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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 in the midst of our legislative session for 2026. And with me today, I have my good friend, representative Rod Montoya of Farmington, New Mexico.
Abe Baldonado:Representative, welcome back to The Chile Wire.
Rod Montoya:Well, thanks for having me back. I thought after the last time that you you just call it quits and and say, we've had enough of that guy.
Abe Baldonado:No. We're over 20 episodes in, so we're glad to bring you back. And we're in the middle of a pretty contentious legislative session. It's the governor's legacy session is what I'm titling it because after hearing her state of the state and also her proclamation, some of the messages she sent over to you all in the house of representatives in the senate. It appears she's trying to save her image and her legacy because of failed policies that she implemented over the last seven years.
Abe Baldonado:But some of these are gonna be very consequential for our state moving forward, representative. And I just wanted to open it up to you. What are the things that you're looking out for this session? And then I'm pretty sure we can dive into some pretty heavy conversation on some of those issues because I'm sure a lot of them are pushing back against some of the governor's agenda.
Rod Montoya:Well, first off, the governor did make it pretty clear. She actually said legacy during her speech, I think twice. And so she is obviously worried about how she's gonna be remembered. That being said, she is kind of handling that two ways. One is trying to redefine the history of her tenure.
Rod Montoya:All of a sudden, somehow our schools are like the best in the nation, and child welfare is the best in the nation. And that can be easily through third party organizations. That proof is not there.
Abe Baldonado:Right? WalletHub, I mean Yeah. WalletHub has the worst for childhood well-being and to raise a child and lasting education.
Rod Montoya:Not to mention the crime across New Mexico, which we know that when there's out of control crime, children are dependent on adults to take care of them. Yes. And Albuquerque alone, I believe last year was ranked as the twin the twentieth most dangerous city in the world, not in the
Abe Baldonado:there with Colombia, The Middle East. I mean, we are talking about, you know, nations that suffer from terrorism and genocide. Yeah. Albuquerque is right there amongst them.
Rod Montoya:Yes. And so by any metrics that we want to use, just look at children in government custody and CYFD custody, how dangerous it is for them within government. So one part of the way that they one way that the governor was trying to help her legacy was to redefine the last seven years. And then the last thing she is doing is and I hope this part is accurate. If there's any level of hope that I have, it's in the fact that the governor is trying to address trying to fix some things that her and Democrats broke over the last seven years.
Rod Montoya:One is medical malpractice. Mhmm. She is at this point, after getting paid off by her and Democrats in legislature getting paid off by trial lawyers, now is seeing that now, I think there was a poll out there that 70% of doctors are actually looking elsewhere. Yeah. 70% of New Mexico doctors are trying to see, okay, if I move, can I sell my home?
Rod Montoya:And I know this as well because I'm a realtor, but they're looking to see, okay, what if I sell my home, my business, and that's one of the reasons that we are not losing some of these doctors is they're trying to sell to a doctor to come here. Yeah. And other doctors are not seeing New Mexico as friendly, so fixing medical malpractice is just a necessity at this point, and the governor, I think, has realized that. I don't know that all of the legislators, I don't know that all the Democrat legislators have agreed to that. I know that in the Senate, we have all kinds of trial lawyers and this is going to have to get through Senate judiciary.
Rod Montoya:I don't know that Senator Cervantes lets us see the light of day. We've tried to do this in the past and frankly, he's done everything he can to obstruct. He's made millions of dollars in New Mexico and, you know, it's pretty easy if you're a lawyer to make money in New Mexico because you get to pick your friendly venue. You don't have to take people to court where the offense or alleged offense was committed. You can take them to Santa Fe where they give massive awards.
Rod Montoya:You can take them to Las Vegas once again, where they give crazy awards. People forget, New Mexico is the place where the lady ordered coffee at McDonald's, spilled it on herself.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah, want a million dollars.
Rod Montoya:Yes. This is a crazy litigious state and we have just an outrageous number of lawyers who are gaming the system from within the legislature.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. I mean, you see it up and down I 25, I 40, billboard after billboard is a trial attorney. Yep. My
Rod Montoya:wife and I about less than a month ago or maybe a month ago went to Las Vegas to watch a Broncos game. Go Broncos. And while we were there, I did not realize that a lot of these billboards that you see down I-twenty 5 that are advertising for these lawyers, they actually office out of they're actually from Las Vegas or from Nevada, But it's too profitable for them to ignore New Mexico. So they have they have offices here. They are putting businesses out of business all across New Mexico.
