N.M. House candidate threatens legal action
Primary challenger in District 41 alleges incumbent sending out ‘slanderous’ mailers
Lost in the bitterness of the House District 46 Democratic primary race and the sniping between the party’s gubernatorial candidates is a contentious battle for Northern New Mexico’s House District 41.
The fight for the District 41 nomination heated up over the weekend, with political newcomer Susan Herrera threatening legal action against her opponent, longtime state Rep. Debbie Rodella, D-Española.
Herrera said she’s considering sending a cease-and-desist letter to demand that her opponent stop sending campaign mailers that Herrera described as “slanderous” and “full of lies.”
The mailers — and subsequent radio ads hawking the same message — accuse Herrera, the former CEO of the Los Alamos National Laboratory Foundation, of mismanaging the foundation’s money at the expense of educational programs.
Unless a cease-and-desist order were entered by a judge, Herrera’s letter would be nonbinding.
But it’s the latest twist in an intensifying political race already considered one of the most contentious in the north — and in a sprawling district that stretches from just south of Española to the Colorado border.
The showdown for District 41 pits a National Rifle Association-backed incumbent who often votes with Republicans against a progressive political newcomer.
Rodella, the incumbent, leveled the claims in a series of mailers distributed earlier this month and a radio ad launched over the weekend on Española-based KDCE. The mailers claim Herrera ran a $3 million deficit between 2005 and 2014, substantially decreased the foundation’s investment in education programs and funneled grant monies from public schools to private schools.
It also said Herrera “paid herself ” more than $1.5 million over the course of those 10 years.
“I have no problem with her attacking me on issues,” Herrera said in a phone interview on Sunday. “But to fabricate lies about the foundation when so many people work so hard? If that were true, it would be on the front page of every newspaper.”
Rodella did not return several emails or phone calls Monday requesting comment.
The first mailer prompted an immediate reaction from Los Alamos National Laboratory Foundation board members, who wrote in letters to the editor printed in The New Mexican and the Rio Grande Sun that the flier “misrepresents and impugns” the foundation.
The board never ran a “significant” deficit, they said, and Rodella’s mailers make no distinction between “a decline in funds due to investment losses in a down stock market … and operating beyond the Foundation’s means.”
During the time period cited by the mailers, from 200514, the foundation’s assets grew from $56.3 million to nearly $76.7 million, and education funding actually increased over that time period, the letter read.
The mailers cited data pulled from the foundation’s 990 tax forms. In a phone interview Saturday, Herrera wondered aloud if Rodella’s aides “even know how to read the damn thing.”
“I think most people around Debbie wouldn’t know how to read it, let me put it that way,” she said.
According to the 990 forms, obtained by The New Mexican through the foundation, Herrera netted between $112,000 and $140,000 in annual salary over the 10-year period, for a combined take of $1.2 million — not $1.5 million, as the mailers allege. The additional $300,000 seems to have been culled from benefits, including retirement savings.
Foundation officials said Herrera’s salary largely was determined based on an analysis of the pay for people in similar positions in the region.
The forms confirm the foundation ran deficits seven out of the 10 years in question, with a total accumulated deficit of $3 million.
But foundation CEO Jenny Parks said the forms themselves are misleading because they include fluctuations in the foundation’s investment portfolio without documenting available cash from carryover accounts.
In reality, she said, the foundation only ran one small deficit — about $10,000 — during the years in question.
Herrera pushed back against the claims with a strongly worded ad of her own, published Thursday in the Sun. The half-page message questioned Rodella’s ethics and described a district stifled by fear.
“Many of you have told me privately, ‘Susan, I’ll vote for you, but don’t use my name, I don’t want any problems,’ ” the ad read. “Or you have said, ‘I’ll vote for you Susan, but don’t put a sign up in my yard, I’m afraid of what might happen.’ ”
Herrera continued: “I understand. The first thing I did after announcing my candidacy was to check with my insurance agent to see that all of my coverage was up to date for our home. Others told me to install cameras. We have lived in our home for 26 years and never worried about vandalism. But running or voting against the Rodella machine and not taking these factors into consideration is a fool’s game.”
Rodella has represented the District 41 since 1993. This is her first contested primary race since 2006. The winner of the primary will run uncontested by a Republican in the general election.
In a Facebook video posted Saturday and titled “Deceitful Debbie Rodella,” Herrera claimed foundation board members were “meeting with lawyers tomorrow and talking about what they’re going to do about this.”
Parks, who has served as the foundation’s CEO since Herrera retired in January 2015, disputed the assertion. “That’s not true, no,” Parks said. She added: “This is sort of a political fight. It’s not our fight.”
Still, Parks described Rodella’s mailers as “misrepresentations” and applauded Herrera’s work with the foundation.
“She did an excellent job running that foundation,” Parks said. “(When I signed on), I’d never worked at a place that was so well run and had such a great staff.”