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Real News For Real New Mexicans.
The Chile Wire with Abe Baldonado. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to The Chile Wire. We are one week away from June 2, primary election time.
Abe Baldnoado:And with me today to sum up our gubernatorial candidates, I have with me Duke Rodriguez. Duke, thank you for coming on The Chile Wire.
Duke Rodriguez:Thank you very much for the invitation.
Abe Baldnoado:My pleasure. Duke, hardest question of the day, and it's not a gotcha, but red or green?
Duke Rodriguez:For me, it's red, always.
Abe Baldnoado:Alright. Red chili. Love it. Red with beef or red with just anything, chicken.
Duke Rodriguez:Flat cheese, red cheese enchiladas.
Abe Baldnoado:Love it. Love it. Well, Duke, thank you so much for stopping by. Would love the audience to get to know who Duke Rodriguez is and how did you get here into this situation of running for governor?
Duke Rodriguez:You know, I have built my life in New Mexico. I went to Silver City Junior High. I graduated from Alamogordo High School. I went to New Mexico State University. So I'm a longtime New Mexican.
Duke Rodriguez:Many people will recognize me for my careers in New Mexico, which included Loveless. I rose as COO for Loveless. I was a cabinet secretary for Governor Gary Johnson. I've been known for reforming Medicaid. Can go through a long history.
Duke Rodriguez:Heck, I've been president of a New York Stock Exchange company based in Albuquerque. So I've got a lot of background, certainly heavy emphasis in government, a very heavy emphasis in private business, the economy, working on things that matter to most New Mexico families. And I guess the long story short is, like many voters out there, I'm tired of the establishment, tired of the status quo, tired of us not succeeding the way we should be. Everywhere I go to kind of summarize what I believe in, is I've told every group I've gone to is, fact is New Mexico is not a poor state,
Abe Baldnoado:Yeah.
Duke Rodriguez:But we are absolutely a poorly run state.
Abe Baldnoado:Absolutely. And when you think about our natural resources that we have here, our energy sector, our agriculture, I mean, there is money flowing. I I think what we see in Santa Fe is just mismanagement of that money that, you know, we see status quo politicians, especially, you know, Democrats who have long held rule in New Mexico, who have misspent those dollars, but haven't built in accountability into a lot of the programs or lack thereof for the state of New Mexico. And so ideally, have this mindset that money fixes problems. And I I've always said this that money doesn't fix problems.
Abe Baldnoado:If you throw money at an issue, you know, you can give a million dollars to a homeless guy on the street right now, someone who is dealing with addiction. It doesn't change their circumstances, unfortunately, because you're not solving the actual problem. And I see that even with government. There's this assumption that we saw, let's throw more and more billions of dollars to education but not build the systems and programs needed in place to actually bring up those outcomes. So really, we've just thrown money at programs that aren't working.
Duke Rodriguez:No state in the country has demonstrated more about how to spend more. Yeah. We've I've said this to many people, and I believe with all my heart, is we don't have a resource problem, as you pointed out. We have a results problem. We've managed to double our budgets.
Duke Rodriguez:If you remember back when Susana Martinez was governor, we ran on budgets annually between 5.2, 5,400,000,000. Mhmm. Year in, year out for quite a few number of years. All of a sudden, you know, like the Beverly Hillbillies, like the Clampetts, we all of a sudden had this wealth come in, and suddenly we're now spending near $12,000,000,000. Our population is still 2,100,000, stagnant, and our spending has doubled, and you know, voters have a right to ask, where's all the money going?
Duke Rodriguez:It's definitely not making lives better. We're still the worst in crime. We still lead the country of poverty. We demonstrated everything has been a failure from education to health care. And if you look at all those reasons, anyone who cares for this state would make the same decision I've made and would run for office.
Abe Baldnoado:Absolutely. Absolutely. And, Duke, it seems like what you've been focused on is solutions. Like, let's deliver solutions. And I think how how do we get that down to the people to start thinking solutions?
Abe Baldnoado:Because I think we're in a political climate now where I see we're looking at personalities, we're looking at talking points. It's about who says some of the craziest thing. And and you can say that on either side of the aisle. And unfortunately, people aren't looking at solutions anymore. They're just saying, hey, you know, this was one thing that frustrated me in 2020.
Abe Baldnoado:I I literally stopped watching TV during COVID because it just had become such a a terrible political climate. And I saw our country going down a path which I don't think we've gotten out of. But what I saw was kinda shocking that people were like, you know, either you're very pro Trump or you're very anti Trump in your campaign ads. It was no longer about, hey, these are the solutions I'm looking to deliver and this is why I'm running. And like how do we get people back to that mindset to look at individuals who are running for office to say, what are their solutions?
