Big black headlines, usually reserved for natural disasters or political upsets, announced, “Sheryl Williams Stapleton found guilty on all counts.”
We could see it coming. When the best defense your lawyer can come up with is that you stole from your co-defendant and not taxpayers, you’re in big trouble.
Many wonder why Stapleton would risk everything on what the AP described as “a yearslong scheme to divert money from public schools to a friend’s company in exchange for kickbacks.” She had everything – a great job with Albuquerque Public Schools and an important post as the long-time House Majority Leader. She used both positions to steer school and state business to an educational software company owned by an old buddy. Both were convicted in the same trial of stealing money from state and federal governments.
Old reporters like me have seen it before. Power, influence and ego metastasize as entitlement and rationalization: “I deserve this.” Their inflated sense of self-importance shields them from the notion they might get caught. They are floating above the rubes – that is, you and me.
Now cue up the chorus of curmudgeons who will proclaim our state legislators are “all crooks.” In truth, for every lawmaker who finds a way to make a buck, ten more step down because they can no longer afford to serve. Most in our unpaid “citizen legislature” lose money because they’re self-employed or take leave from their jobs to serve. Expenses exceed per diem.
Besides the financial sacrifice is the personal sacrifice. Several people come to mind.
Beginning in 2009 House Speaker Ben Lujan (father of our U.S. senator), was away from his duties without explanation. He was quietly getting cancer treatment because he didn’t want his illness to cloud legislative business. People noticed his absence. Rumors rumbled. He went public in an unforgettable opening-day speech in 2012.
“I’ve learned that being diagnosed with a chronic condition, like cancer, can happen to anyone,” he said. “I have seen firsthand the importance of access to health care for all.”
Lujan stayed in the saddle through the session. He died that year.
In 2011 Rep. Jeanette Wallace, R-Los Alamos, her face gray from sickness, was in her 20th year of service. It was her vote that moved a brutally hard-fought budget in a divided House. With her death after the session, Republican moderates in the Roundhouse went extinct.
And there was Rep. Abbas Akhil, D-Albuquerque, who was proud to become the first Muslim to serve in the Legislature in 2019. As an engineer and scientist, he was a valuable fellow. He stepped down after one term because he was missing too much family time, a problem they all have.
While we’re on the subject of public corruption, we should acknowledge that New Mexico’s decision to not pay legislators can lead to dubious decisions and really bad legislation. Rep. Marion Mathews, D-Albuquerque, said this year that as volunteers “we don’t have a lot of strict ethics rules. A ton of money flows to legislators because the rules are so weak.”
In this atmosphere of looking the other way, the Legislature’s trial lawyers, all Democrats, were able to pass a law that benefits themselves and not us rubes. Since 2021 they’ve been harvesting money from doctors, who are leaving the state in droves. (Like everybody else, I’ve waited months this year to see a specialist. I don’t feel served by this law. Do you?)
Here’s the big takeaway: The party in power has the greatest opportunity – and the most cover – for self-dealing. This leads us to tandem denials by both parties. The Democrats see nothing amiss in Santa Fe and point to blatant graft in Washington D.C. The Republicans don’t talk about D.C. and want you to think all the corruption is in Santa Fe. The only difference is that in Santa Fe corruption is prosecuted, at least some of the time.
Either way, the rubes are paying.
