IMAGINE IF, EVERY FOUR YEARS, your spouse filled out a form to review your performance and decide if you should stay in the marriage. You might be tempted to tell them whatever you think they’re willing to believe.
This is why it’s tricky to interview politicians – they are always anticipating the next election, the next test of their popularity.
So we were pleasantly surprised in our conversation with Michelle. Maybe it’s because she’s termed out. Maybe it’s just who she is. But she struck us as speaking frankly.
We needed to hear what she is going to do with the new world we’ve all inherited.
Because whether you like or not, she’s the one in charge.
You grew up in Santa Fe, in one of the old families. What was it like in the 1960s and 70s?
Here’s how it works in my family.
You are born. You are baptized Catholic. You are registered as a Democrat and enrolled in Catholic school all on the same day. If you’re the other side of the Lujan’s who are Republicans, it’s the same, except that you’re registered as a Republican.
There were these key expectations. Even though I’m in a Catholic school, I’m at St. Mike’s, I didn’t think about it as the holy city, as a spiritual landmark, as the oldest inhabited city. None of that. It was a small town where I felt like I knew everyone. If I didn’t, my father certainly did. People talk about New Mexico and about Santa Fe as if all the work got done at the Bull Ring. That’s true. But a lot of work got done at Tia Sophia’s.
Every businessperson, including my father, and every politician was there Wednesday and Friday morning, at that big round table in the back. They held court and everybody came and paid their respects and talked about the weather and their children and their hardships. A group of largely men put all that together. The Plaza was a working community. The only pharmacy was downtown. The only grocery store. The fabric store. There were very few galleries. When I was growing up, it was a working place. There were no malls, no Cerrillos Road. The police chief would pull you over if you were in a car with more than three kids and just send you home for no good reason. It really was that kind of a community.
When I was in 10th grade, and I got to ask a boy out to the Sadie Hawkins dance. The boy came over, and as I was leaving my father said to me don’t kiss him. He’s your cousin.
We were related to everyone here.
You had a sister who was diagnosed with brain cancer, which eventually took her life. Tell us how this affected your family.
I never felt like we were ignored. It seemed like a perfect situation; it wasn’t. I had to be mature enough to be able to see all those tough issues, the cracks in a foundation, that my parents really suffered through.
My father was fun-loving and kind and beloved in this community. My mom was tough, the disciplinarian, and I can’t remember a time when she wasn’t incredibly busy with my sister.
It was clear right then and there that both my parents, but primarily my mom… that those experiences, that the environment that you live in do, in fact, shape you.
My dad, he did all this dental work for free. He died owing money to the dental lab here in Santa Fe, because he fronted the costs. Everyone’s dentures, everyone’s bridges. He didn’t charge anyone. He made no money. We had a dental chair in our garage.
He treated people for free?
People came day and night and on weekends. When I was campaigning for governor, I cannot tell you how many families told me ‘Your dad did all our dental work. There were twelve of us, 10 of us, eight of us, nine of us. My parents would pack us up into the truck and we would spend two days at your house getting free dental work.’
They were a team with very different roles. I got that background, plus love, plus influence to do my best. I got the whole package. You take care of everyone.
How did this set you on your way?
I always knew I was going to college, even though most girls at St. Mike’s weren’t. We didn’t get to take the same kind of classes that the boys did. We went to Highlands for summer programs to learn how to do shorthand. Boys were taken to Notre Dame. No girls were ever invited to go to the Notre Dame campus in the ‘70s, because girls don’t go to college. Girls get married and have babies. If you’re following the Catholic way of life in that setting, that was never a question.
Well, my dad was a devout Catholic, but I was going to college and my dad was going pay for it.
My grandfather said, go to law school. Somebody in this family ought to be a lawyer, I can’t be the only one. I found myself as the mom of two little babies, a toddler and a brand new one, and I get a bill to pay my bar dues after I passed the bar. It was $275. I didn’t have that in 1987. I’ve got to pay a mortgage.
I marched down to the state bar and they said, you can’t defer it. You can’t forgive it. Instead, they let me be a volunteer, to work on a program called Lawyer Referral for the Elderly. That was that life-changing, light-bulb moment.