Abe Baldnoado:Because I think we need to get back to that. Unfortunately, we look at it now as like, it's a personality contest. Like, oh, I don't like that person's personality, so I'm not voting for him. I'm like, no, you're not supposed to be looking at the personality. I get, yes, personality does matter.
Abe Baldnoado:But what are the solutions? What are individuals actually talking about? And are they actually talking about solutions? They're not just talking points and and platitudes. There's actually real life solutions that's saying, hey, crime.
Abe Baldnoado:Here it is. You know what? We're gonna instill three strikes law. We're not we're gonna hold criminals accountable. We're not gonna let them back out into our street.
Abe Baldnoado:And after three strikes, guess what? Guess where they're gonna be? They're gonna be in jail. There is no other place that they're gonna be, you know, and start having those conversations. Homelessness.
Abe Baldnoado:You know, we're not gonna just throw money at the problem. We saw the I'm sure you saw the recent study. I know you're up to date on a lot of the issues that are coming out, but most recently, the LFC reported the millions of dollars that have been spent on homeless housing projects, but yet we have more homeless than we did before when those funds were appropriated. And so, again, how do we get people to start paying attention to solutions, Duke?
Duke Rodriguez:You know, the one thing, or actually many things I've learned in this race, is how badly we actually allow our candidates to communicate. The model is built upon the establishment maintaining the status quo. And I know that may sound upsetting to people, but that's the reality. The forums we have, the debates we've had, allegedly, you think about it, we haven't done any of those things. I love when you walk into a studio and they say, okay, Duke, what's the number one issue?
Duke Rodriguez:And you say, well, you know, the top three, for example, we all will agree are health care, crime, and the economy. We may sort them differently, but we all know that those are the top issues. And then the next question immediately from the host will be, is you have sixty seconds? And so we certainly have taken a lot more than sixty seconds to get in the mess we are in, And at some point, we have to decide that the voters should want to choose someone that actually proposes solutions, actually gives you details that we need to do the following to fix crime. And I'm glad to talk about all those things or talk about health care.
Duke Rodriguez:Everyone knows in this state how difficult it is to get an appointment nowadays. Access is nearly impossible. Forty percent of our population is on Medicaid. And everyone should ask, How did we get here, and how do we finally get out of this mess? That's how we should be having this conversation and every conversation outside this studio, is people need to know what is it really going to take to finally get us on the right trajectory.
Abe Baldnoado:Absolutely. And, Duke, on the health care note, we saw during the legislative session, House Bill 99 passed, which is a great stride, but it's not the end all solution. And so from your perspective, you know, as a health care professional, you've worked in health care a long time. What does New Mexico need to do? Because I'll tell you, I I don't think doctors are just gonna flood into New Mexico now just because we passed that that incremental piece of legislation.
Abe Baldnoado:I think it's a great step. However, I I think it doesn't persuade doctors enough to come to New Mexico because we're dead last in education, you know, quality of life. I think those things matter to doctors. And so how do we now say, hey, house bill 99 was a good step forward, but here's what we need to do next because we're not going to see doctors just yet.
Duke Rodriguez:You know, Abhi, you're right. I've spent most of my adult life in health care, and I have built hospitals and clinics and hired doctors and recruited physicians. And I actually was a guy who actually paid malpractice premiums. And I know that I'm supposed to, theoretically, supposed to applaud this House Bill 99 as a big step. It's not.
Duke Rodriguez:At best, it's a half a step. There are actuaries who have to review claims experience. There are effective dates that kick in. I don't think it's gonna make any kind of material difference for probably thirty six months. So you get to the media question, what do we do today?
Duke Rodriguez:That's the real challenge. We need to basically challenge everything that we have currently on how we make things better for our docs here. Do we pay them enough? Do we overtax them? Do they have an education system that their kids can benefit from?
Duke Rodriguez:They have to have that quality of life. I would tell you, you know, better that we eliminate state personal income tax. Absolutely. Better that we eliminate New Mexico gross receipts tax on retail sales. Better that we eliminate property tax throughout every homeowner.
Duke Rodriguez:You do those three things, physicians will come here. They will recognize it is more attractive than being in the Phoenix Metro. It's more attractive than being in Austin. You have to do those things that improve their ability to thrive, not just survive. We've done everything to keep our people, and I do include doctors and non physicians, Hispanics and non Hispanics.
Duke Rodriguez:We've done everything to entrap our people with this continued focus on expanding programs.
Abe Baldnoado:Absolutely.