Abe Baldonado:I mean, local attorneys who went in it to serve for their community should be frustrated by outside law firms coming and taking over New Mexico. You know, I would much rather have a trial attorney who is from New Mexico, knows New Mexico, and has New Mexico's best interest, but you're putting those folks out of business. I mean Yeah. The folks that we see suing aren't from New Mexico. They're the Keller and Kellers, the Law Giants Yeah.
Abe Baldonado:You know, Glasheen Baez and Enderman is another one. They are not New Mexicans. They don't have New Mexicans' best interests at heart. Although they try to say they do, they really don't. They just see, hey, this is a friendly state for us to make a lot of money, bankrupt our rural hospitals, and bankrupt our local physicians.
Rod Montoya:And our trucking companies. I've seen just down I-twenty 5 a number of ads to if you get hit by a truck, get ahold of us. We get the biggest awards. Yeah. And by the way, I I would love to see us put a limit on what the trial attorneys could make on these massive Which
Abe Baldonado:they should because the conversation is not about how much money they take from victims. Victims don't see a 100%. That's right. And again, so what's the price tag on someone's injuries and trauma? And for the trial attorneys, it's just more.
Abe Baldonado:Yep.
Rod Montoya:And if it's an out of state trial attorney, they have no connection to local business. They don't care if they put somebody out
Abe Baldonado:of state. Right. They don't have to go drink coffee at the local cafe and get a little bit of pushback about, hey, you took advantage of my abuelita. She only got 50% of her claim because you took the rest.
Rod Montoya:Yep. That's but that's what they do. We will take care of all of the expenses on the on the front end and and then then we will split. Mhmm. Whatever that split is so it's it's unfortunate for any other business in New Mexico, other than lawyers, that you are trying to struggle to stay alive, and one unfortunate incident that takes place that you may have had nothing to do with, you could lose your life savings because of an aggressive attorney that only sees New Mexico as a cash cow.
Rod Montoya:Right. That's one thing I'm looking at is this medical malpractice, but it doesn't fix what trial attorneys are doing to every other business in New Mexico. That's one item that I'm looking at. The other thing that I'm looking at that the governor has mentioned that she wants to address this year is the juvenile crime. But the bill that was introduced that the governor sponsored tries to move the age from 15 down to 14 to hold some of these minors accountable for their, I mean, if your child or someone is murdered by a 15 year old or a 35 year old, that doesn't matter to the victim or the victim's family.
Rod Montoya:Right. But in the Senate, they've introduced the same bill, and they've actually increased the age to 16 Wow. To make it worse. So we have, juveniles that know they can literally get away with murder. Last year, if you remember right, they even tried to say if you got in trouble for a capital crime or major felony, they wanted to provide them scholarship once they got out of jail that was more there were more benefits to that than being a good student and then just trying to get the lottery scholarship or the governor's Right.
Rod Montoya:Opportunity scholarship.
Abe Baldonado:It's much like universal income. Like, we're going to take care of you until you're on your feet. Yes. And then I I remember you coined the phrase homicide scholarships, and that was something that took off like wildfire. Folks were like, oh, that's right.
Abe Baldonado:But, yeah, $2,500 to someone who took a life of a victim's family and, you know, they're getting rewarded for it through resources and Yeah. Money. I mean
Rod Montoya:This was this was a this was for living expenses. It could have gone towards utilities, everybody else across New Mexico with energy policy. Their utility rates are going up. And now that we have, from a national standpoint with some of the things the Trump administration has done, is actually bringing the cost of Energy down. Energy down, and gasoline in particular, it's coming down.