I showed up on a Monday and took a call from a senior who tells me an incredible story that’s unfair. All the things that I lived through, that I watched, that I learned, that I saw both my parents do — every fight on the telephone for insurance coverage, every call to a member of Congress, every support call to a school, to a parent, to a family, all of that came flooding into my brain. I was ready to fight.
Santa Fe has changed enormously since then.
It was the kind of Mayberry that is so nostalgic, that for some of the challenges that all growing communities have, I find myself sometimes wishing it was easier to navigate. You had a much more homogenous set of attitudes, principles, ideas.
We have much larger issues now with crime and the unhoused.
Yes. There are real solutions to these problems.
Most of the folks who are brought before our judicial system for crime, including serious crime, are released back onto the streets. 17,000 criminal cases have been dismissed since 2016. These are dangerous, serious repeat felonies — I’ll tell you exactly how many, just under 6,000 of them.
People are coming to New Mexico because you can openly use fentanyl anywhere in the state and no one will arrest you. Police won’t arrest you because you’re out in 24 hours or less.
I am hoping that the legislature’s going to see fit to have criminal penalty enhancements for drug dealing and human trafficking. That they put real money into homelessness and that they pass the kinds of bills that allow us to have the tools so that New Mexico can deal with this problem.
What more should we be doing?
I can’t even get to the folks who need housing because they’re being trafficked and victimized by drug dealers and human traffickers that, make no mistake, are at Pete’s Place, at DeVargas Park. If there’s someone who needs help, I ask, how can I help you? They don’t want my help. They’re not going to go to treatment. They don’t even want housing. They will not be sober in housing.
You need a competency law with teeth. That means that I’m not going to dismiss you back into the community if you’re a danger or a threat to others, that’s just not gonna happen. You can go to treatment, or you can get treated in jail. These are your choices. We would prefer not jail, unless you’re a repeat, dangerous felon — I think there’s universal agreement there are people who need to be accountable to society behind bars.
We haven’t changed our commitment laws in decades. They’re far too narrow. These super drugs require 90 days minimum to go through a successful detox and counseling period. People go for two days. They do not stay. That is exasperating.
We put people in substandard transitional old hotels. Nobody wants to live there. No one. They’re not safe. We do no screening. You don’t have to be sober. Crime follows you there. It’s awful.
In New Mexico, we’re doing it wrong.
So how should it be done?
I visited a productive place in California, the Mayfair Hotel. They make a very interesting case, which is, they have nice properties and treat human beings with dignity.
Don’t criminalize poverty. I’m all in. But there are rules, like you and I follow rules. You must be sober to live there.
If you go out during the day and don’t want to be sober, no judgment. But before you come in, you go through a metal detector. I can’t protect kids and moms that are there, who are victims of domestic violence, unless I know you’re not carrying.
No visitors in your room. You go to counseling every day. You have a healthcare clinic. You can have pets. You have a smoking area. These places are clean. The people who live there take care of them. They respect the rules because they’re living in an environment that looks like the environments that you and I would live in. It is working. Nobody gets thrown out if they’re making progress. And you don’t have people spilling out in the streets like we do outside of these places.
They must have pride. We must set a standard that does that.
I’m happy to be held accountable. I am ready, but I don’t have the tools to do very much about it. The state police cannot be the only policing entity who are holding people accountable statewide. They can’t do it.
Let’s talk about this recent election. You have a relationship with the Vice-President. She officiated at your wedding. Have you talked to her?
I have not talked to her. She knows that I’m available. I have talked to governor Walz because we’ve had a Democratic governor’s meeting. I hope to be able to spend some time with her.
It’s got to be very hard for her.
Look, I’ve lost an election — without those kind of stakes. I think she knows that we all are grateful for her courage. I mean, a hundred days, it’s unheard of in American history.
You’ve got to be able to have some introspection about what you need to do differently.
But here we are…
But here we are.
Take us through what election night was like for you.
Harsh.
Like many voters who voted for the Democratic ticket, I was feeling as optimistic as you can. I knew it was going be a close election; I was on the campaign trail. I went to some battleground states, but the folks who were showing up, this surge of Republican early voters, I thought they might be women who didn’t want this man in that job. I was feeling good.
