Report from Santa Fe; Shannon Robinson

Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by grants from New Mexico Tech on the frontier of science and engineering education. For bachelor's, master's, and PhD degrees, New Mexico Tech is the college you've been looking for, 1-800-428-TECH. I'm Lorraine Mills and I'd like to welcome you to report from Santa Fe. Our guest today is Shannon Robinson, a Democrat lawmaker, Senator from Albuquerque District 17. Thank you so much for joining us today. Oh, Lorraine, I feel like this is a continuing tradition we started with Ernie together. And Ernie always, Ernie Mills always took special interest in me and now here I am with Lorraine Mills carrying on that wonderful blessing. Well, the special interest does continue and there's so much that I want to find out from you today, so much I need to learn. One of the most intriguing issues of the last session was this border snatcher thing. This wonderful episode about the Texas New Mexico border that you started I think in 1991

with Senator Johnny Marrow from Clayton, Capulin area and now you're continuing it even into this session. I'd love for you to tell me about it. Lorraine, thank you and that's a joy to do that because we lost of course Ernie this last year but we also lost Johnny Marrow and both these gentlemen were mentors to me. But I got the great pleasure of sitting right next to Johnny Marrow on the Senate floor and I'll always remember being sworn in with my mom behind me and it was just a real pleasure for us as a family and I was with my current, my future wife at that time, Karen Kisler. And so when I got to meet the Johnny Marrow family with his wife Linda and of course now the family Cody Marrow and all our friends, it was something I followed him around like a puppy dog.

You know I just, whatever Johnny wanted, that's what I got busy with. Well you couldn't do any better than learning from Senator Marrow. Isn't that the truth? I remember losing a bill once and I was just so mad and upset and a Johnny said, well what's the matter, what's bothering you? And I said, oh Ernie they killed my bill over in judiciary in the house or something like that. He looked at me and he says, well you know Shannon we've gotten along with it for all these years, pretty good and so he was right. We've done without it just fine. But Johnny in 1991, he and I filed a bill that asked for the return of the mistake from the survey that set up the Texas, New Mexico border. And that was a mistake that was done by the surveyor John Clark back in 1859. And he made a small error. You can get out your road map for the Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico corner.

And you'll see that line from the Panhandle in Oklahoma just jogs when it gets to New Mexico. And that's the survey and mistake they made. And you can see it goes all the way down the border between Texas and New Mexico. And sometimes it's up to a nine mile mistake. We know that's all Permian Basin. And so Johnny had the vision to go after it. And he said, of course, that it was something that was forced upon New Mexico to caress because Texas always vetoed our state of it, you know, entry. And so, you know, to bring that back was really began as a nostalgia trip because everybody said, oh we missed Johnny, you know, wasn't Johnny so wonderful. And I remember that about the first week in the session, Johnny would go up to the council after seeing everybody introduce all these different bills.

And he'd say, draft up all my legislation. And they would. And he'd come down and he'd just introduce it all again, you know. And so I said, people were missing Johnny, so I said, well, okay, I'll show you Johnny. Let's go after that Texas land. That's something that's unfinished. So I introduced it again. And you know, it's fun with Texans. You know, they always get so excited and so it's like stirred up a hornet's nest over in that area with far well as part of that air, that little town would become to Mexico, you know. So we put it in and it got through the center. And so I got to argue Johnny's idea. And you know, Johnny was like the Will Rogers of New Mexico. He was just a treasure and he had great vision for our state. And since territorial days, there's always been a moral in the legislature. So you know, it was great to go back through those arguments.

I remember them all, right? So you know, that, and of course, I took it seriously and I started getting calls from Texas. And that was just priceless, you know. Well, do you think there's a chance in another session that it would make it not only through the Senate but the House and that the governor would sign it and then what would we do? Well, then we'd have to go to the Supreme Court, you know. And you know, we never gave up that claim in 1853, I'm sorry, in 1953, the legislature put in a bill to ask for the mental rights from that area. And so as late as 1953, the legislature still thought it was a viable idea. And we even said at that time, if they don't give us those mental rights, we're going to organize a militia and send them to the Texas border in full regalia is the way they described it.

But you know, the problem in a serious dimension to this is really our current conflict with Texas over water. And I've told the attorney general and I've said to her, the problem we have is nobody wants to sue Texas over the water issue because they're afraid we're going to lose. And the point would have to be, you know, if you're going to lose the lawsuit, let's lose it now. Let's establish our baseline for what New Mexico's water really is. I think we could win. But one of the reasons to go back and talk about how we were treated in the Supreme Court in New Mexico versus Texas over the borderland was to really understand that Texas has always taken an oppressive attitude toward New Mexico as if we were somehow diminished in their relationship with us. And they have used the power of their statehood for years in terms of their ability to extract greater concessions from us.