Rod Montoya:But they're looking to do some things, and I'm hoping to talk about that a little bit, the Yeah. Mimi Stewart's Clean Horizon bill, also the Green Amendment, would allow anybody to sue if you had it gave everybody the standing to go to court and sue any business that they said was a polluter. Yeah. And this was also very similar to
Abe Baldonado:the malpractice issue, trial attorney friendly because Yes. It also didn't limit it to venue. So you could sue in Albuquerque or Santa Fe. Santa Fe would be willing to, oh, yeah, you were affected by oil and gas when you passed through Hobbs or Right. Farmington and yeah, we're going to let you sue these oil companies and
Rod Montoya:What we really need is a frivolous lawsuit law that would allow us to sue trial attorneys for just trying to find trying to get their own version of New Mexico lottery Yeah. By suing a business in New Mexico, and and that there there's no consequences for them. In the meantime, even if you are able to survive the lawsuit, you've had to spend a bunch of money just to defend yourself. Right. Or in many instances, you have businesses saying, I'm just gonna go ahead and pay out a settlement instead of going to court because I can't afford a multi million dollar lawsuit plus take my time away from business and all of that.
Rod Montoya:So they just settle for a lesser amount because it is so weighted against them, and they're just trying to survive. And once again, we want to be able to allow reasonable lawsuits to go forward to protect consumers, to protect individuals who are truly harmed, but the awards that are being given in New Mexico, they're not giving them anywhere else in Yeah. The
Abe Baldonado:They don't have to be clear and convincing. A lot of other states require clear and convincing language in order to file suit. So you have to prove that the doctor acted with malicious intent to harm that victim. And here, it's used as a leverage tool of we're gonna take everything you have, your personal assets, your home, your child's college fund. We will go after And they kind of
Rod Montoya:It's one of the reasons we twist don't risk. It's one of the reasons we don't have a specialist, doctors who are specialists Mhmm. Because the highest rate of folks being sued are obstetricians and gynecologists. And of course, anybody who is a specialist like a Cardio a neurologist, cardiologist, they're getting sued like crazy. It's one of the reasons why the cost is what it is on the front end is because they have to be once we pass this increase to malpractice lawsuits, doctors' ability, many of them, their ability to even be able to get covered went away.
Rod Montoya:So we saw across New Mexico OBGYNs, many of them just going under the umbrella of a hospital. Now, are guys who wanted to be entrepreneurs, have their private business, but they were forced under the malpractice insurance umbrella of a hospital that then can maybe afford a little bit better, but they were they couldn't even purchase Health insurance. Malpractice And
Abe Baldonado:their premiums, those of them that were, I mean, skyrocketed. I I recall reading about an OBGYN here in New Mexico who saw her premium rise over a $100,000. I mean Yep. Even that puts her in a tough position of, is it worth it for me to practice here for a premium that's that high when I can move to another state and pay less and you know
Rod Montoya:And make more. And make more. See the other side of this too is the amount that they can get through Medicaid is so much less than they can get through private insurance.
Abe Baldonado:Right.
Rod Montoya:And so with New Mexico Democrats trying to force as many people as possible onto Medicaid nearly half our state. Yes. Well, and if you remember a couple years ago, they were trying to push Medicaid for all. Yeah. They believe in universal health care, which just by its nature is inefficient.
Rod Montoya:Anything that governor government gets involved with. It's not as efficient as private.
Abe Baldonado:Well, and you don't get the best of the best either. Exactly.
Rod Montoya:And why would you? Why would you come and practice in New Mexico when you can go somewhere else not have the fear of being sued out of business and be able to make a better living? And then just our tax structure for any person who is making a decent wage is punitive as well. So why would you stay in New Mexico?
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. Absolutely. And in senate judiciary, they fast tracked senate bill one, which is the medical licensure compact. Great step. Senator Townsend, though, had a great question and asked the sponsor of the bill and the expert witnesses, is this the silver bullet to solve medical malpractice?
Abe Baldonado:And then it wasn't because the real issue is punitive damages.
Rod Montoya:Yes.
Abe Baldonado:And so, yes, it's great that, you know, doctors from New Mexicans can see doctors from other states. That's great, but we're still losing the doctors. That that's not enough to keep them here. Yeah. So, yeah, your doctor may shut down their practice, move to Texas, but now the only way you can communicate with them is through telehealth and now you have to travel to another state if you need a procedure.