I didn’t go downstairs to the Democratic Party event — which was not a celebration anymore — until at about ten that night. The trend lines were not good. My expectation was that we were going to be defeated.
I wasn’t shocked, but I was very upset about the fact that it was too much of an uphill battle, and we didn’t recognize that.
It didn’t take any of us very long to be able to take a step back and say we lost the economic message. And we’re losing on the immigration message, because when people are feeling anxious, even if that anxiety is largely economic… if you don’t address immigration straight up, it’s too easy for humans to blame other humans for their woes. And they do. They will.
They are still.
For undocumented people in this state, or those with mixed status families or provisional status, it’s scary. We talked recently with a DACA recipient, a Dreamer. They have two young U.S. citizen kids, and they have had to sit down with them and explain…
‘This is what this bag is for. This is where you get it. If you come into the house and it’s empty, this is where you go.”
It is the harshest, most despicable, dark underbelly of what’s happened to this country in terms of immigration.
There are real issues at the border. Sure.
Attacking members of our community who are residents of our cities, counties, and states, and their American children, citizen children, is despicable.
We are going to do right by those folks.
I’m going to fight like hell for immigration reform. I’m going to go to DC. I wish I could tell you that it will be a unanimous effort. It will not. There are some reasonable Republican senators, we know that because they were ready to vote for it in the Senate. That’s what this country needs and deserves.
In the first Trump administration, what I saw as the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus — we had some successes fighting him. We’re going to use those same successes again. You know who wants to protect Dreamers and get immigration reform over the finish line? Evangelical Christians.
There are people who understand that this is cruel, unfair, and when we can’t pick our crops and we can’t provide some of the basic services, I expect Americans to jump up and be very upset about this.
Can I promise you today that there will be no family anywhere in America who isn’t harmed by this incredibly evil immigration effort? We can’t, but what I can assure New Mexicans is that they’ve got to get through me first. Let them bring all their resources because by God, they’re gonna need them.
I also want to be cautious; no governor and no elected leader ought to be pounding their chest here. This is real. Do not invite that anger; find ways to protect your citizens that are smart and effective.
I’m damned serious that we will lawyer up. I’m also damned serious that businesses and churches, we will get a coalition, and we will do right to the highest degree possible and we will fight every minute of every day.
Tom Homan, who Trump has named as his “border czar,” has told elected officials to get the hell out of the way and remarked that he’s willing to jail the mayor of Denver after the mayor vowed to protect migrants. What can you do if they come after you?
Lawyer up, do our best, and make sure that we don’t have folks that don’t display their courage up front.
Journalists go to jail all the time, all around the world, for standing up for free speech, independence, and truthful information. Folks that believe in this republic, who have said and have demonstrated that they will stand up for democracy, that is a potential reality.
Now, saying that and making good on that… even Trump judges, appointees, have done right as factfinders in a number of cases, so we’re going to go to court and we’re going to be really organized.
You’ll see regional defenses. You will see legal attacks that are preemptive, not just defending where we are.
We have very clear constitutional aspects about states’ rights in terms of what we do with the National Guard and the military. We have in our constitution more protections and freedoms than the US Constitution. Our right to privacy here is well demonstrated and has been upheld by our courts and federal courts. Expect us to use our own constitution and to make it really clear he cannot come in here.
And if he tries?
We know that they don’t have information about where people are. We should and we already cooperate with every federal administration, including the last Trump administration, when they follow the law and they’re helping us make sure that the real public safety criminal issues are being addressed. No one, no state, is going say no to that.
But we don’t allow them to breach due process, the constitution, to over-exercise police powers. You don’t lock up everyone in a neighborhood until you find your felon, right? You can’t do that.
It’s not just immigration data they are looking for. It’s going to be healthcare data. They’re going to be looking for sexual orientation. They’re going to look for mental health data. That data is protected. No state that understands those protections is going to provide that information, including this one.
We will go to court every single day with every attorney general on our side, including ours, for the next four years, to protect every single New Mexican.
If the Texas National Guard comes in, have I talked about that? Yes.
Have I talked about if somebody else comes in? Yes.
