By RICK NEBEL
Los Alamos

This is a response to the recent letter by Gorbin Lars about Eastern New Mexico joining Texas (link). The reality is that this isn’t a fight about culture, it’s a fight about money. New Mexico treats the “oil patch” counties as its cash cow. They supply over half of the revenue to the state of New Mexico and It’s hardly any wonder that they resent that. They only get a tiny fraction of that cash in return to spend in Eastern NM. 

However, I don’t think that sending Eastern NM to Texas is the best solution. A better solution is for New Mexico to annex all of West Texas from the present Southern border of NM all of the way South to the Rio Grande. In other words, unify the Permian Basin as part of New Mexico. That would give Eastern NM considerably more political clout than it presently has. Joining Texas, a large populous state, is going to give Eastern NM even less pollical clout than they presently have. But adding West Texas, including El Paso, to New Mexico, would give Southern New Mexico a large amount of political clout. I think that this might even be doable politically.

Why might this be doable? It’s because Austin treats West Texas the same way Santa Fe treats Eastern NM. West Texas oil revenue has been financing Texas state government for generations. I suspect that those people in West Texas resent that. I’m sure they feel isolated. After all, it’s 529 miles from El Paso to Austin. Convincing West Texas to join NM might be easier than you think.

So, how do you convince Texas to give up West Texas? If the New Mexico Republican Party could convince the national Republican Party that they would have a shot at flipping NM, they might convince Texas to let West Texas go.

The final group of people you would have to convince is the well-entrenched politicians in NM.  The answer to that is that you buy them off. Adding West Texas to NM would give the politicians even more oil revenue to spend. It’s funny how ideological differences disappear when there is money to be had.

Furthermore, constitutionally it would probably be easier to carve up Texas than New Mexico—Texas is the only state that has the right to divide itself into as many as five states. There is also a precedent for moving property from Texas to another state. The Oklahoma panhandle used to be part of Texas.

Any way you cut it, I think this would be a good deal for New Mexico. El Paso as a major border crossing would be a real economic plus for NM. 

It is said that a good offense is the best defense. We need to show Texas that we can be just as offensive as they are.