Abe Baldonado:You're going to have to go to that state to see them. Unfortunately, many New Mexicans don't have those resources to do so. It is not it is a privilege to, you know, fly yourself out to MD Anderson or Mayo Clinic and, you know, there are people who are fortunate enough, but we have to understand that in our state, there's many people who are not fortunate enough to advocate for themselves and take themselves to a state that has better health care.
Rod Montoya:Well, if you're like me living in Farmington, you have a specialist who moves across the border into Durango, that's a forty five minute drive. Yeah. We'll go there rather than be forced into UNM. I had my first experience with UNM recently, and I tell you what, that if that's what socialized healthcare is going to look like, pushing all these people into one line, and the hours and hours you have to wait just to even get in to go wherever you're going, rather than just going to your doctor, waiting thirty minutes in the waiting room then be seen by a specialist. If everybody has to go to UNM, that is just frustrating.
Rod Montoya:That also means you're traveling. Most folks in the rural area are traveling two and a half hours or more to come in to be seen as well. Thank God for UNM that we have that. But I tell you what, if I can do the same thing and go to Durango and drive forty five minutes and go have go have a bite at a restaurant in Durango and then be seen relatively quickly by a specialist, all we've done is push economic drivers So bordering if you live in Clovis or Santa Teresa, why would you not go to Lubbock? If you're down in Lea County, why would you not go to Crawford or Midland?
Abe Baldonado:Midland. Yeah.
Rod Montoya:If you're in Las Cruces, why would you not just go to El El Paso. Same thing on the West Side of the state. You've got Tucson and Phoenix that are not that far away or even Flagstaff.
Abe Baldonado:Flagstaff, yeah, from Gallup.
Rod Montoya:So everything that we have seen up to this point from Democrats concerning medical care has just destroyed opportunity for doctors in New Mexico. And now the governor, like we said earlier, is trying to save her legacy after harming those doctors. We've already lost so many across New Mexico to other states. This might be too little too late. Yeah.
Rod Montoya:And New Mexico has a reputation and trial lawyers won't be satisfied. If the governor is able to get a win here and she moves on, they'll come back and promise all of the Democrats
Abe Baldonado:Sam Bergman, who's a trial attorney, not Sure. He's not a district attorney like he claims to be now. Yes, he is district attorney, but he made his career as a trial defense attorney. So That's right. We gotta make that very clear.
Abe Baldonado:But, rep, you know, I I'm gonna take some punches here in a little bit and throw some punches. But as a New Mexican and I think New Mexicans should be I feel insulted, when I hear a governor talk about her own legacy and I see that sort of ego, it's about me. And I I feel like when she says that, she's saying, this isn't about you, New Mexico. This is about me. Right.
Abe Baldonado:And what's gonna tee me up for my next endeavor after governor, my leg legacy. You know, I think anyone who speaks like that, I mean, there's some narcissistic undertones there of it's it's always been about me, not the people of New Mexico. And so now, yes, could some of these things benefit New Mexico? Perhaps. At the end of the day, it benefits her.
Abe Baldonado:And that's the number one priority is
Rod Montoya:Well, we we impacted. We've seen her be in New Mexico government before. And then when she left, how she benefited herself with some inside information, and then made millions of dollars going into health care.
Abe Baldonado:Let's to Clear Horizons by Mimi Stewart, you know, a bill that, you know, through rhetoric sounds like, oh, this is great. This is great for everyone. It's really not because it's gonna have severe fiscal impacts, for our state. It's being sold as protecting our environment, which it does not do. It does not.
Abe Baldonado:It actually harms our environment. It harms our communities. It harms our business. From what I've read in that bill
Rod Montoya:Well, let's let's forget this. Let's forget about business for a second. This harms job creation. Mhmm. This is going to harm people who work in industries across New Mexico.
Rod Montoya:Any business that is creating carbon under this, the carbon index that they're do that they're proposing is about 40% of what the federal government uses. That standard, the threshold is 40% of that. So this encompasses so many more businesses than just oil and gas. But even though they're targeting oil and gas, which is our number one employer in New Mexico, this will
Abe Baldonado:target construction.
Rod Montoya:I mean, new home builders. Yeah. Well, may our this could hit UNM. Yeah. I mean, they're they are they are a user of electricity.