Have I talked about what preemptive strikes we’ll take? Yes.
Am I going to meet with all my statewide officials? Yes.
Am I going to be lined up with my attorney general? Yes.
Am I going to have more lawyers? Yes, and yes.
You can’t operate a detention center here without a license from me. You’re not going to get one.
The counties who try to give one are going to get into trouble. Who do you think gives them all their money? I do. How is that going to work?
Are there some real legitimate risks? There are. What entity or elected officials do governors have the least control over in America?
Sheriffs?
Sheriffs. And in New Mexico, you can be an elected sheriff with no law enforcement background, expertise, none.
You know, while I understand that in rural areas, that someone you trust, someone you know, someone who can run an organization, is a great asset; but in today’s climate, that’s a huge risk, and something that I would expect that our legislators will be talking more about, and that I’ll be talking more about.
I’ve gone up against sheriffs before. Remember, I had sheriffs that deputized everybody that went to church to be deputy sheriffs, so that they didn’t have to meet any of my public health orders. That didn’t stop me from exercising our authority and using the state police.
There are far more state police than there are deputy sheriffs in the state of New Mexico. And where do their budgets come from?
Yeah. Well, they come from here.
You are one of the most prominent Hispanic or Latina elected officials in the country. Trump has increased his vote share amongst Latinos now in three elections. Why?
I think it’s all economic. There’s no voting block that’s monolithic. There’s no one magic way to communicate to Hispanic, Latino voters.
New Mexico’s a very interesting place because we have both 400-year-old families and brand new. We’ve got folks who identify as Latinos. My family doesn’t know what that means. We’re Hispanics. We’re European. All that by itself is two different messages.
(Latinos) are the backbone of those low income, middle income, two and three jobs, jobs that Americans — folks who don’t identify as Latinos or Hispanics — don’t want or engage in.
And, we don’t talk to them. If you’re worried about putting food on the table, you will vote for the person who says directly to you ‘somebody took your job, and you deserve more money.’ Why wouldn’t you? You don’t look at the rest of it.
Is it just economics?
I will tell you that minority voters in particular, particularly men, they sort of relate to that machismo attitude. ‘You didn’t get a fair shake. I’m going to give it to you. No one’s going to get on your way. You’re not gonna pay any taxes!’ I mean, these things are not going to come to fruition.
We had unions, which are largely, if you look at some of the trades, largely Latinos. But unions also got angry because they felt like people stopped fighting for them. Not quite the Bernie Sanders message, but aligned with that.
And they’ve been working on this for 30 years. We treat it as if, oh, overnight, Republicans figured out a message. No, Americans for Prosperity, all these (pro-business) Republican groups… I think about the hypocrisy here. They’ve been helping to get IDs and licenses, and now they’re going to use that information in states like Texas to go after you.
Think about how horrific that is. These groups were embedded in these small communities, they got you a business license, they got you a driver’s license, and now they’re going to use that to send you packing. It’s despicable.
I hope this is the last election of our lifetime where people vote against their interest, but hope is not enough.
Trump says he’s going to roll back many regulations, especially on the environment. He wants to increase drilling on public lands.
You bet. The reality is this also requires state permits.
We went from third to second in oil and gas production. I have an effective professional relationship with all energy sectors, including oil and gas. But we hold them accountable, and we’ll continue to do that.
I’m going to close abandoned wells.
I’m going hold these methane standards, the ozone precursor standards.
I’m going to keep fining them for inappropriate water use and fracking that they’re not supposed to, and flaring (methane) when it’s not an actual emergency. Those permits, those leases, running oil and gas trucks on New Mexico roads, requires me.
We’re going to keep cleaning up. I’d love to have a magic wand for the environment. I would like to repeal our bad decisions and bad actions for the last 50 years. But we hold them accountable.
All businesses want predictability and accountability. Look at what Exxon just said — that if Trump thinks that he can just do whatever he wants in oil and gas, he’s wrong. If you believe that he can get these multinational companies like Chevron and Exxon and others to deny that climate change is real, he’s also wrong.
Can I win every battle with Trump? I don’t win every battle with any administration. I win a lot of them. I would put my record up with this against any governor in the history of the state.
