public Safety to assist local crime labs with the backlog and requiring new rape kits to be submitted to those labs within 30 days of receipt. But clearly, we still have a long way to go. What's your thought about this whole thing? Well, we also have sort of tremendous backlog. Yes. And that is mostly taking place in Albuquerque. We have the largest backlog. I think it's an issue we've talked about on the show before, a law enforcement being under resourced, particularly when you get outside the Albuquerque metro area Santa Fe, Farmington is a very small police department. And it's a challenge. And it can be a training issue, it could be a financial issue. It could be a malfeasance issue. We don't know enough to point to an issue. I don't know that legislating and more laws are necessary. I think we just kind of need to follow our own procedures competently.

I don't know that we need legislation to do that, but we certainly need a competent administration of law enforcement agencies. Right. So if we pick up on that, the training thing Maritius mentioned just rang like a bell for me. It just seems like there's something has to be a separate approach here. There's something procedural, but I think beyond that, there is a burgeoning understanding that these rape kits are valuable, not just as a community we seek justice for victims of individual crimes, but also as we seek to find patterns. Right. We're reminded right now of the gentleman in prison in Texas who just admitted to 70 plus serial killings, including here in Albuquerque, and I think as our technology becomes more sophisticated, of course we're saying, we need to hold on to that information because it may not just be this one case. And so when an officer or department says, yeah, we didn't get anywhere with that. And so we destroyed it or the victim didn't return my calls.

Whatever excuse is given for the destruction of evidence, especially while the case is still live, meaning that their statute of limitations is still open. There's no statute of limitations. That is particularly inexcusable. But I think beyond that, there is Marit in holding on to these cases, processing the cases because obviously if it's just sitting on a shelf, it does no good for anyone. We're using the technology that we now have to do a better job of tracking crime. And it has to be said in particular crime against women. And one of the things that really concerns me about this story is what appears to be in some cases really cavalier attitude in some departments about crimes against women. You know, Adrian picking up on what Sophie just said, too, I have to imagine the era of we don't have enough physical room to hold these kids are now over. That excuse cannot hold anymore. Just one excuse after another has to be knocked down here is what we're talking about. Yeah, I think we have to treat sexual violence just as seriously as other violent crimes

and treat these crimes just as we would serial robberies or other violent crimes. We just across the board need to stop destroying these kids. Even after I'm one of the people that even after the statute of limitations, I think for the reasons that Sophie mentioned to find patterns and our technology is developing every year. And so we need to be able to hold on to those. But I'd also like to see our departments, you know, used to serve on what was called the intimate partner violent death review team. And that's a group of advocates, officers, department folks, folks in the government. It's a cross sector team that reviews all of the cases. So I would like to see us establish some sort of team that will come together and review what's being done with each of these kids and to ensure that we're keeping a backlog. We're eliminating the backlog, but we're testing all of these kids and we're finding out

what's happening happening with each one of these cases because each one of these kids represents a person and we have to take that seriously. And if I could check that you sort of recruit me as I think this, we need to remember as well that this is not just crimes against women, that manner of victims of sexual assault as well. And especially in cases of male and male sexual assault, there can be a tendency to sort of dismiss it. And that can't happen. But those cases also have to be treated with great care and great respect. I'm pretty sure you're saying that too. It is complicated. You know, Dana can't help thinking, you know, really going to CNN store the revictimization for these women, as Adrian mentioned, these kids represent someone and some of these stories were so heinous and the idea that a sheriff could just say, well, you know what, I asked them to call me within 10 days, no one called me, so therefore this thing has gone, it's outrageous. It's absolutely outrageous. I couldn't imagine how these women feel after something like that.

It's incredible. Well, you got to remember, you're asking folks that, you know, some of these folks are elected and we know what the people give us sometimes in elected officials. So, you know, it's not always the best and the brightest that rise to these elected positions. I'm just still can't wrap my hands around that these kids are sitting on the shelf somewhere. I mean, you can set up, my wife can dab my cheek and send it to ancestry.com and they find every relative I ever thought of having in my life in the last 50 years and at 20 days. I also know there's a national database with all this stuff. I, this is how ignorant I was, I thought you would establish these rate kits and the first thing you did was send that stuff to the national database and say, let's run it against anybody that's going to have done this. And so, I don't know, I just still can't, to your point, you said, I don't know if not having spaces and answer, I don't know how you're, I don't know why you're even keeping these things. It seems to me between state databases, local databases, federal databases, international databases, there's enough information, enough places to store this stuff that if all this stuff went to them right away, I can't imagine that, you know, we'd catch more of these criminals.