Rod Montoya:It could get them. Yeah. How do you run a hospital? Right. And and she's they're trying to Mimi is what I understood trying to exempt tribal entities, which really
Abe Baldonado:an insult to New Mexicans across the state that you're exempting one group over another.
Rod Montoya:But Well, also what that is going to do, if somebody wants to do business in New Mexico, now why would they not just do like the Tesla dealership in Santa Ana? Right. Why not just build the future data centers On on sovereign nations. Yes. On sovereign nations.
Rod Montoya:It won't do anything to to eliminate carbon footprint in New Mexico. It just means it will be a non taxable entity as far as the state of New Mexico goes because it'll be on tribal lands.
Abe Baldonado:And they they'll benefit from the economic development of those data centers, potentially the influx of folks moving into those communities, folks being employed from the community.
Rod Montoya:But if we're going to follow that line of reasoning, that might save healthcare in New Mexico. Let's just let every because the argument that they're using is they have supremacy. Yeah. That that we can't force anything upon them because they're a tribal entity. Well, if that's the case, let's let all of our hospitals go there.
Rod Montoya:Let's let all of our doctors move there. Let's allow all industry that either leave New Mexico, let it go there. The problem is, if we do that, all we're doing is limiting taxable income to the state of New Mexico. Right. Money will fall.
Rod Montoya:It's just like any other energy source. It will follow the path of least resistance. And I think what they were trying to do to car dealerships, I know car dealerships that were negotiating with tribes to just move their car dealerships from the municipality that they were currently located in and just go to the nearest tribal entity and do it set up there and avoid the regulations, these punitive regulations that we just seem to do one after the other. But you mentioned Bregman earlier. Something else that the governor did not do because it was controversial.
Rod Montoya:She didn't talk about fast tracking anti federal law enforcement legislation, but she put it on the call, and we saw that it's already gone. This this I can't remember. Do you remember the name of the legislation?
Abe Baldonado:It's Immigrant Safety Act, and that's how it's built
Rod Montoya:Well, see, that's the whole thing. They they will make they will frame the issue a certain way. What this really is, is anti federal law enforcement legislation to the point that they want to remove the federal ICE facilities that exist in New Mexico. If they do that, it's not like the Trump administration is gonna stop enforcing immigration law. They're just going to then take those jobs that currently else.
Rod Montoya:To Texas, to Arizona, to Colorado.
Abe Baldonado:Your colleague, John Block, said that perfectly yesterday in committee. He said, this does nothing but harm New Mexico because now we have a public safety issue. And now where do you send them? New Mexico. And he explained, we do have folks that go in and evaluate the facilities.
Abe Baldonado:They they do regular checks to make sure that living conditions are adequate and, you know, up to par. And also in Otero County, it's a $16,000,000 loss, which is big for that county. And so he made that point. He said, we're not fixing the problem here. You're just ultimately Trump proofing New Mexico from
Rod Montoya:federal that. This is just virtue signaling. You're not stopping Trump. Right. Look look at Minneapolis.
Rod Montoya:Is that are they stopping Trump? No. All they're doing is putting people in harm's way. Yeah. And we are a border state.
Rod Montoya:We are a literal border state, and we see the effects. All you gotta do is go down central and see the effects of a wide open border, which is that we have still today the the worst fentanyl abuse Yeah. Of anywhere in the nation.
Abe Baldonado:You'd have to be pretty naive to not believe what's happening in our own backyard or to turn a blind eye to what we see every single day. I mean, we saw it in the mayoral election here in Albuquerque. It was like homelessness isn't that bad. I'm like, you're gaslighting people in Albuquerque from what they see every day when they drive through say 2nd Street or 4th Street or downtown.
Rod Montoya:There's over 5,000 people living on our streets in Albuquerque. And the idea that they're there just because, just because they wanna be there is not the case. Well, out of a sense of compassion for drug users, We're allowing them to just invade neighborhoods and I would hate to live South Of Central because that's a poorer population of Albuquerque. The city of Albuquerque and Mayor Keller is perfectly happy allowing them to be a blight in that community and dangerous for people who live in And that there is no And that's why I introduced a bill, which is a private right of action for residents of a municipality and potentially a county if they don't enforce their own statutes. But they just and would they just allow that group of people to be abused and inconvenienced, and they're not even doing anything that is actually humane.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. They're disguising it as, oh, we're being compassionate. No. It is not compassionate in New Mexico to let people live on the street. That is not And drug addicted.