Duke Rodriguez:You may have heard the most recent one, and I've been criticized for being very direct about it. You've heard the one, and I I always feel like I need to have reverberation when I announce it, universal child care care care, and the whole room should stand up and applaud it. We have to realize that was done unlawfully, illegally. It can benefit families, but only if it's done right. And yet we've gotten people buying in that you've given me Medicaid, you've given me housing assistance, you've given me SNAP, and now you're gonna give me childcare.
Duke Rodriguez:How is that ultimately going to benefit New Mexico if if the our people don't have the jobs Right. If our people don't have the education, if our people aren't actually giving a more of a a hand up than a hand out. And that's where I see we fail over and over. We keep thinking because we have lots of cash and we have lots of oil and we're the second largest producer. All we gotta do is write another check.
Abe Baldnoado:Yeah. And to that point, Duke, we saw most recently that LFC reported, we're already over budget on universal childcare and we're not even halfway through. And to your point, it is a unsustainable program. And I'd I I've seen the conversations on Facebook. I've seen folks reach out to you and comment about, you know, their support for universal childcare and telling you you're wrong about it.
Abe Baldnoado:I think that analysis just proved, no, I'm not wrong because we're already over budget. It's not sustainable. And also, the the top wage earners in New Mexico are now benefiting for something that wasn't really created for folks living beyond, you know, poverty below poverty levels. And to give them access and even footing to those who can afford to get their kids into pre k programs and pay for it. And now you're essentially you're saying, you know what?
Abe Baldnoado:Everybody gets it. You know, it's the old Oprah, you know, you get a car, you get a car. Unfortunately, it I have a problem first and foremost, like, don't want government to have more time with my kids, you know, at the end of the day. That has improved to turn up well in New Mexico. But also, yeah, it's it's not fair that a top 1% earner can have access to free childcare when it was really created for someone living below poverty and to give them access because chances are those individuals are working multiple jobs just to make ends meet.
Abe Baldnoado:So yes, they would need some childcare.
Duke Rodriguez:And think about that. You said it perfectly. Do you want the state to decide how your kids are going to be treated each and every day? Mhmm. What they're going to hear, the lessons that are going to be impressed upon them?
Duke Rodriguez:Do you want that? Or do you want the freedom to have the money's flow with, for example, with the child versus to the provider? Right. You're almost encouraging. What's going to happen is we're going to have this explosion of day care centers who lower the quality but get paid more.
Duke Rodriguez:Yeah. We're gonna crowd every facility, the price is gonna go up. It doesn't make sense.
Abe Baldnoado:Right. And right now, seems like it's a small few that are gonna reap the benefits of this off state tax dollars, which is people your money that are gonna get very wealthy very quick off of government. Not so much that, hey, I created a business. No. I just created something that I am charging the state for and I'm still making money off your tax dollars.
Abe Baldnoado:So at the end of the day, New Mexicans, even if you live below poverty, you're still paying for it because it's coming out of your tax dollars.
Duke Rodriguez:Try to put this in context. Most people know how big Medicaid in the state is. Mhmm. I used to run the Medicaid program for governor Gary Johnson. We had to reform it because we were in a crisis.
Duke Rodriguez:When we thought we were in a crisis before, we had about a 189,000 Medicaid subscribers across the entire state, and it was growing at double digit. And we thought that was a nightmarish future. Today, you have 835,000. Yeah. And this year, we're gonna commit about $12,000,000,000 to taking care of those individuals.
Duke Rodriguez:But I would still argue, the amount that the state puts in for its Medicaid share, the amount that the state puts in for SNAP, you combine those together, this universal child care program will cost more than those two combined at its full 100% coverage format. That is that should scare the heck out of everybody.
Abe Baldnoado:Yeah. Absolutely. And right now, based on the welfare programs that New Mexico does offer, we had some folks crunch some numbers. And if you are receiving each of those entitlement programs, you're about a $70,000 employee. And this is conversations that I've had with folks on the on the show is that what's the incentive to go to work at that point?
Abe Baldnoado:Because if I'm, you know, if I don't have a high school diploma or maybe I don't have a level of education, chances are I'm not going to make $70,000. So why would I leave the benefits that I'm getting where I'm living very good to go work? And that that is something employers have even struggled with is that, you know, they have folks going in to check the box saying, hey, I'm submitting my application. And then they don't show up for an interview because all they did was check the box to make sure that they continue receiving their benefits.
Duke Rodriguez:We've had that problem with providers. Physicians have told me, Duke, right now with Medicaid, because those Medicaid recipients oftentimes have literally no skin in the game, no co pays, no deductible, no out of pocket costs. They said they fill up our books with appointments and they don't show up. Mhmm. There's no there's no incentive to have to make those appointments.