But to find out that, you know, through all over the country, these things are happening and people are storing them in a tough shed out back until they decide to empty it, I mean, I just, it's interesting, we're all sitting around here with iPads and phones, most of us. But, you know, we got everybody sitting around here with all this technology and here we're having this conversation about people basically cleaning out the garage three or four times a year and saying, well, this, you know, this person didn't call me back, this case isn't going anywhere, this guy got convicted. I just can't, I mean, I'm not in the law enforcement realm, I can't imagine convicting some kind of rape and putting that person in prison or a violent sexual crime, putting that person in prison and then saying, well, all the evidence we have to put that guy in, let's just toss it because I guess it only happens in Cortalain Ido, right? There's no chance that there's this drifter who passed through committed to crime somewhere else. I mean, I think to your point as well, we've seen the technology improve so dramatically, so 30 years ago you might have said like, we got a blood type and that's as far as we can go, but now we know the advances that have been made in technology and we can conceive

a future advances. And so, you know, when we hear these stories about the, you know, the California serial killer who was found through a DNA website because family members, there are some privacy issues and all of that certainly, but, but at this point, I question whether any kit should be destroyed. There's a, there's a program out there, you know, with limitations, obviously, if you've reason to believe like nobody lives to, there's a program out there right now that, that I was reading about the other day that you can send these, this DNA stuff to and based on all the characteristics, they can build a person and say, this is kind of what the person is going to look like. Now, it may not look exactly like it's going to have, it's going to have the shape of the forehead, the color of the eyes, there are definitely privacy concerns. I feel like I need to say, but, but we balance those. We balance. And I think what's really important to say, it's a very sad thing, but I'm pretty sure in New Mexico, someone has been assaulted this week. And we have the story that, basically all this coverage saying, yeah, you're probably

not going to get tested in time and there's a backlog. So good luck getting that prosecuted. So I want to, I just want to say to the victim advocates, advocates who work with law enforcement around the state, please step up. That's right. Please, please step up and get victims, the voice that you have. Let me finish with Adrian and some that you mentioned earlier, there were two pieces of legislation last year that did not pass. The one was required that would require by an, by an, by an, by any else, sorry, inventory reports of rape kits. And another that would ensure sexual assault survivors are notified about the rape kit status. And the results would create a momentum for them. You see what I mean? The legislature has got to step up this year. It seems to me. This is, look, the legislature and, and the governor's office need to step up in general this year. There's a lot of expectations. There's over a generation of expectations for, for this legislature and this governor. And this is one of many things that need to happen. I think, you know, making sure that survivors are notified of what's happening with their kids in hours, them, and that's, incredibly important.

It's a reasonable expectation. Absolutely. I think it's also a safety issue. That's right. Frankly. Exactly right. Well, it can be used as accountability issue as well. I mean, if people know that there's going to be someone knocking on the door saying you didn't notify me, I think, you know, it's easy for us as a formal legislator. It's easy for us here at the table to cast aspersions on, hey, here's the name of the bill. Sometimes the devil's in the details. I mean, these bills come out and say, you will tell everybody and people say, well, hold on. Right. You know, maybe some people don't want to know. There are issues that Sophie brought up. So I mean, that's, that's right. There are things that I kind of agree with, with Merit when she said, I'm not sure the answer is more laws because I think we have plenty of opportunities. I think it's getting everybody together and saying, get us the information. Let's work together and let's get this information to best serve the citizens. Good point there. We have to wrap that up. That discussion. There is much more to say on this story, though. Next week on the show, we sit down with the representative for the New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs for an update on the state's rape kits and this latest CNN investigation. Be sure to tune in for that important interview. Until to come on the line, former Congressman Steve Pierce faces a new battle and the race to lead the state Republican Party into the future.

We'll talk about why there's a divide amongst the party faithful. Election night 2018 was a historic one for New Mexico for several reasons, but at the top of that list is the election of Deb Holland to the first congressional district seat. She is one of two native women to be elected to Congress this year, something that has never happened before. But what does her unique perspective mean for the state and the people who elected her to represent them in Washington, D.C.? And what are her goals and plans for her first term? I sat down with Congresswoman-elect Holland this week for her first in-depth television interview. Deb Holland, thank you for coming in. We really appreciate your time. My pleasure. You've been busy. I have. Yes. But I'm home and always happy to come by for a visit. Thanks for inviting me. I can imagine. I have a question. Now that it's settled down a little bit, and you've had some time to reflect a little bit on the whole situation, the campaign, everything that led up to it, all the walking, all the door knocking, all the help and everything, what's your sense of how this all happened? Now that you've had time to look back on it a little bit.

Well, I felt always, felt very strongly that I'm here because I worked really hard, right? I started out as a phone volunteer, and now I'm a member-elect of the U.S. House of Representatives. And I just, you know, I sort of feel like that could be so many people's story right here in New Mexico, right? We hard work pays off in our state. We've seen that time and time again. And so I'm just really proud of the team I had, or the volunteers that I had. We had a thank you party at Hotel Andalus last week, and it was packed. It was jam-packed, volunteer after volunteer who said, I knocked on so many doors for you. I made all these phone calls and just so grateful, right, that we share that work ethic among so many of us. It must have been a great time. Yeah, it was wonderful. Really wonderful. So I'm grateful to be here, proud to be representing New Mexico's first district. Absolutely.