Abe Baldonado:And drug addicted. That is And to interfere not compassionate. I mean, people in Albuquerque will tell you, and I'm sure many people in Albuquerque have dealt with this situation. You're driving 55 down the street and someone who is under the influence of drugs walks right into the middle of the road. And you have to slam your brakes.
Abe Baldonado:You potentially get rear ended. This does happen. And, you know, you'd have to be crazy to turn a blind eye to it. And the far left progressives have done it. They've turned a blind eye.
Abe Baldonado:They they I I don't know if they're naive or they're just saying, hey, you know what? It doesn't exist. It's actually not that bad. When in fact, no, is actually it's real issue.
Rod Montoya:Pretty nefarious what progressives on the left have done. They've redefined compassion, and they've redefined when you're not compassionate. They will call you names. Racist. Fascist.
Rod Montoya:Yes. They will they will shame you into taking on policy that is bad for the community and bad for the victims of drugs and the cartels. I mean, right now in Minneapolis where they're saying the narrative is that ICE captured a five year old Yeah, with no context. Yes. So when the father abandons the child who the ice was actually going after and the child is abandoned, is ice not supposed to pick that child up and to take that child to social services?
Rod Montoya:Right. No. The the the idea that they that ICE was targeting a child is ridiculous. But Sam Bregman going out there and and his recent letter to Yeah. His letter to ICE is crazy.
Rod Montoya:Yeah. And then he wants to be governor.
Abe Baldonado:He and he also has been pretty open about getting Republicans over to vote for him. I mean, a lot of people know like, hey, look, we can have conversations on tactics, on, you know, everything like that. But at the end of the day, let's give context to individuals. Let's not withhold information of a whole situation that has occurred and pass judgment immediately. And and I think vice president Vance yesterday did a very wonderful job to provide context into that whole situation.
Abe Baldonado:And as a father, as a father of a five year old, I think a lot of us had a five year old been arrested. I'm sure we would all be like, woah. Woah. What what's going on here? Right.
Abe Baldonado:You know? But the fact was they left a lot of information out of why the child was left in custody of the ICE enforcement officers. And I am I'm sure that these ICE officers treated that child with dignity and protection and and love. I I would hope that they did. And I I'm sure that, you know, again, like you said, what's the what's the other story had they just left that child there alone
Rod Montoya:as his father,
Abe Baldonado:yeah, as his father abandoned him to run away from law enforcement officers, what would the story have been? You know? And, again, that's why context is everything. And we live in a world right now where misinformation reigns supreme. A lot of people aren't informed and we see it.
Abe Baldonado:Just the other day, we had the APS students walk out with staff, which I'm like, you're doing an injustice to these kids because I can tell you they don't know what they're protesting. They know what their teacher is telling them or whatever adult is influencing them saying here, carry this picket sign, go out there and hold it up, and it says anti fascist. Well, are you teaching these kids what fascist means? What is fascism? No.
Rod Montoya:They are telling they're tell they're giving them a version of what their version, the new version of what a fascist is, which just means a conservative in their mind.
Abe Baldonado:Anybody who's law abiding, believes it's the rule of law. That's right. Accountability, holding people accountable for their actions. I mean, everything that we were brought up with Which why I wanna go
Rod Montoya:after Bregman's words. In his letter, he says, no one is above the law. And he's aiming that at ICE, federal immigration law enforcement. The problem with that is that we do have a group of people who are above the law in New Mexico, and that's the migrants who came across our border are here illegally. In a state where we have told, where the government has has said that New Mexico government entities cannot cooperate with federal law enforcement.
Rod Montoya:What we've done is we put a roadblock to going after the worst of the worst, those who have actually committed crimes are in our legal system, and we have said, well, we're not even gonna share that information with federal law enforcement. Well, then you have law enforcement come in and throwing a wider net, which is just immigrant or migrant. I have a hard time with the term when they say undocumented immigrants. First off, an immigrant migrates. They're coming to be a part of.
