The Roundhouse in Santa Fe. Post file photo

By Daniel J. Chacón
The Santa Fe New Mexican

The battle over a contentious paid family and medical leave proposal is heating up and getting personal, with two Democratic lawmakers accusing opponents of the measure of bullying and intimidation tactics to get them to vote against the bill.

The two lawmakers are both members of the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee, where House Bill 11 is scheduled to be considered next.

The committee chair, Rep. Doreen Gallegos, D-Las Cruces, and Rep. Art De La Cruz, D-Albuquerque, said they were targeted in mock-up mailers they consider to be threatening. While the mailers targeting Gallegos were delivered to her office at the state Capitol, De La Cruz said his was delivered to his home.

“It’s a political horse head,” he said.

Gallegos received two mock-up mailers: One lambasting her for supporting “the largest tax increase in New Mexico history” and the other lauding her for pledging to “vote against a job killing tax on workers.”

Gallegos said she was taken aback when her legislative assistant handed her the mock-up mailers after telling her a man had dropped them off.

“I thought it was a form of intimidation,” she said.

“There’s one that’s a very nice picture, and it’s that I voted the way they wanted me to, and then the other one where I was hurting New Mexico families because it was the way they did not want me to vote,” she said. “To me, it was a very clear picture of what would happen if I didn’t vote the way they wanted me to vote. I perceived it as a threat.”

Paul Gessing, president of the Rio Grande Foundation, an Albuquerque-based free-market think tank with nonprofit status, said the mock-up mailer targeting Gallegos was produced by RGF Action, a newly formed 501(c)(4) he described as the foundation’s political action wing.

Gessing said he was at the Roundhouse recently and delivered the mailers to Gallegos’ office. He also left his Rio Grande Foundation business card because he still doesn’t have business cards for RGF Action, which he is also spearheading, but wanted Gallegos to know who was involved with the mailers.

“I think it’s safe to say that we want to make sure that people who vote for this tax increase, this massive expansion of government burden on the taxpayers, at least as originally formulated in the current bill, [know] we’re going to pull out all the stops and fight this expansion of government,” he said.

Gessing emphasized the mailers were mock-ups and didn’t go out.

“I wouldn’t call it intimidation,” he said. “It’s politics. It’s just politics. I consider intimidation to be much more of a direct threat.”

Gessing said he doesn’t involve himself in the “business of intimidation.”

“People know what they’re voting on and the impact it could have on their constituents and the businesses in their community,” he said.

A way to persuade ‘moderates’?

Gessing said a group called Coalition to Support Working Families, of which RGF Action is a member, was responsible for the mailer targeting De La Cruz.

Only Gallegos and De La Cruz were targeted, he said, because they’re considered more moderate Democrats.

“I think there’s a reasonable case to be made that [De La Cruz] would be a logical swing vote or somebody who’s willing to oppose that particular vote,” he said.

As far as Gallegos, Gessing said he has “variety of intel” indicating “she might not be a fan of the legislation.”

“If you’re a dedicated, hardcore progressive on this issue, we know that you may not be amenable to hearing more from your constituents, etc.,” he said. “We’re going to focus on the people who are maybe more in the middle on some of these issues.”

Gallegos said the mock-up mailers crossed the line.

“Shame on them,” she said. “Shame on them because that’s not the way business should be done, not the way politics should be done, and intimidating people and being bullies is not what we stand for. I won’t be intimidated.”

De La Cruz said the mailers targeting Gallegos were perhaps “a little more intimidating.” The mailer targeting him branded him a deciding vote.

“Is your neighbor, Rep. Art De La Cruz, planning to hurt your family with record-breaking taxes?” it stated.

The big difference, he said, was his was placed in a “package drop” at his home in Albuquerque’s South Valley.

‘It just doesn’t feel right’

“It did feel intimidating because they went to my house,” he said. “I’m here. My wife’s alone. … You know, we’re just coming off the heels, what, a year ago, two years ago, where we had [a series of shootings targeting the homes of elected officials in Albuquerque]. That’s what I felt. Not for myself. I’m not a particularly fearful person. But I got loved ones.”

De La Cruz said the mailers were particularly alarming because it’s not campaign season, adding he assumed they had gone out to his neighbors and constituents.

“I’ve never seen a situation where in the middle, before you’ve even gotten to a vote, that somebody is pressuring you. It is pressure,” he said. “The idea that somebody would do a campaign-style piece in the middle of a session is beyond the pale for me, and I do think it is a form of bullying, it’s a form of intimidation.”

De La Cruz said he immediately snapped a picture of the mailers and sent it to House Speaker Javier Martínez and the bill sponsors.

“When you receive something like this and it goes to your personal residence, and it’s not election season and you don’t know where it’s coming from, it just doesn’t feel right,” he said.

De La Cruz and Gallegos both voted in support of a paid family and medical leave bill twice before but wouldn’t say if they’d do so again because the bill is still a work in progress.

“The sponsors of the bill haven’t asked for it to be scheduled [in committee] because they’re still working on it,” Gallegos said.

Lawmakers mull complaints

Meanwhile, the two lawmakers said they’re exploring their options over the mailers.

De La Cruz said he’s considering filing an ethics complaint.

“I haven’t filed an ethics complaint, but I’ve sent it to the secretary of state, to the attorney general and to the [New Mexico State] Ethics Commission for them to review, and if they find it to the level that meets a complaint, I would definitely follow through,” Gallegos said. “We need to stand up.”

After serving in the Legislature for 13 years, Gallegos called herself a more seasoned lawmaker and said newer legislators might be more intimidated if they were targeted with such mailers.

“I want to make sure that people are in a safe environment and feel like they should vote their conscience and their constituency and not what they feel pressured to do,” she said. 

Asked whether the mailers will actually go out to voters after Gallegos and De La Cruz vote on the bill in committee, Gessing said he was going with “plausible deniability”.

“It could or it could not happen,” he said. “I wouldn’t commit to anything at this point.”

Gessing called the proposal to enact paid family and medical leave in New Mexico a “huge tax increase” when the state has “plenty of money” in its coffers. “But really, it’s just a business killer,” he said. We’re supposed to be trying to diversify our economy, make our state less reliant on one industry, oil and gas, and instead this issue is focused on increasing taxes and making it hard to do business with a 12-week leave policy.”