Let's talk about another representative. We have to, because he's very important to our state, too. He's been very Luhan, and they help you lent you during this whole situation. I'd be curious how your relationship with Representative Luhan is at this point, too. Sure. Well, you know, I've known him for quite some time. I helped him in his first campaign. I also phone volunteered and knocked on doors when he ran the first time. He, you know, we're so proud of his leadership position right now. I, so chilled, tore a small, and I both seconded his nomination in the Democratic Caucus meeting. We were very proud to do so. Now his job at the D-Triple C really was to make sure that we were flipping seats from red to blue. I was, our district here in one is a plus seven district, so he didn't necessarily help me too much. I felt like rightly so. He needed to save the resources for the folks who really needed the help. On the contrary, I helped the D-Triple C, and I helped get some of those candidates that

he was working on elected. So I felt like it was a real team effort and very honored that he included me in that effort. Right. Also spreading out statewide, we have a delegation on the congressional side of all people of color now for all three of our districts. How does that ring in your heart? That's very special. It is special. I think it's amazing. The first Hispanic woman in district two, so chilled, tore a small, she's wonderful, she makes me proud to be a New Mexican, just like Ben Ray-Lujan does. I think we're truly representative of the districts that we represent. So yes, very proud and honored to be a part of that delegation. One of the quotes I really liked that you had during the campaign is that no one in the Congress has sort of voiced like yours. What do you mean by that? Well, in 240 plus years, we've never had a Native American woman in Congress until now. And now there's two of us, myself and Sheree Stavitz from the third district in Kansas

and very honored. And ironically, it's 50 years after the very first African-American woman was elected to Congress, Shirley Chisholm in 1968. So it's a year of first, there's a lot of women, women of color, people of color who are representing districts for the first time or in their states for the first time. So I think it's a stellar year for true representation of a lot of America. Numbers mean something in this world, in this country, and sometimes when you're alone, more it's easy to get swamped over and not get your voice heard. Are you concerned about getting your voice heard in the Congress or are you less concerned now that we have a sweep of folks coming in that are kind of in this wave right now? Well, it's absolutely important that we run back the House because with the Democrats in the majority right now, I believe that a lot of our voices will absolutely be heard.

I have three leadership positions in the position I have now. I'm going to be the freshman rep to the Steering and Policy Committee. I am the Whip for Region 6, which is the region of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. And I'm also a deputy Whip for the Congressional Progressive Caucus. So that means when I'm on the floor for important votes that I'm going to be talking to folks on the floor to make sure that they understand what bill is coming up and why I would like for them to vote on that bill. So I feel like with those leadership positions, I'll have an opportunity to build some relationships that I will have an opportunity to have my voice heard. So I'm happy for that as well. Is there one overriding message about New Mexico specifically you want to take to to Washington, DC? So I campaigned very strongly on fighting climate change and moving New Mexico toward being

a global leader in renewable energy with 310 days of sun per year. I think we absolutely can make sure that happens. So that is a top priority for me, climate change, renewable energy, health care, I campaigned on that as well, and also on public education, right? Early childhood education for every child. I think now with Michelle Luhangrisham as our next governor and we strengthened our state house this time around that we'll be able to make some bold changes on actually all three of those issues as well, you know, in our state. So there are, of course, there are many other issues that I'm passionate about. I talked to Tremendous about about missing and murdered indigenous women about, you know, there's been issues about discrimination against our LGBTQ community, immigration, separating children out the border, all those issues, women's reproductive rights, every single one

of those issues are important. And so will, I expect to have a strong voice in all of those issues. And speaking of voices, this also caught my eye, which I think is very interesting. Your desire to bring more tribal leaders into the conversation in Washington, DC. This would be literally a first time in this country's history that that would happen. When you really step back and think about that, when you think about tribal leaders in Washington, it's usually ceremonial things, someone's getting awarded for something, and quite appropriately, but not really about policy discussions. Do you want to change that? Sure. Well, yes, the U.S. government has a government-to-government relationship with tribes, with Indian tribes. And the U.S. government has a trust responsibility to tribes. When important issues are on the table, tribes should have an opportunity to weigh in. I'll give you an example during the tax plan that the Republicans were working on last year.

The tribes clamor to be a part of that conversation. They never let them be a part of that conversation. I am going to work extremely hard to make sure that tribes do have a seat at any table where issues of importance to their communities are being discussed, because it's right and it's proper. You've been at DC twice now. I'm sure it's been a whirlwind each time, just an absolute blur. Anything specific that's come out of those two early trips, and I realize that you're not in the grind of policy making quite yet? Any surprises on Capitol Hill at this point? You know, no surprises. Everyone has been so welcoming. It's pretty amazing to be sitting in this room with legislators from all over the country who want to make a positive difference for their communities. As I said, everyone has been welcoming this last time. We had leadership elections, so that was important. We were in a room with all our fellow Democrats voting for our leadership positions. That was an exciting time.

