It’s curtains for Lt. Gov. candidate Padilla
State Sen. Michael Padilla’s campaign for lieutenant governor is over. He’s just not ready to admit it.
Asked whether he will stay in the race, Padilla said in a weekend interview: “I haven’t made that decision.” This was a marked changed from two days earlier, when Padilla declared he was still a candidate.
Now Padilla, D-Albuquerque, says he is undecided. Soon enough, he will withdraw, his candidacy crushed by sexual harassment charges that began 11 years ago.
Two lawsuits accusing Padilla of sexual misconduct concluded in 2010. Oddly, those cases have hurt him more in the last two weeks than they did when they were argued and decided.
Two women who said Padilla sexually harassed them received a $149,000 settlement. A jury awarded another of his accusers $1,200 for counseling costs and $101,000 for legal fees. The city of Albuquerque paid all the bills.
The women said in their lawsuits that Padilla degraded, harassed or humiliated them in 2006 and 2007 when he was their supervisor, hired to improve Albuquerque’s 911 call center.
Padilla, 45, says none of it happened. Rather, he says, he became the target of vengeful lawsuits from management employees because he tried to reform an agency that was part of the problem-plagued Albuquerque Police Department. He resigned from his job at the Albuquerque 911 center in 2007 and began running for public office the next year.
Today, there’s a budding insurgence against Padilla, and it’s coming from his own ranks.
Three of his fellow Democratic state senators recently asked a high-profile officeholder to enter the campaign for lieutenant governor. These senators are convinced Padilla can only damage the party and the gubernatorial ticket if he stays in the race.
Along with Padilla, three other men
already are seeking the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor. But senators trying to recruit a new candidate aren’t satisfied with the field. These same senators were quiet when Padilla entered the race and looked like the favorite to win the nomination.
Then came a surge of national interest in how powerful men in politics treat women. Each day seems to bring new allegations of sexual misconduct against officeholders and office-seekers from both major political parties.
In this climate of heightened awareness, something I would have thought impossible has happened. More people are focused on Padilla, a candidate for the unimportant job of lieutenant governor, than are discussing those running for the powerful position of governor.
Ironically enough, Padilla was riding a crest of popularity this year before sexual harassment reemerged as the issue that could break him.
He received extraordinary attention for his bill to help impoverished students who were mistreated when they went to the school cafeteria for lunch. Padilla, who grew up in foster homes, stirred people with accounts of how children without so much as a quarter in their pocket had to grovel for a meal at school.
New Mexico’s Democratic congressional delegation turned Padilla’s bill into a national movement last May. Congresswoman Michelle Lujan Grisham, who’s running for governor, was part of that effort. Now she wants Padilla out of the race for the No. 2 position on the ticket.
Padilla might still be telling himself he can survive this controversy because he’s done it before. But he’s never faced this kind of fury.
Democrats fear that Padilla’s continued presence in the campaign would enable the Republican gubernatorial candidate, Congressman Steve Pearce, to make sexual harassment and Padilla’s conduct a central issue.
Padilla has been in public life for nine years, a stretch when the sexual harassment cases against him received relatively little notice.
He challenged incumbent Sen. Linda Lopez in the 2008 primary election. Lopez’s supporters pointed to the lawsuits against Padilla as reason for voters to reject him, but he remained a formidable challenger.
Lopez won a tight race against Padilla, 1,811 votes to 1,592. Her incumbency might have been more important in that election than the complaints against Padilla.
He grew stronger in 2012 when he ran for an open seat in the Senate. His big test was in the primary, where he faced state Rep. Eleanor Chavez. Chavez was beloved by fellow Democrats in the Legislature, and her backers used the sexual harassment verdict and settlement against Padilla. Nonetheless, he defeated Chavez.
Once in office, Padilla rose quickly, thanks to his energy and willingness to work hard. Senate Democrats in 2014 elected him as their whip, a leadership position. Nobody in the caucus mentioned the sexual harassment cases against Padilla when he bested Sen. Joseph Cervantes in the competition for whip. Cervantes is now running for governor.
Given his trajectory, Padilla might want to ignore anyone who says he’s finished as a candidate for lieutenant governor. But the sexual misconduct charges against him have so much belated momentum that he is a pariah in a race that typically generates no more than a yawn from the public.
The tepid times have ended. Sexual harassment is again a burning issue, and the heat is on Padilla. It will escalate every day he stays in the race.
Ringside Seat is an opinion column about people, politics and news. Contact Milan Simonich at msimonich@sfnewmexican.com or 505-986-3080.