And that's really what happened in water as well. So I feel that that border fight is one step away from the water fight we have to win. And in terms of their oppressive treatment of New Mexico, didn't you tell me that in the 1850s, when they were adjudicating this land territory originally, that they sent in engineers and our witnesses were the men that had been alive at the time this was done. They were old farmers and the courts just did whatever the engineers wanted. I mean, your memory is exactly right about this because the Supreme Court appointed a special master. And in his report that's part of New Mexico versus Texas Supreme Court opinion, it says, all the witnesses from New Mexico were aged gentlemen who were illiterate Mexicans who had only a memory of seeing where the Rio Grande was located. That's because they were there.

They were eyewitnesses. Now you call them eyewitnesses. But they accepted the arguments of the Texas engineers and you know, that was just another example of, you know, we need to make sure that Texas understands that you can drill slant wells in water too and they've been doing that. They've been coming across our borders by and land and then shipping the water back to Texas. You know, a lot of these issues have to be resolved. The way you do it is you sue Colorado, you sue Kansas, you sue all the water users up and down the Pekis and Rio Grande of Basins, you sue Texas as well. And you have to bring in all the Indian tribes, you have to bring in the dairy farmers, you have to bring in all the folks that have any claim to our waters. And let's sue them in New Mexico and the federal court in Albuquerque and let's go ahead and get this done. If we lose, which we may, I think no matter what, at least a federal court would say okay,

New Mexico, this much water is yours. And then forevermore, when we go through the process of thinning trees, using less water because we use Xerix front yards and we don't put in the expensive turf that those folks from New Jersey like. And so what happens is, you know, when we save a drop, we'll get to keep it. And that's what's important for us now because the Pueblos need water just like us. So you sue them, you bring them to the table and then they get to be spokesmen for their people as well. So it's not a friendly lawsuit, but you do, you certainly do sue everyone. Now, also, aren't they outspending us in terms of the money that they're spending on their lawyers way more than the state of New Mexico can afford, aren't they kind of? They set aside 6 million one year, 4 million another, Lorraine, I'd do it for free. I just want to get in there and argue, yeah, let's do it now.

And what is the status of the Texas water fight in terms of the governors and the legislature's statewide water plan now, where does it figure in there? Well, I'm really worried about what's happening with elephant butte, I'm worried about what's happened with Navajo Dam. My feeling is, if anybody should go out and see Chinatown again, just go look at that movie, how they're moving water at night. I'd like to fill Cochity, I'd fill Abbeque, I'd fill Elephant Butte, I'd go up fill Navajo Dam, all the Heron Lakes, all of that, conscious Dam, I'd fill that. And as soon as I did that, that's when I'd move that militia to the border and say, okay, now let's talk. And I'd file that lawsuit in Abbeque, because you're not going to do it through appeasement and we know that you're not going to ever get Texans to take just their share.

Yeah, and we have some wonderful approaches, getting rid of the salt cedar is one approach, retiring some of the farmland, not using it for agriculture so that they can have more water. It really gets right down to the bone, there's not enough water, and I often thought if they would just pipe their water around to get 8-10 inches, you know, in a couple of months where that's how we get in the year, if they could just, like, in-house, in Texas, arrange to redistribute their water resources, they could leave ours alone. They've got to fill those pools in Dallas and learn. Yeah, yeah. Well, we'll leave the Texans here, but I would love it if you were the one who went and fought for this. That would be great. My other burning question that I would love to hear from you about is, what's happening in the Senate and when is a coalition, a coalition, and when is it not a coalition? I know that in the last session there were some very serious changes, and everyone kept

saying we had Leonard Cersei here saying, but it's not a coalition, and Richard Romero is saying, no, no, it's not a coalition. Yeah, we endured all of that. You know, in politics today, it's not what you do, that's what you say you do. And you know, sometimes that's sort of a tragic turn. And I think the important thing to realize is that I went in this time, and I was one of the people that voted for Richard Romero. And that was a certainly a laying down of the gauntlet to set things aside and let's move forward. Did the coalition rear its ugly head again on occasion? Yeah, I saw vestiges of it. I saw people taking turns voting on certain issues that it kind of held back the ability of the majority Democratic Party to really do what we wanted to do.