Because of oil and gas, we now have one of the largest investment reserves in the country. Trump is threatening to punish states by cutting federal funding.
Look, we have one of the best employment records and economies in the country. Oil and gas is a large part of that, but so is everything else. For the first time, 53% of our economic revenue is coming from sources other than oil and gas. Look at my early childhood fund. That started with $300 million [in 2020.] It’s well over $11 billion. We have one of the highest reserve accounts in the country.
We are very good at saving money. California — I’m a big fan of that governor and have followed many of their environmental standards — but they don’t have the same economic opportunity we do. We’re going to be tougher for Trump to punish than some of those other states.
Is it an ambition of yours to use more of that sovereign fund money on renewables?
Absolutely. We’re going after hydrogen. We’re sixth best in the country for geothermal resources. We need more solar. I’m the co-chair of the US Climate Alliance. We’re going to do everything in our power to meet our climate goals. We’re one of the few states where we’ve got counties that are at or nearly at (carbon-free) energy. More are coming.
We have the best geology. We are in a positive position for the worst possible scenarios occurring in our country. New Mexicans are lucky in that design, but we cannot squander these assets.
President Kennedy once said The powers of the presidency are often described. Its limitations should occasionally be remembered. What’s your biggest limitation in the job of governor?
I completely believe in the independence of the three branches of government. Without it, we can’t be the country that we are. But that is not easy.
The legislature wants me to not have my own agenda. I want them to adopt my agenda. I need the judiciary to be more engaged in the changes.
We just did a poll — I do that before every legislative session. Here’s what I’m thinking about doing. What do you think I should do?
Ninety percent of people want crime and homelessness addressed. Every respondent thinks I have the power to just fix it — that I can tell mayors, county commissioners, local police, sheriffs, I can tell the judges to not let dangerous criminals out. I can tell the legislature that these are going to be the new laws.
I had a person at a town hall in Gallup say, ‘you had all the power during COVID and now you have no power.’ It was very hard to explain the nuance between a law that allows me to temporarily suspend something and changing the laws.
People are mad at governors across the country for crime and homelessness. Yet we don’t have the power to just fix it.
What can you say about that?
I’m going to agree with my constituents. If a governor can’t move the needle, my god. I need a better tool. This is a harsh reality in this climate. It is not lost on me that when I get frustrated by not having centralized power, where I believe I could get it done in a much more direct fashion, that is not a democracy.
I’m going to manage those frustrations, and so are the other independent branches of government. We’re not always going to agree, but we’re going to find ways to productively move the state forward together. These challenges are worth having to suffer through — to get to the other side for more sustainable, more effective long-term solutions.
Do you think women are better leaders than men?
I think women are better leaders because we must try harder. Even in the presidential election — She hasn’t made the case. She hasn’t demonstrated to me what she’s done.
Nobody asks that of the men. There’s an assumption that if you’re on the debate stage you are more than qualified. There is still a presumption that women aren’t as qualified, aren’t as smart, aren’t as effective. It belies the actual data. Women in leadership positions, whether that’s private sector, non-profit, public sector, usually achieve more, bring more assets and investments and then do more community-building than their male counterparts.
Fair or unfair, women make the healthcare decisions for their families. Women take controversies in their families and try to get those resolved between fathers and children, fathers and brothers, fathers and mothers. That is a role that we have found ourselves in since the beginning of time, and it works effectively in these tough decision-making aspects.
When you have more women (in power), there may be some issues that we’ll all have to take a step back and say human beings are flawed in general. But yes, women in these leadership positions perform better.
Last question. You have a menagerie of animals up at the Governor’s Mansion. I told my daughter and she said can I come visit? I told her I don’t think the governor has the time to have a visit from you.
Well, you are absolutely flat wrong! I like my house to be open seven days a week because it really doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to you.
Well, I’m frequently wrong.
Ah well me too.
The wisdom and power associated with being old enough to be able to say with a great deal of confidence, I’m wrong, I can be wrong, I expect that I’ll be wrong again. You use your best judgment with the facts that you have, but you are willing to course correct.
I find that to be something that’s missing in far too many leaders today. They will dig in, and I don’t think that’s good for anyone.