Games legislators play are pricey proposition
January is a difficult time for vegetarians in Santa Fe. State legislators as usual are pushing projects made of pure pork.
In certain instances, their efforts are bipartisan, demonstrating that bad government can be a collaborative undertaking.
Two senators, Democrat Moe Maestas and Republican Mark Moores, want $900,000 in state funding to promote the Isleta New Mexico Bowl, a college football game played in their hometown of Albuquerque.
Through Senate Bill 131, Moores and Maestas want the cash appropriated to the state Tourism Department. Then the agency would buy advertising for the game “via national television and other platforms.”
A few broadcast companies and perhaps a handful of hotels and restaurants in Albuquerque would benefit from the ads. The rest of New Mexico would receive nothing in return.
Moores once was an offensive lineman for the University of New Mexico football team. Maestas is a self-proclaimed guru of college football who makes pun-filled predictions about games.
Their devotion to football doesn’t concern me. But their desire to take money from taxpayers across the state to promote a game in Albuquerque should offend almost everyone. No one in Jal or Raton or Santa Fe or almost anywhere else would benefit from the spending proposed by Moores and Maestas.
Let’s see these two Solons appeal to the Albuquerque City Council and Bernalillo County commissioners for public money to buy advertising for their pet project.
Like many state legislators, Moores and Maestas aren’t concerning themselves with New Mexico as a whole. They are content to grab all they can for their city.
Sen. Bill Sharer, R-Farmington, is another lawmaker who’s part of this problem. He also wants to exploit taxpayers statewide to trumpet a sporting event in his town.
Sharer is sponsoring Senate Bill 189, a measure from the same hog trough as the proposal by Maestas and Moores.
In his unoriginal pitch, Sharer wants $450,000 allocated to the Tourism Department to buy advertising during the next three years for the Connie Mack World Series. Farmington hosts the event, featuring teams made up of kids 13 to 16 years old.
Except for Rep. Miguel Garcia, D-Albuquerque, no state legislator is more long-winded or self-righteous than Sharer. Fiscal conservatism is a topic Sharer pontificates on. But he’s willing to open the state’s purse if it means finagling money to plug an event in his town.
A relentless booster of the oil industry, Sharer should consider applying for handouts from his favorite drillers and their lobbyists to advertise the baseball tournament.
Another Porky and Petunia initiative comes from three Republican legislators who want state taxpayers to shell out $1.5 million to the board of regents of
Western New Mexico University to revive the men’s baseball program.
This pitch is even worse than the first two, as the university’s administration faces ongoing criticism because of its spending practices.
Western President Joseph Shepard, his wife, university first lady Valerie Plame, and the regents have gone on expensive excursions in the name of recruiting students from Zambia, Greece and Spain. Shepard also has spent substantial amounts of public money on flowers and wine.
He described purchases of flowers, more than $20,000 annually across the last five years, as a useful means of building goodwill in Silver City, where Western is based.
For reasons that remain unclear, Western’s liquor license is in Shepard’s name. He has purchased wine for the president’s residence, saying entertaining is part of the president’s job.
Against this backdrop, the trio of lawmakers from Southern New Mexico introduced House Bill 214 to reestablish the men’s baseball team at Western. The proposal is sponsored by Reps. Luis Terrazas and Jenifer Jones and Sen. Crystal Brantley.
Lawmakers from painful experience should know better than to involve themselves in the business of intercollegiate sports.
After the University of New Mexico Board of Regents voted 6-0 to eliminate the men’s soccer program in 2018, several Democratic lawmakers took it upon themselves to try to save the team.
State government had just stumbled through two years in which it was nearly broke. Legislators had taken back money from public school districts just to pay the bills.
For personal and political reasons, several legislators wanted to spend some of the cash on a soccer program that neither UNM nor the state at large could afford. The idea finally fizzled.
If Western New Mexico wants to restart its men’s baseball program after a long absence, it should find a way to pay the bill without further reliance on state taxpayers.
A starting point is Shepard and company cutting out fine wine, roses and travel overseas.
Such enormous sacrifices would help Shepard’s public image. He could say he took one for the team.