But I've never really been in the legislature when all the Democrats could ever vote together anyway. I mean, so at least this time, there certainly wasn't a total capitulation of the budget into the Republican hands. I've always said that for those folks out there in Portalus, that Stu Engel was running the Senate the last two years, and he still had a strong hand in it this time. But you know, that brings me to something that's deared to our hearts, which is, of course, that Bull Moose Party. Oh, yes. Please. You know. And you've got to show them the high sign. You've got to do the whole Bull Moose thing. Oh, we can do it together. There it is. Okay. There it is. There's that Bull Moose folks. And what we did was we've got a group of folks, and we're just basically pretty conservative folks. And, you know, I passed the concealed carry law. That's just an example of my conservative roots.

And so, basically, what the Bull Moose Party is all about is it's got to be a throwback to Roosevelt. But we vote on things that are, oh, anything to do with trucks, or boats, or hunting, or fishing. Certainly, anything to do with sports, or, you know, tractor pulls, or rodeos. I mean, that's where we definitely get together. And so, all it is is just a statement that, you know, occasionally, there is kind of an attitude here in New Mexico that says, you know what? Don't tread on me. And that's kind of what the Bull Moosters are all about. So, occasionally, we did get together this year. Yeah. Well, who did you enroll in this party? Or do they just step forward when it's an issue near and dear to their hearts? They just, they just know. And then you'll see somebody will put their ant or something. They're all of a sudden, there comes that vote.

Well, that's what I love about the sense. Thank you for bringing this sophisticated element into it. We are the majority when we vote. I think so. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Well, and how, what women are a part of the Bull Moose Party? Oh, I think Cynthia and Alva jumps right in. And they're on occasion, you know? And there's a, you know, I usually am able to drag most of them Republicans across the panel on those issues. Yeah. It's good. Good. Good. Speaking of high levels of sophistication, I was very pleased with the film industry incentives that you did. Can you tell us some about that? It's a, it's a precious industry for New Mexico, Irene, because it's, it's the most clean industry you can have. It involves folks that are, that are highly sophisticated, highly technically trained. The idea that you and I together are filming this today, sending it through whatever satellite

you're bouncing this off of, and it's reaching all over New Mexico. And, you know, that is an aspect of the film industry, because it requires folks that are, that are technically competent, that know how to be a star or a talent. And you come in here and in maybe a month, a major production will spend $26 million. You know? Suspect zero spent $26 million in Mexico. What we did with the film industry years ago, and you'll remember when Earth 2 was here, and Eddie Lopez was really interested in trying to keep that production alive, well, we got a few concessions through tax and revenue, where there would be exemptions for gross receipts tax that they would normally have to pay. And that was a beginning.

There's another man with vision that really was helpful in understanding how taxes and your tax policies can create business. Well, what we were able to do, finally is John Henry from the film Workers Union came to me and said, you know what? We've got to compete with, with not only Utah and Oklahoma and California. We've got a Toronto Vancouver. Exactly. And we've got to be able to compete with Canada. And what does that nation do, but they actually loan monies to a film production and will help finance it. Well, New Mexico has one of the greatest gifts from the past legislators is when we created our severance tax permanent fund. And we have right now about 9.6 billion that's available to us. No other state in the union has that.

So we're always told that we're a poor state, but you know what? Financially, in our bank account, we're a very wealthy state. And almost we stand up strong and tall with other nations in terms of the trust account that we have. I think it's, isn't it the third largest in the world, publicly held fund? See, Larry, you're so good at giving us that perspective, you know. And you're exactly right. You're exactly right. And so what we did was got authority through the, this was during Governor Johnson's administration. And really with the blessing of the State Investment Council, we set up a system to loan monies to film companies if they shoot the production end in Mexico. Now what that started was finally a boom in the industry. And we spent all our money in one year. And so what I did this last year is to open that up from 26 million to 80 million in access. And that'll give us time with big productions like Suspeg Zero.

That's a film that's going to take four to five years to repay that money. So now what we have is we've got an ability to stretch that out and spend Suspeg Zero borrowed $7 million. So we now have enough monies to roll over the next production until Suspeg Zero pays that back in five years. What we also had this year is an expansion of the Gross Receipts Tax exemption that the Speaker passed. And only the Speaker could have done that. I've tried it before, very unsuccessful. Eddie and I tried it way back when the Speaker of the House came forward and recognized, this is an industry we need to have. And we need to be competitive for it. When he did that, that was really the icing on the cake. And now we're getting some major productions and it looks like it'll be year after year. Union members used to fly to LA to upgrade their health insurance and work out there for a couple weeks.