And of course, we've had the lectures about ethics and about employees, about human resources, male, and all of those things that you have to know about that aren't that exciting to listen for hours about, but nonetheless, to hit the ground running, I think you need to have as much knowledge as you possibly can so that you... So there's nothing to stop you. You're not making any mistakes as you're moving forward initially. You can start in a good way and make some positive changes you move forward. Committee assignments, I'm sure, are going to be a topic coming up real quick. You have some ideas about the committees that you've already stated you want to be on. Why these specific committees, if you can kind of go through them and why you want to participate? Sure, sure. Well, every freshman has to send a letter to the leadership. I've done that already. I did that just a few days after the election to let a leader Pelosi know that I would like

to be on appropriations. If you put a marker down for a committee assignment that you want initially, you are inline for that position because there's other people ahead of you. Freshmen don't often get put on appropriations. However, I made the argument that we've never had a Native American woman in Congress. Native American communities are the most underserved in our country. So there's that. I also asked for armed services, considering the fact that I'm an honorary commander for Kirkland. I grew up in a military family. We do have military base right here in District 1. And also for natural resources, for obvious reasons, the environment is high in my list of priorities. So I might also add that I ran for and won the freshman rep seat for the steering and policy committee that looks at all the committee assignments and makes recommendations to the

leadership. And so it's my job also to advocate for the freshman in my class to make sure they get the committees they need as well. So at some point I'll have to recuse myself for my own wants and needs and make sure that I'm advocating for the folks in my class. Sure. How important has Ben Ray-Luhan in these things on committee assignments? Can you be helpful in that? You have a little word in from the other. Well, of course, you know, you can hope that that's the case, however. He is the leader for all of us. He's the leader for every single Democratic member of Congress. And so I completely respect the fact that he'll have to balance the needs of everyone else against ours as well. So I am a team player from the word go. I always have been. If I don't get the committee I want right now.

Sure. I'll do a good job on the committees I do get to show that I'll be an asset to, you know, to any committee later on in the game. Let me circle back to one of those committees arm services. We have some history, of course, in this district, this particular district on this particular committee going back over the years. We do have a lot of military staff established here. What do you have an overriding sense of what you want to accomplish inside that arm services committee? Is there any overriding issue that you want to get to right away? Well, I mean, I think that within that committee there's a lot that deals with the environment as well, right? We're, you know, they're responsible. We have to make sure that our bases are operating in a responsible way when it comes to our environment. Though, I mean, that's one issue that I know I can raise during that, you know, during meetings in that committee. Additionally, as I mentioned, I grew up in a military family. My dad was a 30-year career marine.

We were home with my mother when he was sent out to Vietnam for two years. I totally understand what it's like for military families. And if I can be a voice for those issues as well, I'm happy to do that. Housing issues. There's a lot of things there inside that for families, you know, no question. Absolutely. You know, I was talking to my mom not too long ago. She talks occasionally about her time as a Marine Corps wife. And my dad was sent off to the Cuban Missile Crisis when he was a young Marine. And they were living on base at the time. And after my dad left, my mom said the base, the folks came and told her she had to move out because my father wasn't there with her. I know things have changed a lot for military families since her time. Certainly want to make sure that we are safeguarding families for everything, right? And when their active duty members are deployed somewhere.

Is there any, because I don't know this, I ask, is there any oversight on the Kirtland leak situation that runs through this committee? I'm not exactly sure myself, but I imagine there is. Okay. Certainly we all want that to come to a positive close. Right. Yeah, I could imagine. Yes, that's definitely an issue that I'm very, very concerned about. We have a new climate change report out a couple of weeks ago, and its impact here in New Mexico, of course, is it doesn't look great. If you're talking about longer, deeper droughts, we're talking about health impacts, especially for poor folks and people of color, a lot of issues with this report, but we also have a president who does not believe the report and is clearly not going to lead on this issue. What can Congress do to lead on this issue so New Mexico can benefit from this? Right. Well, the house is in the majority, thankfully, so we can stop any bad bills that come across, right?

Additionally, we can hold hearings on some of these issues. We can get the scientists to come to a table and talk about the issues and the need for us to move forward with an infrastructure plan, for example, that moves forward on renewable energy and fights climate change. So I feel that we can serve in that dual role not only to move positive legislation forward, but also to hold this administration accountable. How about field hearings? I know we're getting down the road a little bit, but having Congressional people from other districts come here and go, oh, wait a minute, this is a vastly different situation that I might realize in Wisconsin, or Florida, or Connecticut, would that be part of the plan as well? Yes, that's absolutely correct. Making sure that a delegation of legislators can see, and I think, yes, the Southwest is important, but so are other parts of the country as well.

Alaska is another place where climate change is drastically altering the lives of communities there. So, you know, wherever I think whatever we need to do to make sure that we are bringing attention to this issue of our time, we absolutely need to do. Let me circle back to our speaker, Ms. Nancy Pelosi. She was here some years ago, I interviewed her, and thinking about her arc of her career, I mean, her place in history is secure. It's an amazing thing when you think about what she's been able to accomplish. Now, you're able to work under her or actually with her. Do you feel it's a benefit? It could have been a different speaker, do you know what I mean? But suddenly, it's Nancy Pelosi, and is that a positive for you? It's absolutely a positive for me. Yeah. Where the breadth of her knowledge and experience, you know, as a democratic leader, I think she's going to do an excellent job.