Duke Rodriguez:So we're basically making access worse not only for just the Medicaid recipients, for everyone. That's the I remember once when I was the cabinet secretary for under Gary Johnson, I was running human services, which included the welfare reform activities. I remember once we had a large crowd of individuals, and we were talking about the importance of work, the importance of donating time. If you can't work, maybe you volunteer. All these things that were engaged, focused on having individuals more engaged in their their own productivity.
Duke Rodriguez:Think about that. And I remember one person standing up and raising her hand, and she said, with all these rules, I might as well just go back to work. And you think about that.
Abe Baldnoado:You're like, yes. Go back to work.
Duke Rodriguez:That's exactly right. But you just showed we've given every incentive for people not to work. When the person who stays at home gets rewarded more than the person who makes a good honest effort, we know the system's not working.
Abe Baldnoado:Yeah. Oh, and we strip away human dignity Absolutely. These folks. And, you know, I I I've seen it here just being a native of New Mexico, grow growing up here my whole entire life. Generational welfare has plagued our communities and it hasn't uplifted them.
Abe Baldnoado:So when we talk about, you know, we really haven't fought poverty. You know, by offering more government welfare programs, you're not combating poverty, you're exacerbating it. And so you have to start looking at, hey, does this really benefiting folks? And we know that these entitlement programs are necessary because there are people who do fall on hard times that need to be uplifted and need support during those times. And we we totally understand that.
Abe Baldnoado:But when it becomes a a plague of abuse and waste and, you know, generational, then we have a problem and we really have to address that. And I and I I find it a lot harder for us to do that because the other side, Democrats will, you know, say, Duke, Abe, they want to take away your health care benefits. Right? Your welfare benefits. And that's not the case.
Abe Baldnoado:What we want to do is we want to uplift you because those benefits are actually keeping you in poverty. They're they're not doing good for you because we want yes. We do want you to go back into the workforce. We want you to be productive and we want to give you that human dignity of doing something on your own. And there's something when you accomplish, when you do something that you didn't think you were capable of doing, there's a sense of accomplishment.
Abe Baldnoado:And then you start challenging yourself to say, hey, you know what? Let me challenge myself to this next thing. And unfortunately, we haven't created that. And it's right now, we see it with the younger generation who have now been molded to think, hey. Why am I gonna do this?
Abe Baldnoado:My family's been kinda good. Why why wouldn't I do the same thing?
Duke Rodriguez:Last week, I had the opportunity to be down in Southern New Mexico campaigning, which included everything from Hobbs, Carlsbad, Artesia, up to Alamogordo and Las Cruces. And I was in Alamogordo. And most people would say, well, you know, Duke, how do you know what it feels like to need assistance? I'm not embarrassed to tell people I have lived the New Mexico experience. Mhmm.
Duke Rodriguez:And when I say that, I as a young person, I had Medicaid. I had food stamps, and I visited in Alamogordo the housing projects that I grew up in. And I remember how hurtful it was to me individually to live in the projects. I wouldn't tell my friends or even this gal I was dating. I was afraid to tell her I'd lived in that hood.
Duke Rodriguez:And I actually went over there and we did a little reel there. And I've got to tell you, it was emotional to see how dilapidated, how much deferred maintenance there was, the grasses had all died, the property was trashed out. And I was pointing out to the gentleman who was running the camera for me, I said, that unit there, 1613, that's where I grew up in. And this gentleman opened the door up, and he's welcome. He says, I've seen you on TV.
Duke Rodriguez:And he even says, I voted for you. And I I said, well, I'm actually showing him. I grew up in that unit you live in, and he showed me what a condition it was today. That's not what we want.
Abe Baldnoado:Yeah. And that's government ran. Right?
Duke Rodriguez:Like Government housing. And everyone thinks that that's what we thrived in and strive to be. That's not who we are. And I can look at Democrats straight straight in the eye and say, that's not good. Yeah.
Duke Rodriguez:We should have a safety net. We are compassionate people, but we should also recognize our goal is not to entrap people. We're harming them longer term because we're creating that generational dependency you pointed out. If we don't finally look ourselves in the mirror and realize it's not good for them, it's not good for us, and society will ultimately pay the price with more crime, more dependency, more failed education, and then we're going to always wonder, well, how come the teachers aren't teaching? Because we're giving them damaged individuals before they even get there.