Rod Montoya:It is illegal. It's an illegal activity, and they're migrating, but they're not immigrating. They're not wanting to what we are seeing is a group of folks that are coming here and then are living in clusters to themselves, self segregating, rather than immigrating and wanting to become and take on our values and assimilate into American society, those who are coming here and going through immigration process and going through classes to learn how to be or to learn what an American is and why this country came into being and how, that's different than folks that just crossed the border out of opportunity. And as we've seen, opportunity could be both something that contributes to society or something that is negative to society, such as the cartels, such as the human traffickers, such as the gun traffickers.
Abe Baldonado:And they know this. Yes. They know this.
Rod Montoya:This opportunity exists for them just as well as the one Right. Who wants to become law abiding.
Abe Baldonado:They hide behind the folks who are trying to come here for the right reasons, for the American dream, for opportunity to create opportunity for future generations of their lineage to, know, go far beyond what they could ever imagine and live in a a country where, yeah, you know what? We don't have cartels hunting people down, trying to recruit your kids. I mean, that is something that happens in these other countries. And Yep. If you don't play ball, these cartels will kill you.
Abe Baldonado:So it's
Rod Montoya:a little bit easier for us to, in New Mexico, to maybe say, okay, let's take a step back from the New Mexico situation because we're talking about a common heritage or a common ancestry Mhmm. Or common racial identity. Let's focus on Minnesota for just a second, because you've got a group of people that are Somali that are there, and they've done something different. Unlike the cartels here, they've done something different. They're gaming the social welfare programs.
Rod Montoya:Yeah. They're gaming the childcare, unbridled childcare, which is what Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham is talking about here. As a matter of fact, one of things she may be doing when she leaves office is open a series of Somali daycare centers across, or leering centers across New Mexico. I'm not exactly sure what her next step is, but that's what happened in Minneapolis was a group of migrants who then game the system, and federal immigration goes in and says, this is out of control. We're going to go in there and do that.
Rod Montoya:And then you have the Democrat governor and Democrat legislators and Democrat mayors go in and say, Oh, this is horrible what's happening to ISIS coming in like Nazis and trying to just go after a certain population because President Trump is racist. That's the narrative. Not that there are people doing illegal things, and we want to help them get the folks who are doing illegal things in America, and they have no real connection to America, the narrative there is maybe a little bit easier for New Mexicans to look at because we do have a common heritage with folks that live across the Southern border and some who live in South America. It's a little different because they share a language with many New Mexicans. They share a heritage that we hold dear, hold food and culture that is similar.
Rod Montoya:It is nonetheless, when there is illegal activity going on and progressive Democrats in New Mexico want to protect those folks who are doing illegal things and then gaslighting the people who think, first off, I don't want to have to pay for people who came here just a group of a certain percentage that just came here just to live off of the generosity of the American people or they're coming here and doing a cartel like money laundering businesses. We hear about all these tire shops in the South Valley or, you know, on the West Side. That's just one type of a money laundering system to be able to do the drug trafficking, human trafficking, gun trafficking, all this illegal activity, and then funnel the money through a quote unquote legal business.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. And I go back to naivety because you have to be very naive to believe that this corruption doesn't exist because it does. And there are leaders who will try to tell you that it doesn't, that it's exaggerated. It's happening. And human trafficking is real.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. The immigrants coming to this country, they are trying to escape the very people who are sneaking in with him and causing problems here in The United States. That is what they are running from. Whether you're coming from Colombia, Chile, Venezuela, Guatemala, Mexico, you are leaving because your own people are exploiting you. And we see it here.
Abe Baldonado:I mean, the countless stories of human trafficking here in New Mexico where they're kidnapping their own people who are trying to come over to The United States. They kidnap them and hold them for ransom and these are their own people.
Rod Montoya:Right.
Abe Baldonado:And again, it's just
Rod Montoya:And from and the gaslighting that's going on by saying that that it's just because of racism. I'm a Hispanic. The communities that are most affected by crime are Hispanic communities because that is where the majority of these operations pop up is in the international zone, but in particular, we're talking about the South Valley and then all the way down to Las Cruces. The people who are paying the highest price are Hispanic communities. So, it it it really offends me when I see the folks that are going out there saying, ICE is racist.