As you could see, no one challenged her in that job, perhaps because she is a very strong leader. The first woman to be a speaker of our house, and this year, the woman, it seemed appropriate that we would have another woman to lead us a speaker of the house. So, she cares tremendously about the environment, she cares about health care, she cares about education, her issues align with so many of my issues, and in fact, of our democratic party moving our country toward a renewable energy economy, making sure that our kids have an early childhood education. She was here for my campaign before the general election and had a press conference with me about missing a murdered indigenous women and the Violence Against Women Act. So she cares deeply about those issues as well.

So I'm going to remain completely positive, learn as much as I can from her, and be grateful that we're in the majority, and we can make some positive changes. We talk about Washington DC a lot, and that's where the action is in Capitol Hill, but where the real action is is in the district office, in constituent services, and all that kind of thing. How do you think philosophy, how you want to set up your office, the kind of people you want to have, doing constituent services? Yes, so we have, we're inheriting Michelle Luhangrisham's office, we're actually going to stay in the same exact office, her office on fourth and gold. I felt it was, it would save money, any time you move it costs money. We thought we'd save some money. We also thought, with respect to the constituents who already know where her office is, it would just be easier all the way around. So we are going to inherit every single case that Michelle has been working on, because I don't think the people of District 1 should have to wait, or be, you know, their case

shouldn't be upended just because we have a transition. So we'll be very careful about working with her staff prior to us moving in, just so we can make sure that she can pass the baton to us and we carefully move forward with the constituents in mind. The people of New Mexico, their issues are super important, they can't wait. So I want to make sure that I have an experienced staff, people who are personable, who care deeply about this district, New Mexicans, who understand what it's like to live in the district and so can relate to some of the issues that, you know, the constituents are experiencing. So we'll do everything we can to make sure that their needs are met. It's a skill set being in the constituent services, it's a hard job, it's an unrelenting, you're working with other governmental agencies, it's frustrating, you can't get things moving,

you got constituents yelling at you to get things moving. So things like open town halls, field hearings, even here in the district, is that part of the plan as well? Absolutely, yes, absolutely, I plan to be extremely accessible to the constituents here in district one. You might know that generally the fly out day for DC is on Thursday. So I'll be back in the district every week, every Friday and every weekend. And I'll be able to attend meetings, be in the office, if anyone needs me. Additionally, Congresswoman Luhangrisham, she has a video conferencing system in her district office too. So that connects directly to DC. So in the off chance that somebody comes in on a day that I am in Washington, DC, we'll still be able to connect, but just, I mean, I'm here for the people of district one and I intend to make sure that I'm doing everything possible to be accessible to them in any way

I can be. What are you most proud of with this situation? You're here, you're in, but it could have gone a lot of different ways. You know what I mean? Politics is funny. You just never know. What are you most proud of with this race? Well, of course, it's wonderful when you can win an election. I've worked on many, many campaigns. I've lost them. I've won some, and so we're proud to have won in that, as I mentioned earlier, it's because of my volunteers and my staff that we did extremely well. But I won with about 23% of the vote. That means that a majority of people in this district voted for me because they felt that I would represent them in the best possible way. So I am proud of that fact, but at the same time, it makes me very conscious of the fact that I have to work extremely hard to continue to earn their trust and to keep their trust.

So although I am very proud to have won with that type of margin, I realize that it's definitely incumbent on me to ensure that I am doing the best possible job. Do you have an outreach plan for the folks who might be the district who didn't support you? I mean, there's ways to bring those folks into the fold. You know, regardless of who comes to my office, who reaches out to us, it doesn't matter if they supported me or not. I am the representative for this district, and I represent every single person. I'll do my best to make sure that I am here for everyone. There are some fairly conservative parts of the district. Do you think about that little leg that shoots out over these mountains and gets out that way? A lot of folks don't realize district one goes out that way. A little bit more conservative about that way. Is it going to be a different approach for those folks versus here in the Metro? Well, you know, I think that the majority of people in district one voted for me because of my platform, because they know all fight climate change, move to renewable energy, all

of those things, health care, education, all of that. So certainly, that tells me that that's essentially what the people of district one want to happen. I am willing to take into consideration anyone who would like to come share their issues with me, share their ideas, and their perspective with me, I'm absolutely willing to listen. And so we'll see how I can incorporate all of those ideas into, you know, our existing plans. Absolutely. What would you determine would be success? I mean, two years goes by quickly. Yes. Kind of casting out and looking about what would you think would be a successful first term? Could you point to two or three different things that are out there? Well, with respect to missing and murdered indigenous women, a report came out recently that right here in my district, there were like, I can't quote it because I don't know

the exact number, but there are a number of cases here of missing and murdered indigenous women. It's an issue here in my district. I really would like to work on that issue, to, I don't know if we can get legislation passed that quickly, but we need to bring attention to that. There needs to be communication between various law enforcement agencies to make sure that they're all on board. I'd like to make sure that I'm doing something with that, whether it's holding a number of hearings, having legislation written, getting some co-sponsors. I can't imagine anyone in either the House or the Senate who wouldn't want to protect indigenous women. So I think that's an issue, that's legislation that we would be able to get passed. I'd really like us to see us work on an infrastructure plan. Again, I know legislation can be slow sometimes, but I would like for leader Pelosi has mentioned that she would like to get the select committee on climate change moving again.