Now we have full employment in an industry that had no one employed three years ago. And I'm also happy that not only in motion picture, but in television too, because I love the Tony Hillerman books and when the first TV masterpiece theater piece, Weshaw and Arizona, it really broke my heart. Because you saw the Soguaros in the background this year. Yes, yes, so they didn't belong there. So now the next one's going to be shot here and I'm very glad about that. We had discourse a little about the financial situation of the state. And I know we don't have much time left. But what's happening with the BEF and we know that the world economy and the national economy are suffering. But for a state with this huge pot of money, we're losing it just by... We lost two billion dollars in the last, over the last, say, three to five years. And that's because we as a state must rely on investments in the stock market, bonds. You know, the ability for you to make money in a declining economy is a real trick.

I mean, you have to be very more than artful. And that's kind of a pun that leads me into, I had a great bill this last time that would have allowed the State Investment Council to invest in fine art, $50 million and in fine instruments, $50 million. You remember, Lorraine, that New Mexico at one time was one of the leaders in the world as an art center, as a center where we had great treasures here that everyone acknowledged and people would look to the Tau 7, to the folks that were living in Santa Fe, to what was happening in art at that time. Tragically, we have, I think, become smaller and smaller players in the world of art, this to invest in art and be able to do it as an investment. No other state in the country could do it.

Very few countries in the world can do it. The British Railway Company Trust Fund, when Maggie Thatcher, before moved them from a public entity to a private entity, invested in art, they've outperformed every equity fund in the world since then. But it seems to me that if you buy that art and hold on to it, at some point you have to sell it, or does it just appreciate and value when you say, this is really worth, you know, $20 billion of Van Gogh, or what have you, how do you realize the profit of that, or is it just as long-term as our permanent funds that just sits there? No, you sell it. You sell it in 10 years. This is, and some, you know, I was asked, well, oh, we want to buy that herd that's down in the Ag Museum. I said, no, you can't do that, because you want to buy that herd to keep it forever. What we would be doing is buying art as an investment. We would hold it for 10 years and then sell it. But what's wrong with having one of the great collections of Goya for 10 years

and let everyone know that if you want to see some great Spanish art, Delacroix, the Picasso's that everyone thinks of, or, for example, a collection of Goya etchings come to Santa Fe, see that in the Santa Fe Museum. Go to Roswell, it'll be held in a bank, put in the vault at night, and shown to the people of Roswell during the day. It would have allowed us to vary our investments. But, you know what, sometimes a good idea gets vetoed and that went down. Well, you can always bring it back, you know? Johnny told me that, too. You know, you kind of have to prepare the grounds, so the seed and then see, and also, you know, who knows what the economy will do. It's either real estate or art. You know, stocks and bonds aren't doing it. So, you know, just watch what's happening and then bring it back. Look, we only have another couple of minutes left. So, I'm wondering if there's something Ernie would always say,

what's there's something that you wanted to bring up that I haven't asked you? So, here, it's all yours. Oh, I just remembered when I first went down on the south floor, I promised the rug, the carpet was bright, it was red. Yeah. You know, and I promised myself that I would always be as enthusiastic, and as joyful, and as proud, as I was that day, every time I went there. And there's folks like you, Lorraine, that carry that spirit, and there's the man that you and I both loved, Ernie Mills, who had it himself. I am so tragically upset to think that when we invaded Iraq, we promised that we would protect their culture and their heritage. When we moved in and only sent four tanks to protect the oil ministry, it was a sad statement that we knew those museums would be looted,

and we did nothing. Yeah. And that entire culture has just the cradle of civilization now starts at year zero, because it rivals the burning of the Alexandria Museum. The library. The library. Or the destruction and wiping out of the Income civilization. But I'm just so sad over that. And Lorraine, I just wanted to tell you that I know that you and Ernie were always involved in putting in perspective what history means to us in New Mexico, and to remind people how all the pieces of the puzzle put together. I was saddened to see us say that we had no one expected looting of the National Museum in Baghdad. And that's just not true. No, it didn't know what we were doing. A cruel tragedy that could never be repaired.

And we lost a lot. But meanwhile, I go with your idea of buying art, you know, not off eBay. No Assyrian treasure is off of eBay, but buying art to invest in to enhance our own funds. But we've come to the end of our time. I want to thank you so much for being with us. And you are a historic history-making lawmaker yourself. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thanks for telling me that. Oh, thank you very much. So this is Lorraine Mills and our guest today, Shannon Robinson, Democrat Senator from Albuquerque. And I'd like to thank you for being with us on report from Santa Fe. Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by grants from New Mexico Tech on the frontier of science and engineering education. For bachelor's, master's, and PhD degrees, New Mexico Tech is the college you've been looking for. 1-800-428-TECH. 1-800-428-TECH is the college you've been looking for.