Closing in on history
Democratic front-runner is heavily favored to win, but regardless of outcome, New Mexico will become first state in nation to have all its House seats filled by women of color
For Leger Fernandez, public service has always been a calling
Teresa Leger Fernandez always knew she wanted to be in public service.
Born and raised in New Mexico, the daughter of a school superintendent and a teacher, the chance to attend Yale and later Stanford University was the opportunity of a lifetime for a young woman from Las Vegas, N.M. But Leger Fernandez said it was the work that needed to be accomplished back home — not the degrees on the coast — that always drove her.
Public service, she said, was never a question.
“I think I always [knew], because I was my parents’ daughter,” said Leger Fernandez, whose father, Ray Leger, served in the Legislature. Her mother, Manuelita de Atocha Lucero, was a teacher.
“They really dedicated themselves to public service,” she said. “My grandmother was also an educator. I have some fancy degrees. Let’s be honest, I could have gone and done different things, but that was not me. It was just natural.”
Leger Fernandez’s next step on the rungs of public service — in this case, politics — may be taken next month. She is heavily favored to win New Mexico’s 3rd Congres
sional District in a race against Republican Alexis Martinez Johnson.
Leger Fernandez’s toughest battle may have been in June, when she defeated well-known and better-funded Valerie Plame and five other Democratic opponents in a tough primary. Along the way, she earned a slew of endorsements from a variety of environmental groups, pueblos and tribes in New Mexico, plus unions and political action committees.
If she is elected to the seat being vacated by U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Luján, and if U.S. Rep. Xochitl Torres Small and U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland, both Democrats, win elections in their respective districts, New Mexico would be the first state in the nation to have all its House seats filled by women of color, state Democratic Party Chairwoman Marg Elliston said.
It’s a possibility of no small import to Leger Fernandez, a longtime attorney and mother of three who lives in Santa Fe.
“I think that women of the different communities of color in the United States need to be in all the places where decisions are made impacting their communities,” she said. “It’s a lived experience, so you have that muscle memory of ‘this is an issue we need to talk about.’ ”
For her, those issues are many — ranging from renewable energy to health care to narrowing the gap between rich and poor with a more progressive income tax structure. Her ability to talk about policy — federal, state, local, tribal — can fill a reporter’s notebook. But to her friends, that’s not surprising.
“She’s one of the smartest people I know,” said Vangie Samora, a friend of Leger Fernandez since the 1970s, when they first met performing together at a bilingual theater company in Albuquerque. “She’s really brilliant, and she’s loyal. She’s going to be one of the idea people in Congress.”
Leger Fernandez’s Republican opponent, Martinez Johnson, also is Hispanic. But the 3rd District, which encompasses most of the northern third of the state, has leaned heavily Democrat, electing only one GOP candidate since its inception nearly 40 years ago. It is not considered a competitive district for Republicans, and Leger Fernandez’s fundraising efforts reflect that the bulk of her battle was already fought and won in the primary.
During the primary, she stressed her deep local roots and granular knowledge of the issues facing Northern New Mexico — from its culture to the need for preserving freshwater in an arid region where the resource will grow more scarce as the impact of climate change continues to take its toll.
Leger Fernandez said the COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the critical importance of the infrastructure gap between a city like Santa Fe and places like the Navajo Nation in Western New Mexico. A lack of running water and internet service made adapting to the pandemic that much harder for Native American communities whose children needed internet access to log into classes that shifted online and who needed water to wash their hands.
She said she intimately understands those problems and others, including the poverty, substance abuse and diabetes issues that helped COVID-19 tear through Indian Country in the spring and summer. And she feels her knowledge of how government can ease such hurdles — after her time as a White House Fellow under former President Bill Clinton and as a special assistant to the Cabinet secretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development — will come in handy in Congress.
Terry Brunner, who headed the Department of Agriculture’s rural development agency in New Mexico from 2009 to 2016, said he recalls when Laguna Pueblo had no internet access as recently as 10 years ago. Leger Fernandez helped the pueblo jump through the legal hoops to get broadband access, he said.
She did the same thing at Santo Domingo Pueblo, Brunner said.
“She’s a passionate advocate for the projects she believes in, but what she also lends to these projects is just a really firm understanding of the rules and the regulations and what’s needed to be done,” he said.
Leger Fernandez’s longtime law firm partner, Wayne Bladh, worked with her for nearly 30 years. He said Leger Fernandez’s “deep and profound understanding” of the area and her ability to establish personal relationships — even with those who may disagree with her — make a difference when it comes time to get things accomplished.
Leger Fernandez, he said, is able to use that gift “that would then allow her to start talking about an issue in a way that person would have some sympathy with.”
But after decades in Santa Fe, Leger Fernandez hopes her next chapter will be in Washington, D.C.
“I am radically optimistic,” she said. “I think that it is very important to lay out what you want and to do everything you can to try to get there. What this COVID crisis has done is highlight to us that our system is broken. So given that we have to build it back, that we need to build it back with an understanding that we shouldn’t just patch together a broken system, but rather we should strengthen it and build it back in a way that meets the needs … of the American people.”
I think that women of the different communities of color in the United States need to be in all the places where decisions are made impacting their communities. It’s a lived experience, so you have that muscle memory of ‘this is an issue we need to talk about.’ ” Teresa Leger Fernandez