Abe Baldnoado:Well, Duke, on that note, I'm a former social studies teacher. Didn't plan to become a teacher. I wanted to be a lawyer. Thank God I didn't because now I see what the trial lawyers are doing wreaking havoc on our state. A
Duke Rodriguez:lot
Abe Baldnoado:of the problems that you look at in New Mexico, you can pinpoint back to the trial lawyers association with a lot of the efforts that they're pushing, same with health care. Right? They want New Mexico to be a hub for them to sue and make millions of dollars on our hospitals and on our local doctors. But you brought up education and for me and you're talking about the what teachers are inheriting in students. And I will tell you my own personal experience was I accepted a job to teach at a charter school in Santa Fe.
Abe Baldnoado:I taught twelfth grade government and economics. We were a project based expeditionary and college prep school. I will tell you when I first stepped foot into that class, it was not a college prep school. And that's not to knock the school. It was just the realities of what teachers were facing at the forefront.
Abe Baldnoado:And there were some positive outcomes from that which I'll dive into in just a second. But my first twelfth grade class, I you know, this was me being a naive first year teacher. Didn't plan to be a teacher. So I'm learning as I go from some of my mentors and some of the teachers working right beside me. And so I said, hey, we're a college prep school.
Abe Baldnoado:We're government econ. I'm going to assign some readings. I'm going to assign the Prince by Machiavelli and the art of war by Sun Tzu and tie it into, you know, hey, governments and leadership. My students were reading at a sixth grade level, dude. And they were in twelfth grade.
Abe Baldnoado:And a lot of those students, they graduated, but the system had felt them.
Duke Rodriguez:Of
Abe Baldnoado:course. Because they were left so far behind. And I realized that I myself couldn't catch them up in one year to be ready for either workforce, college, whatever it may be. And, you know, some ended up very successful. You have the ones who are able to persevere and excel and do really good in college even though that they were behind.
Abe Baldnoado:They are able to catch up and sometimes college, even for me, college was rigorous enough that it challenged me from high school and, you know, my parents still give me a hard time. They're like, why didn't you try in high school? I was like, quite frankly, I wasn't challenged. Like, you know, and I got challenged in college and I loved every minute of it and I had some amazing professors. But there are also the students who were not prepared and they didn't know what to do next.
Abe Baldnoado:They flunked out of college. They didn't have a plan b. They were never guided by a teacher who maybe made a difference or saw something in them that, hey, you could go into mechanics. You love working with your hands. You love cars.
Abe Baldnoado:Why don't you go to UTI in Phoenix, Arizona? Like, I have friends who went to UTI. And so there were a number of students that I helped along the way that, you know, I said, you don't have to go to college to be successful. And I will tell you that because I'm a millennial that was told growing up that you have to go to college to be successful and that's not entirely true. There are trades, there are opportunities out there where you can make a fantastic living and you can be an entrepreneur.
Abe Baldnoado:You can start up your own business. And so I have friends who went to, you know, UTI in Phoenix that ended up working for Ferrari, you know, like their dream card posters, you know. I had a student one of the the best things I ever heard, I bumped into the student in Santa Fe and he said, mister Baldinado, thank you for letting me know about UTI because it was one of the greatest experiences. I I harnessed in what I love doing. I love cars.
Abe Baldnoado:I love working on vehicles. But now I get to work on cars that I had posters of that I never imagined, but now I build them. And that to me was like the most, like, meaningful moment of like, hey, if I made any difference in a child's life, that was it. But there were a lot of students that unfortunately fell into the issues that we talk about now, homelessness, crime. You know, I've had students that who have died, you know, and who are in prison now.
Abe Baldnoado:And it's all because, you know, they weren't guided or they were left behind and they were told that they were ready for the next endeavor when they in fact weren't. And, you know, I get frustrated now when I hear the system celebrating graduation rates. And I'm like, okay. Eighty percent of your seniors graduate, but how many of them read at grade level? And I really believe that education is and I've said this over again and people are probably like, hey, stop saying this, but education is the civil rights issue of this generation.
Abe Baldnoado:I truly believe that. And I believe that if we fix our education system, we build an accountability, we provide the services necessary for students that we actually can change the tide in years to come when it comes down to some of those statistics where we're lacking is in crime, health care because now we are educating students that are having access to high quality programming, and they're able to decipher misinformation and some of the gaslighting that we've seen from even our our Democrats who have been running the state to say, yeah, you know what? This universal childcare doesn't work out for me. It's actually gonna cost me more and I know what now. I know what you're doing with my tax dollars and I don't agree with it because now you're over budget.
Abe Baldnoado:And when you're over budget means that you're gonna have to tax me somewhere else. So now I'm gonna get taxed again.
Duke Rodriguez:You know, you brought up education and you said you were a teacher, which is I'm kinda envious because I actually wanted to be a teacher, but I found out I was pretty good at math, and so I moved out of teaching and moved into accounting and business. But I really believe that education plays such a critical role in so many areas we fail at, particularly like crime. I've said that when you think about crime in New Mexico particularly, and we've talked about all these topics that overlap. I have always said and believe very strongly, and I've told every group that will listen, crime is not just hiring more police officers. Mhmm.