I would love to be on that select committee. I would love to have some input into that, but I think working on an infrastructure plan is absolutely essential to us moving forward for climate change. And fending off every single issue that would impede new Mexican's ability to access affordable and accessible health care, I would consider that an absolute win. Deb Holland, thanks for coming in. I know you're crazy busy right now, but I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome back to the line, former New Mexico congressman, Steve Pierce faces a new political battle this weekend when Republican insiders will pick a new state party chairman. He's appointed as Albuquerque businessman, John Rockwell, who ran for the chairmanship twice before you might remember and lost. You might remember as well.

Now, former Speaker of the House don't trip this week, publicly endorsed Mr. Rockwell and Dan, kind of perilous times for the party. When you think about the context of losing the party losing all statewide seats and eight seats in the House, I mean, just a real mess. Is this the normal cycle of how state parties operate? You know, you lose. This is a low swoop. You're rebuild to come back up. Where is this a signal of something way bigger going on here? Oh, I think it's way bigger going on here. Okay. Party. I mean, as a member of the Republican Party, I mean, I lost an election for House. When I lost my election, you disappear. You don't go running around. We have a guy who took one of the worst lichens that anybody's taken in a statewide race. And within a month of losing the race, he's now the answer for state party chair. Or the other opportunity is let's elect another old rich white guy. Right. We look around the state of New Mexico, I mean, look, I hate to be the guy screaming from the mountains, but as a Republican and Republican Party, if we think the way to, you know, appreciate ourselves with the citizens of the state is to keep electing rich white guys

that are over 55 years old, well, I think we're going to keep doing what we're doing. And, you know, I mean, there seems to be no movement for inclusion, trying to bring people in as we were saying off camera. I think the big one is going to be the libertarian party because, you know, conservatives really don't want to be independent because they don't want to not have a voice. And we tend to have a desire to have a title with this as conservative. I'm conservative. Right. You know, I think this is a big jump for the, for the libertarian party. I think if they get their act together, they can do some stuff. I appreciate Speaker Trip and, you know, I think this, I think, you know, in my opinion, what Speaker Trip, it's not the endorsement that speaks loudly, it's the lack of the endorsement to me. Ah, that speaks loudly. You know, I think the shenanigans that came out about them trying to change the date and telling people they got to register at these crazy times. I mean, at the end of the day, I don't know why. I mean, you know, I'll use a sports analogy. When you get shalacked, I doubt that the Atlanta Falcons, after losing to your New England Patriots, the biggest come from behind win.

I doubt when they returned Monday morning, they gathered as a team and said, let's have a post-mortem right now. Let's talk about what just happened. You kind of want to step back, let the dust settle a little bit. And the last thing I would say is if the people of this, of the Republican Party think the best thing to do to advance conservative values is to elect the loser of the governor's race to keep the governor in check, you're going to give Governor Blue Hungryisham and her folks the unabashed ability to dismiss the party by saying, this is nothing but sour grapes. So, I mean, I think at the end of the day, the Republican Party needs to take pause. I think they need to slow their role a little bit. I think they need to smell the burning tea leaves and go, this, we need some changes. Is that the answer, Maro? Just slow down a little bit here, or is this a systemic thing that just really needs some fast action to solve? Well, I have seen since the late 90s, and when I moved back to New Mexico in 2005, the Republican Party has never been cohesive or united. There have always been factions. After Governor Martinez was elected in 2008, some of the names changed. But the new fights began. And so essentially what you have right now is you have the Martinez machine backing

John Rockwell, and then you have Steve Pierce, which could be defined as the rest of the state. Gotcha. And we already know how the Martinez faction feels about the state party, given the fact that they're sitting on almost $6 million in pack money, and the state Republican Party is out of cash. And no money was spent in this general election cycle. Some money was spent in the primary supporting one candidate who also lost money in New Mexico. So, no one is coming from a position of victory. Martinez did not win any seeds, Pierce did not win any seeds. What has to happen is there's got to be a focus on getting Republicans elected. And I think that's the crucial mistake that the Martinez faction has made is not focusing on getting more Republicans elected, or even building a coalition with those who are. 2014. We have Nate Gentry, a work like a dog, got a majority in the house. And we couldn't get a budget pass because the governor would not tell her caucus what

she wanted. I mean, she's spending a month or two months. I don't remember which session, whether 36 days session, in the same building together. And you can't have that conversation. So we have a broken system with a lot of money. We have an unhappy rest of the state, who I think is kind of banding behind Pierce, who have no direction because to use a dance term, we were shalacked. So I don't, I think this seems pretty fast, but whoever wins has got to stop these fights and has got to reach across the aisle, and it's regional, because a lot of Republicans are not now the curkies. And there's a perception that Bernalio County Republican Party thinks that they are better and different and rarefied, and there's some Bernalio County Republicans who absolutely agree. Whoever wins is to fire everybody in higher young people. Wow. They have no, that don't have a side, that don't have a fight to tire them, turn it on the keys. If it was me, and I got elected, I'd go find 50 young people and say, here you go, ask me if you got a question.

