Lujan Grisham: ‘I don’t rubber-stamp anything’

She once posed as a stroke patient during an undercover investigation.

More recently, she showed up uninvited at the White House and waited with an elderly woman seeking help at the Social Security office in Albuquerque.

That hands-on history, Michelle Lujan Grisham says, is a sign of the kind of governor she’d be.

“I show up when people don’t expect me to,” she said in a recent interview.

Lujan Grisham — a former state Cabinet secretary, ex-Bernalillo County commissioner and current congresswoman — is the Democratic nominee campaigning for the Governor’s Office after eight years of Republican control under Gov. Susana Martinez, whose tenure ends Dec. 31.

Lujan Grisham, 58, is pitching herself as someone with experience at all levels of government — a public official who has worked under three governors and knows how to get things done. She

POLITICAL PARTY: Democratic

OCCUPATION: U.S. representative, N.M. 1st District

CITY OF RESIDENCE: Albuquerque

RELEVANT EXPERIENCE: Three-term member of Congress, small-business owner, New Mexico secretary of health, New Mexico secretary of aging

EDUCATION: B.A. and J.D., University of New Mexico

CAMPAIGN WEBSITE: newmexicansformichelle.com

has a background in health care, in particular, and she names New Mexico’s “woefully underfunded public education system” as an immediate priority.

“I will do what it takes,” Lujan Grisham said, “to solve a problem, to address challenges, to make a difference in the lives of New Mexicans. People can expect that of me.”

She has faced intense criticism on the campaign trail, too, including in a brutal three-way Democratic primary in June. Lujan Grisham dominated the field by claiming 66 percent of the vote, but her opponents hammered her as an insider entrenched in the Democratic political establishment.

Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, her opponent this fall, is continuing that line of attack. In a recent television ad, his campaign described Lujan Grisham as “dishonest and dirty, shamelessly corrupt” — allegations that center on her ties to a company that helps run New Mexico’s high-risk insurance pool.

Lujan Grisham’s campaign calls the attacks desperate and unfounded. She has consistently defended her work for Delta Consulting, the company with a state contract, as a critical way to help New Mexicans who had been denied health care coverage.

In one ad, a cancer patient speaks in her defense. Lujan Grisham divested from the company last year and released her tax returns as a show of transparency.

‘New’ money

New Mexico’s next governor will take office amid an oil boom that’s expected to provide more than $1.2 billion in “new” money, or extra revenue beyond this year’s spending levels. The influx comes after years of tight budgets and a fiscal crisis that damaged the state’s credit rating.

If elected, Lujan Grisham said, she would immediately bring in legislative leaders from both parties to craft a “prudent and practical” spending plan.

Among the priorities, she said, are education, addressing “highrisk” vacancies in the department that combats child abuse and promotes foster care, early childhood education, and encouraging business investment and tourism.

And she said Democrats, who hold majorities in both legislative chambers, shouldn’t expect a pushover.

“I don’t rubber-stamp anything,” Lujan Grisham said.

She points to her experience working for then-Republican Gov. Gary Johnson, in addition to two Democratic governors, as an example of her willingness to work with any party.

Lujan Grisham is also in the minority in the U.S. House, meaning she has to win Republican support to advance her congressional priorities.

A recent appropriations bill passed by the House, for example, includes $5 million for one of her longtime priorities — a “Care Corps” demonstration program that would pay for caregivers who help seniors and people with disabilities continue to live independently.

Lujan Grisham said she saw her own parents struggle as caregivers for her younger sister, who was disabled after a brain tumor.

In Washington, D.C., she has served as chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus — a position that has put her at in the middle of the immigration debate.

She attended a White House meeting on the topic in January, even after the Trump administration wouldn’t add her to the invite list. Democratic leaders asked that Lujan Grisham be added, but the White House said the gathering was already too crowded.

Lujan Grisham showed up anyway and was among about 20 people at the table with Trump.

She has also pushed to maintain the United States’ ban on horse slaughter, helped secure a federal review of behavioral health services in New Mexico and won funding for a variety of federal projects in New Mexico, according to her congressional office.

Background

Lujan Grisham has a broad background in government. She has served as the state’s Cabinet secretary in the departments of Health and Aging and LongTerm Services, won election to a Bernalillo County Commission seat representing the North Valley and part of the West Side, and served three terms in Congress.

In 1997, when she headed the aging agency, Lujan Grisham went undercover at an Albuquerque nursing home, posing as a patient with speech loss, to check on the care people received.

Later, in her tenure at the Health Department, she faced a wave of criticism, in particular for some staff changes.

Some see her handson style as prone to micromanagement.

Bernalillo County Commissioner Maggie Hart Stebbins, a Democrat from Albuquerque, said Lujan Grisham simply has high expectations for public employees, as she should.

“I think Michelle gets caught in a kind of gender bias — where that type of behavior in a man would be seen as really strong leadership, but in a woman it’s sometimes painted as a negative,” Hart Stebbins said.

She describes Lujan Grisham as “relentless” when she attacks a problem. As an example, Hart Stebbins cited Lujan Grisham’s efforts to persuade the Air Force to clean up a jet fuel spill at Kirtland.

“I was on a phone call with her and the secretary of the Air Force, and she said, ‘I’m going to call you every day until we get a solution,’” Hart Stebbins said.

Economy

Creating jobs has been a central point of debate in the campaign. New Mexico has struggled with some of the highest unemployment rates in the country, and the state remains heavily dependent on the oil and gas industry and the federal workforce at national laboratories and military installations.

Lujan Grisham’s economic ideas include boosting the minimum wage, creating centers of excellence on certain topics at state universities and colleges, supporting the film industry, taking broadband to rural areas, expanding the hours of the Santa Teresa Port of Entry on the border, and embracing an “all-of-theabove energy” plan that includes solar and wind power.

Both Pearce and Lujan Grisham say they want to broaden New Mexico’s economic base.

“Boom and bust cycles are so hard on states,” Lujan Grisham said.

Transparency

A hallmark of her campaign has been the release of a series of multipart plans on policy topics. She has a 19-page plan on clean energy, for example, and an eight-sector strategy for diversifying the economy.

The plans — rolled out over the last two years and available on her website — reflect a commitment, Lujan Grisham said, to transparency about her ideas and policy proposals.

They may also be a sign of her enthusiasm for the job. Lujan Grisham was the first candidate to enter the race, in December 2016, just a week after U.S. Sen. Tom Udall revealed that he wouldn’t run.

And she seems to be enjoying it. She’s quick to offer a self-deprecating joke or two, often about her height.

Campaigning across the state, Lujan Grisham said, has led to chance meetings with people who knew her parents or sister.

“Sometimes being (a small state), it’s incredibly powerful,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting to have that kind of joy.”