Duke Rodriguez:Crime is not just about dealing with the revolving door. Crime is is is a more complex overlapping issue. Number one, as we talked about, unless you deal with poverty in New Mexico, you will not deal with crime. Unless you deal with a failing education system, you will not reduce crime. You must also deal with mental health and deal with addiction.
Duke Rodriguez:That's why we have people on the street wandering. That's why we see open consumption of fentanyl, meth, and every other drug along central. If we just look at those issues individually as silos, we never get to the root of improving our crime relationship. We have to deal with poverty, that failed education system you just emphasized, the mental health crisis we have in this state, and the addiction matter. You have to deal with all four of those pillars, those pains, those pillars of pain.
Duke Rodriguez:And if you deal with them, then you will see crime finally go down.
Abe Baldnoado:Yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, I've had this conversation with folks. And, you know, as as a conservative, it's interesting because I don't believe in bigger government. I grew up in Las Vegas, New Mexico, where we have the only behavioral health institute.
Duke Rodriguez:Right.
Abe Baldnoado:And folks had asked me, you know, well, what do we do, Abe? Like, what do we do? I said, honestly, the amount of money that we're spending, we're better off. I don't believe in growing government. However, I believe this might be an opportunity to to fix this problem is that we invest more in behavioral health systems where we get these folks off the street, provide them the rehabilitation, the services that they need.
Abe Baldnoado:It puts them in a safe place. It protects not only themselves if they're dealing with severe mental health issues, but it protects individuals who are just riding on the street who wanna drive their car 55 miles an hour and not have to slam the brakes when someone who is addicted or having an episode walks out in front of you. So it they not only pose a danger to themselves, but to just other bystanders. And so I I believe that might be an opportunity. And I know some of my conservative friends are like, no.
Abe Baldnoado:Wait. We can't grow government anymore. But I'm like, what is the alternative? Because clearly these nonprofits aren't housing them, you know, they're still on the street. And clearly a lot of these tiny homes have requirements that most of these folks who are suffering from homelessness don't qualify to be in there anyway because they are drug addicted.
Abe Baldnoado:So the alternative is, well, let's get them the services that they need. And, you know, and I don't want to say by force, but let's come together with the nonprofits that are out there, the local governments, and say, let's get these folks off the street and let's find out what services they need. And the state of New Mexico will invest in those systems to house them and keep them safe and provide them the services that they need. And so you do provide jobs. There's an opportunity there now for your mental health professionals to have a full time job working at one of those facilities to work with those individuals, whether it's counseling or whether it's drug rehabilitation.
Abe Baldnoado:But something needs to change. And clearly, the current status quo isn't working. The millions of dollars that we spent on homelessness addiction and, you know, the fact now that we just say, hey, police, carry around Narcan with you and, you know, save these folks and then they go out and do it again.
Duke Rodriguez:It's a it's a matter of priorities. Mhmm. You're pointing it out. I'll give you two real world examples that I think kinda explain the situation and how we got in this mess. I built a psychiatric hospital here in Albuquerque over in Journal Center.
Duke Rodriguez:Very nice, large complex. Today, it's not a psychiatric hospital. Now it's a charter school.
Abe Baldnoado:Is that the Cottonwood Classical?
Duke Rodriguez:That's correct.
Abe Baldnoado:Okay.
Duke Rodriguez:It was a psych facility. I built the last major hospital built in Albuquerque city limits over on Gibson. We built a brand new joint venture with Hospital Corporation of America Insigna on Gibson, right there.
Abe Baldnoado:Is that the new gateway center?
Duke Rodriguez:And now it's a shelter for homeless individuals. What does that tell you? I have watched the number of inpatient psych facilities close down statewide, because we moved on this belief that that wasn't good to institutionalize people, so let's just keep them outpatient. Well, we've gone too far on that spectrum there also. We used to have prisons, by the way, in this state, where when people did bad things, they went to.
Duke Rodriguez:The average prisoner inmate population in New Mexico is about 10,000 inmates. Today, it's half that about 5,000. You cannot convince me that people have suddenly just became better behaved and less criminal. We just don't hold them accountable. Most of our people, most of the individuals on our streets with that are homeless, about a third of them have been processed through CYFD at one point in their life.
Duke Rodriguez:It just tells you we went too far on the other side believing that rehabilitation or outpatient therapy was the only solution. It's not. There are individuals who will reject help that should have institutional assistance, and we shouldn't apologize for it. That's the thing about it. We've convinced ourselves, well, that's not good, just leave them out there.