Interesting. And I see some, I see some really interesting voices coming up on the conservative side. I can think of a three to an albuquerque, one down south, who are, and they are in very different roles, one's almost a libertarian, one's a strong fiscal conservative, one's a very strong social conservative, and I think these three people under 30 are to dance point most important. About three minutes left, no split between these other guys here. I think in Mr. Pierce's letter, Adrienne, that, I think he's making the point that I have a machine built, and therefore the machine lost. The bottom line is, it doesn't matter who gets elected this weekend, right? The Republican Party is going to double down on the losing strategy. Both Rockwell and Pierce represent ideologies that don't match, clearly the election show that don't match the ideology of the rest of the state. They're both too extreme for New Mexico, they're a threat to anybody who's a hard working New Mexican, LGBTQ, an immigrant, women, and communities of color, it's to expand on

your analogy when a team keeps losing, you get rid of the coach, you don't re-elect them to a new, you don't keep them, right? This is, I think this is going to be a generational deficiency for the Republican Party, if they elect either of these people. Interesting points here. It seems to me that this is what we're also seeing on the national level, though. We have a Senate leadership that's like, well, okay, we didn't really expect that this was going to be a great election. You've got the Republicans in D.C. essentially like, well, Trump, and it seems like it's the same thing here. Well, we're not going to do too much introspection, let's keep going on with what we've been doing in the past, and it seems to me that, at least nationally, when you say, well, this is the guy who we got, it can be quite difficult to change. In New Mexico, we're not seeing yet the bold new leader who could take the place of

Pearson Rockwell here. And so maybe this is just like it seems on the national level, kind of an ungrowing down period. That's right. It's a point that the rank and file is not being heard, there's no updraft here. The party is pretty much irrelevant nowadays, the way this is united and the way things are done. I mean, really, it's not about ideology of the party chairman, it's about being able to make the trains run on time, it's about being able to raise money, it's about being able to gather people to follow a vision, not necessarily the vision of that we agree, and these guys are right, I hate to agree with you on some of this, but we've got a myopic view as Republicans, you're either all with me or you're against me, and until we start realizing that we've got to give on some issues, you know, if I don't agree with you on these two issues, but agree with you on these four issues, we should be working together. And I think the best way, the only way you're going to do that is by embracing younger folks, bringing them in, that have a different view, and the other folks, the 50 and all the crowd, I can say, because I'm not there yet.

So the 50 and all the crowd needs to sit back, slow their roll and say, we had our time, it didn't work well, it's your time. You could point there, we'll have to end that there when we come back to the table, debating the Archdiocese of Santa Fe's decision to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. I thought one of the most interesting times was when President Clinton read the letter that President Bush wrote him, it was a pretty interesting moment, you know, I mean, that was a pretty heated campaign, you know, it was not a friendly campaign, I mean, President Bush was ahead all the way up to the end there, I mean, it was kind of a, if you have heard he remembers, it was a surprise when they announced that President Clinton won, everybody was like the die from Arkansas, but the handwritten note that was penned by President Bush, and from a lot of people, a lot of the people that came forward to speak. Welcome back to the line, it's official, the Archdiocese of Santa Fe will join 19 other dioceses organizations in the U.S., to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Over the last 20 years, the Archdiocese has spent millions in payouts to victims of sexual abuse by priests, and right now there are roughly 40 active claims under waste over

in the move as a financial one, certainly Archbishop Wester says they don't have the finances for all these settlements and payouts, and then take care of their regular business as well, but there's some plans about, you know, how to use this money and how they deem appropriately. Your top line view on this. So we'll start by saying that a Chapter 11 is often referred to as a reorganization, so it's not the kind of bankruptcy where they're like, hey, we're going to shut down and you know, see you guys later. Right. One of the things that Chapter 11 allows them to do, though, is to essentially say, look, we know that we have these claims against us. Please come forward now. We have this set time period, and I haven't heard that the deadline has been announced at this point, but we have a set time period where we can gather information about claims. Please come forward, because we also have a set pot of money, and we want to make sure that everybody who has a live claim comes in and gets their portion of that money. Now, at the same time, there are concerns and complaints that the archdiocese has been moving money out of its sort of trusty oversight to individual diocese.

That's a pretty normal thing for an entity like this, you like the church to do, and I know that there's real concern about that, but within the Chapter 11 process, there's an opportunity for the U.S. trustee who's going to be appointed from outside the church, outside the plaintiff's groups, the opportunity for the U.S. trustee to really test where these appropriate transfers, there's an opportunity for the claimants, the victims, to also seek to test that, and compared to other types of litigation where we have settlements and things like that, bankruptcy is pretty transparent. So we should expect at the end of it to have a fair amount of information about what went down. Good set up there. I appreciate that too. The idea that the move is a financial one, certainly, but is it a good look as they say out there? I mean, I hear Sophie's point, but is that going to fly with the Catholic community in a lot of ways?

