For ‘most apathetic’ in politics, look to southwest Santa Fe
Recently, my colleague and fellow columnist, Milan Simonich, called Sen. Richard Martinez’s state Senate district “the most apathetic district in New Mexico.”
Though I agree with Milan’s basic premise that apathy in his district could save the political hide of Martinez — in spite of his DWI arrest and the vehicle crash that led to the charge — I have to dispute the contention that Martinez’s district is the most apathetic in this enchanted land.
In fact, I’ll repeat the assertion I made in this column several months ago that this dubious honor belongs to my area of Santa Fe, which I have dubbed “the Apathy District.”
I’m actually referring to the general area in southwest Santa Fe encompassing where Senate District 24 (represented by Sen. Nancy Rodriguez), House District 45 (represented by Rep. Jim Trujillo) and City Council District 3 (represented by Councilors Chris Rivera and Roman “Tiger” Abeyta) overlap.
As I wrote before, it’s been years since either Rodriguez or Trujillo have had a general election or even a primary challenger. Democrat Trujillo has not had a primary opponent since 2004 and has never faced a general election opponent. Rodriguez, also a Democrat, hasn’t been challenged in a primary since 2000 and hasn’t faced a Republican or even a Green Party or Libertarian challenger since she was appointed to the seat in 1996.
Abeyta ran unopposed for his first term. And now Rivera is running unopposed for reelection in November’s election for District 3, which traditionally has the lowest voter turnout of any council district.
I just looked at my sample ballot for the upcoming election, and it looks pretty bleak. In fact, the lack of competition makes this election, at least where I live, downright Soviet.
In addition to Rivera, there is only one candidate for municipal judge, incumbent Virginia Vigil. (That’s a citywide race, though, so I can’t blame any particular district for the lack of competition.) Also there is only one school board candidate on my ballot, Rudy Garcia.
Garcia, in fact, is probably the most qualified to represent the Apathy District. As my colleague Dillon Mullan reported earlier this month, Garcia has missed seven of 17 regular school board meetings so far this year. Too bad he doesn’t have to campaign for reelection. He has a ready-made campaign slogan: “Proven Apathy for the Apathy District.”
In fairness, Mullan pointed out that Garcia, who also is a county commissioner, has a much better attendance record in that role. So his embarrassing school board record probably is a good example of why elected officials should only have one position at a time.
In fact, even though I take pride in voting in every general election since I became eligible in 1972 — and I’m pretty sure every City Council election since at least the early ’80s, I was seriously considering sitting out the Nov. 5 farce.
However, I did see that there are two competitive races for the Santa Fe Community College board, one with two candidates — Ruth Howes and Jody Pugh — the other with three — Miguel Acosta, David Dannenberg and Piér Quintana. Of course, these positions are not divided by district. All these candidates will be on every local ballot.
Looking ahead to next year, Rodriguez hasn’t announced yet whether she’ll seek another Senate term. And no other candidate, Democrat, Republican or otherwise, has emerged. So it’s likely Rodriguez will get another free ride if she wants it.
But Trujillo announced a few weeks ago that he won’t be seeking reelection, so there could be competition for his House seat in next year’s Democratic primary.
Former city Councilor and school board member Carmichael Dominguez has announced that he’s running. And current District 4 Councilor JoAnne Vigil Coppler (whose council district overlaps with Trujillo’s district) has said she’s considering entering the race. And there have been rumors, unconfirmed so far, that other candidates could emerge.
I can’t help but wonder if more than one candidate in this district would overload an underused system.