Duke Rodriguez:Leaving them on the streets, having homeless on homeless crime, homeless on homeless violence is worse than actually giving them assistance. We need to have the facilities, we need to offer it, we need to have that intervention for mental health, as you talked about, when they need it, when they're in crisis. But again, when they reject all these services, we do need to consider that there are individuals who need to be removed from those roles and placed in facilities.
Abe Baldnoado:Absolutely. And I've had this conversation because folks have, you know, pushed back and said, Abe, it's inhumane. I'm like, no. What we're doing right now is inhumane. Absolutely.
Abe Baldnoado:On the streets, in terrible conditions, you know, and finding, you know, sometimes they're setting up tents in people's backyards along their fence line, you know, under bridges, whatever it may be. I'm like, that's inhumane. So, you know, me saying, hey, maybe we should get these folks off our street, get them the services that they need, put them in a facility that can attend to their needs, that to me is humane. Leaving them on the streets is actually quite opposite. To me, you're supporting the inhumaneness.
Abe Baldnoado:You're you're you're saying, hey, just leave them out there. No. That's awful. Like, that that to
Duke Rodriguez:me is how much we've lost our common sense. Mhmm. I know it sounds so simple to say that. That's Common
Abe Baldnoado:sense ain't so common. That's what my dad always said.
Duke Rodriguez:Sometimes we have to make the effort and offer different forms of of care, and sometimes it is institutional care. And we need to quit apologizing for it and realize that is more protective about society than it is hiding these people away. Ignoring them as they have these encampments on our sidewalks is not an answer.
Abe Baldnoado:Right. Well, and I think it Duke, what we're doing right now is important because we're having the tough discussion, the uncomfort and I think people don't like uncomfortable anymore. They they just don't wanna have the uncomfortable discussion about, hey. This is actually an issue. We need to sit down and actually talk about it.
Abe Baldnoado:And they're like, no. No. No. No. No.
Abe Baldnoado:No. I, you know, I'm I'm too self righteous. I I don't wanna, you know, say anything bad. We need to talk about it. It's an issue that's plaguing our streets.
Abe Baldnoado:It's plaguing our communities. And we need to have the tough conversation even if it makes us uncomfortable. We we need to address the reality of the situation.
Duke Rodriguez:Did you see a we actually had on our social media, our Facebook, we had a I had a conversation with a homeless person.
Abe Baldnoado:I saw that.
Duke Rodriguez:And the reason why is we were going through there for a different reason, and someone had pointed out that it looked like this person had was dead. And so our first desire was to see if he was actually alive and thankfully he was. And it amused me and I encourage everybody to go look at it. The question came up from the media. Did you exploit this individual?
Duke Rodriguez:And they said it was cringeworthy to talk to someone. And I'll push back and say, What was cringeworthy to them was they're afraid to have that conversation. Somehow we have convinced ourselves that compassion is to ignore them. Yeah. To leave them to have the alleged freedom to be on the sidewalks is some sort of justification of freedom, and it's not.
Duke Rodriguez:They're not living their best life. They're rotting on our streets. They're being burned by the sun and freezing in the winter, and somehow we said, but they're free. They're not in a facility. That's wrong.
Duke Rodriguez:Yeah. The real compassion says that we have structured forms of care, that we put them in a protective environment from themselves and from others. And so, you know, we have to go kind of push back on this entire spectrum of believing that there's only one way to treat people. They're wrong. There are ways that have worked very well, including engagement with our faith based organizations, includes community based activities, but sometimes it does include institutional care.
Abe Baldnoado:And Duke, I I love that you brought that up just because I did see some of the pushback to to that video where they said Duke looks out of touch. But to hear your perspective now, you know, I'm thinking about it and you're right. I feel like a lot of New Mexicans are now being taught to disassociate. Correct. You know, hey, these problems, they just exist.
Abe Baldnoado:You have to accept them and not question it or, you know, if someone does go and and talk to these folks that they're the bad person, you know, they're they're terrible for doing so. But I think we see a lot of that with a lot of the problems that we face is that, hey. Like, again, this is a conversation I've had with folks on the podcast many times is that we've just become content or okay with, yeah, you know what? We're last in everything good and first in everything bad, and it's just New Mexico, like or Albuquerque. This is just Albuquerque.
Abe Baldnoado:This is what you get. You get the crime. You get the homelessness. You get the this and that. And, you know, you just learn to live with it and you tell yourself that it's not that bad.