My family moved to Mexico as a year old, and I'm a lifetime Catholic, and I identify very strongly as a Catholic, and my growing up experience has been in New Mexico. And I think, like other New Mexico Catholics, we want this to stop, or priests want this to stop, because they're the frontline ambassadors, and they're the callers wearing folks out there who are getting the smear when they're running their parishes, and they're dedicating their lives to service and doing the right thing. So if you look at the analysis of a crisis, you've got to stop the behavior, prevent the behavior, make what repairs you can. I think finally, finally, it's been too long. I think finally, with the publishing of names of credible allegations, I think that's huge, and the disposition and the transparency, and it's been shocking to me, because two priests I knew very well growing up, who are friends with my family, are on this list, and they are no longer active, which means I know victims. And that's really upsetting to me. And so I think if the church has to decide, we have to move on from this, because we need to continue helping the poor and less fortunate and disenfranchised, and if we don't have

the money to do that, we have to set aside, as so if you point it out. This is the pool. This is what we have. There's no amount of money that can ever make this right. But we want to be able to continue and provide counseling and bring you back into the church. I think that's where I think the church needs to be coming from. A good point there. You know, Adrian the AG is investigating a couple of cases right now, and there was some, they can talk to the search warrant in the offices here in Albuquerque, is this spurred some of this so long? It just seems like the Archdiocese had to do something at some point. Yeah, and now it's time I suppose. You know, I think that what I'm seeing as a lay person with bankruptcy and the Catholic church, you know, I continue to see when this news comes out. I see continuous acknowledgments of the harm that was committed by the church and by people in the church, and I read the Archbishop's statement and, you know, some of the things that stuck out to me was that this was a move to provide support and healing and that

they were acknowledging that there was harm by their clergy. And you know, from what I can tell on the outside is that, you know, this move does provide some protection to the creditors, which are the victims, and, you know, I hope that the church keeps making efforts to provide justice for survivors, and, you know, we're going to have to, I think you said it, like folks want this to stop, and I think everybody wants justice. Right. You know, asking victims to come forward, you know, as Sophie mentioned, this is an interesting bit of this, too, because if there's a time issue, that's a tough thing. Folks come forward when they need to come forward. Let's put it that way. We can't, just like we talked about with rape kits, you can't just say, it's a certain period of time for you to get up and come forward, or you lose it. Well, at some point, you have to, right? I mean, you can't have an organization staying in existence that says we forever have to carry the liability, the potential liability on our balance sheet, because we don't know

when there's going to be closure to it. The problem I have with this, having been raised Catholic and attending Catholic school, I just, I'm just not happy that it seems like every time the Catholic church responds to this, or seems to say we're making a change, is after some horrific news, after we find out that something bad has happened again. And, you know, I remember going to church for years and, you know, my parents given to the building fund, the message from the Pope to give money to the church. You know, and now all of a sudden, we've got these little individual entities out in the middle of nowhere that they're responsible for whatever it is that happens to them on their own. Well, we collected money that didn't just stay in the Catholic church, that didn't stay in my parish, it went to the diocese, the diocese, went to the, to, to Rome and the Vatican, and it's a big business opportunity. And I, I just have a real bad feeling that I'm not sure how much this is to make right as much, how much this is a business. I think the cooperation with law enforcement, and we're seeing that nationwide, that is the biggest change in the US Catholic church, is the American bishops instead of taking

care of it much like the military with their own military code of justice, the church, you know, sending priest to sabbatical here in New Mexico. The change from handling internally to being transparent, I think this, this shows a lot that the church wants to change. You anticipated something, I'm wondering if it just finished with, how impactful was that Pennsylvania situation where law enforcement came into the situation because they had to at a certain point? So, it seems like a tide has turned and Merritt's quite right here. There has to be a partnership here. I think that the tide has turned, you know, on my hope is that decades from now, we're not sitting at this table saying, well, it happened again. But I also think, you know, there's, there's a tension being paid by our law enforcement, by our government, you know, we are looking at it in a different way. There was a time that not just the church, but the community said that's church business. That's right.

And we have moved away from that, not just as a state, not just as a country, but around the world. I mean, you see the protests that happened in Ireland, which is, I mean, just about the most Catholic country out there, the church cannot survive using its old strategies for dealing with these crises. And, you know, we can't help but hope that the victims are, you know, we don't get more victims. It's hard to say if he's, but it feels like something's moving forward though. Some kind of momentum is moving forward here, so we'll see what happens a long time, but that's all the time we have for this week. If you want to weigh in on any of the topics we discussed this week, be sure to reach out to us at namexco.nfocus.org or join our fun Facebook group, Focus on New Mexico. I'm Gene Grant. Thank you for joining us for the Mexico and Focus and as always, we appreciate your time and effort to stay informed and engaged. We'll see you next week in Focus.

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