House Republican leadership exaggerated
Ruidoso News
Article Launched: 04/24/2008 10:07:24 PM MDTTo the editor:
At the March meeting of the Lincoln County Republicans, Nora Espinoza made
some exaggerated claims about the effectiveness of House Republican leadership.I was in Santa Fe for the 2008 session, as I am running for the HD 59 seat against Espinoza for the second time. All the bills mentioned in the March 26 article about the meeting passed the House, it was the Senate that killed them.
House Bill 62 in particular (Richardson's Health Solutions Act) was strongly opposed by liberal Democrats, and one key point was the mandatory insurance clause. I was present during the testimony, and many people spoke bitterly of their experiences with greedy insurance companies that refused to cover their illnesses. The battle cry was "Health care, not Health Insurance." Most of the people speaking in favor of HB 62 were paid lobbyists for those same insurance companies. The bill passed the House but died in the Senate Finance Committee.
HB 241, the public school funding formula bill, passed the House, but it too died in Senator John Arthur Smith's Finance committee. The provisions of this bill will have to be discussed in future sessions, as New Mexico public schools are at least $340 million underfunded. By the way, for those that think charter schools are better, the same percentage of charter schools failed to make AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) last year as public schools. See my report on the October 2007 Legislative Education Study Committee meeting at http://-wedum59.com/linkedpages/LESC2007.html.
What House Republican minority whip Dan Foley did get passed and signed by Governor Richardson was a sweetheart deal for the Dean Baldwin Painting company, a major Roswell employer-except it turns out that up to one-third of their employees may be illegal immigrants. Carl Dean Baldwin, the son of the company's namesake (and its executive vice president) has been under investigation since 2002 and is under federal indictment for procuring illegal immigrants to work at substandard wages.
This company has painted planes for at least five airlines, grossed over $13 million from government contracts alone, but they have not paid their bills. By 2007 a government audit showed that they owed $233,000 in back taxes, and they went to court instead of paying. Now they owe over $522,000 to the state of New Mexico.
However, they do make campaign contributions to Foley and Richardson. So this spring Foley asks the governor to sign off on a bill that gives Baldwin Painting until 2012 to pay the back taxes My opponent for the House district 59 seat has often complained about "pay to play" politics, but this time it is her own favorite minority whip that set up the play.
At the time the tax reprieve was announced, the company's executive vice president for operations was already under federal indictment for employing illegal immigrants. Richardson's office says he didn't know Baldwin was facing criminal charges, although Foley did. Foley says that he saw nothing wrong with helping arrange the tax payment plan because Roswell jobs were in jeopardy.
Is this the Republican idea of "Republican leadership?" "Tough on illegal immigration?"
Republicans can decide between Foley and Republican challenger Dennis Kintigh in the primary, and between the winner of that primary and Democrat Mary Barron in November.
Ellen Wedum
Democratic candidate for New Mexico House District 59
Cloudcroft