Abe Baldnoado:But in reality, you go to other communities or you go to other states where they have built good quality of life and crime exists everywhere. I'm not saying it doesn't, but there are accountability measures to at least minimize the impact of the havoc it reeks on our communities, whether it's drug addiction, crime. Some places do it better than others to address these issues, you see it when you go there that you're like, hey. This actually feels kind of safe. Like, I don't feel like I have to, like, look around me.
Abe Baldnoado:But, Duke, I think you're right on that point is that a lot of New Mexicans, I think, have just disassociated with the realities that we see every day, we just kinda block it out. It's just this is normal.
Duke Rodriguez:Not only have we disassociated, we're almost institutionalizing the practice of living on the streets. So now many of these homeless individuals realize that I can go over to the Gateway Center, grab a warm meal, not have to abide by the rules of not using drugs within that facility, but have enough meal that I can go back to my encampment and live out there all day long. And we're creating this environment that supports the continuation of leaving human beings on our sidewalks, living on our streets as though we've done some good, but we've gone ahead and given them a warm meal or a place they can come in for a day or two and shower and return to this living in the wild. That's not concern. That's creating an excuse for not wanting to deal with the problem we created.
Duke Rodriguez:We invited it. We encouraged it. And then we go ahead and support laws around allowing to happen. But you and I can't do that. You and I can't loiter.
Duke Rodriguez:But if we decide that we are declared to be now we have a nice term. They're not homeless anymore. They're unhoused. Yeah. So we keep coming up with these new labels to justify why this is okay.
Duke Rodriguez:And I I think one of the worst offenders is the current mayor. Mhmm. He's done everything in his power to continue to keep a very large population of homeless individuals living in that environment in New Mexico, and I think that is not compassionate. And
Abe Baldnoado:and the folks that voted for him, that voted for that, it's like, what are we doing? Right. What are we doing, folks? Duke, I I know we're running out of bedtime. We wanna mind your schedule.
Abe Baldnoado:But, you know, you've been out on the road now for a while, and we're coming down the last week. How are you feeling going into this last week? And just what are some of the experiences that you've experienced traveling around New Mexico talking to folks in different communities?
Duke Rodriguez:There's clearly a huge frustration out there that they're not being heard. There's clearly this belief that and they're right that they're being taxed, they're not sure what benefit they're getting from it. And there is this strong emotional almost of of giving up, and that concerns me. We've seen it at meetings. We can have one, two, or three gubernatorial candidates in a crowd of, what, twenty, twenty five show up.
Duke Rodriguez:The state convention four years ago, there was a thousand attending. This time, there was less than 330. Wow. So it is quite evident that a lot of people have tuned out, turned off, and walked away from this debate. That's that's concerning.
Duke Rodriguez:So here we are coming up to the election, what, just a handful of days away, and we're going to learn whether they really want to see change or whether in fact, and I'm not saying maybe not giving up completely, but are basically close to throwing in the towel and saying, I don't believe we're going to make that change, that New Mexico has institutionalized failure for too long. Or they're actually gonna come out and they're going to make a choice of saying, I'm going to break the mold of doing the same thing we've always done. And personally, my hope is that's the direction we go, that we are willing to realize that we don't have to accept our current performance, our economy, our stagnant population as a reality of who we are as people.
Abe Baldnoado:Absolutely. And you have to change. You have to change leadership. You have to start holding folks who are running for office accountable and also calling out their record
Duke Rodriguez:and Absolutely.
Abe Baldnoado:And just, hey, why did you vote on it this way? Duke, just want to thank you for coming on the Chile Air, but also running for office. I know having worked for numerous leaders in our state that it is not a decision that comes easy. It takes a lot of time, a lot of reflection, but a lot of sacrifice as well to put yourself out there to have these tough conversations, but also to want to lead. So just wanna thank you from The Chile Wire as you and the other candidates have taken that step forward to drive change for New Mexico.
Abe Baldnoado:So thank you. We look forward to seeing what happens over the next week or so. And depending on the outcome, may have to have you back on to talk about if you're running against Deb Haaland, which we assume will probably happen. Seems like
Duke Rodriguez:she will be
Abe Baldnoado:the choice of the Democratic Party. But we need to have a bigger conversation because I think with her leading New Mexico, New Mexicans should be pretty terrified.
Duke Rodriguez:Absolutely. And thank you for the invitation.
Abe Baldnoado:My pleasure, Duke. Thank you so much. God bless you. And y'all, that's it for this week's Chile Wire. We'll see you next time.
Abe Baldnoado:And don't forget to go exercise your right and your privilege to vote. It is one one of the most beautiful things of our republic is that you are entitled to vote as a United States citizen. So thank you all. Exercise your vote and let's make a change. We'll see you next time on The Chile Wire.