Rod Montoya:ICE is racist. ICE is racist. And the majority of them are suburban white women or white elderly affluent progressives. Yeah. And they're saying racist, racist, racist.
Rod Montoya:No. You can afford to hold on to that luxury high mindedness, and you're forcing it on the minority population in particular. And that is that is by the way, as far as I'm concerned, that's extremely racist. Yeah. For the Venezuelans that are out there thrilled that that Venezuela has been Liberated.
Rod Montoya:Liberated, and they're going after a president Trump in some way that this is a racist act against a
Abe Baldonado:Which is not unfamiliar. We did it with Noriega. Yes. Before.
Rod Montoya:And that caught but we sent troops and it took months. Yeah. This was a thirty minute excursion. Yeah. And not a single American troop member was harmed.
Abe Baldonado:And representative, I I'm familiar. You've you've combated these narratives yourself even in the House of Representatives. Your wonderful wife is of the Navajo Nation, and you have fought hard to say, no, my wife is Navajo. I'm not against Navajo. And and again, you've had to counter some of those claims as well and you've had to make it very clear, like, I'm Hispanic, but my wife's Navajo.
Rod Montoya:I worked on the Navajo Reservation for over twenty years. And when progressives from Santa Fe and Albuquerque decided to shut down that power plant down there because it was harming people out of jobs. The people they put out of work, 85% of the workers were Navajo, and those were high paying jobs. And now what we've seen is in the Central Consolidated School District is child homelessness is through the roof.
Abe Baldonado:And because why? The child had to go work because their parents are struggling to find work, so they're having to pick up a job
Rod Montoya:and Well, they've been abandoned, many of them. Oh, wow. They've been abandoned and or left to relatives here while the parents have had to go find work elsewhere. And all done in the name of compassion. Every progressive liberals Or empathy.
Rod Montoya:Quit being compassionate to us. You are killing us with your kindness.
Abe Baldonado:Or empathy. They like to throw the word empathy around.
Rod Montoya:You know what? I've heard something recently, and there's a book out there called toxic empathy, and it's written by a oh, I cannot remember her name right now. But she combats this idea of toxic masculinity, where all masculinity is the problem, and the replacement for it is empathy. Empathy that she is claiming as toxic is that empathy that looks at one side and not the other, looks at the criminal who maybe had a rough childhood growing up and then is caught up into some sort of cycle of criminal behavior, maybe based on some socioeconomic issues as well, or an abusive household, or growing up in foster care, or some sort of institution, and then they do something, well you have to have empathy on them, but it completely removes empathy from the victim. This is what allows these suburban white women in particular to to go out there and say, oh, look at these poor transgender kids.
Rod Montoya:In the meantime, every female who is trying to compete or just wants to have a a private space to get on. I tell you what most most men and women boys and girls don't like getting in front getting undressed in front of each other or having others undress in front of them. It's uncomfortable as it is, But then now, we're placing men in these women's spaces because of this empathy, and we have no empathy for the majority that is having to endure being having their their being exposed to the opposite sex way before they I mean, consent went out the window. This is a group of people that says that you shouldn't have eye contact with the opposite sex if you're a man for more than five seconds because it's uncomfortable. However, I could at any point say, hey, you know what?
Rod Montoya:I'm I'm I identify as this and I can go into a woman's locker room and get completely undressed in front of them. And somehow it is the bigotry of these cisgender, to use their language, females who then are making that poor transgender person feel bad. We have turned logic on its head. We have turned our language on its head. We have turned biology.
Rod Montoya:I don't even understand why we even teach biology anymore. That that is a waste
Abe Baldonado:the feminist movement. At the end of the day, if you identify as a feminist, you should be very upset about what's happening right now.
Rod Montoya:Well, empathy is destroying our country. This toxic empathy is destroyed. Please go find the book.
Abe Baldonado:It's worth a read. Absolutely. Representative, we'll get to wrapping up here. Are are there any other things that you would like our viewers to be aware of as we navigate this thirty day legislative session? Seems like it's gonna be fast and furious over the next couple of weeks.
Abe Baldonado:Thirty days oftentimes feel like a sixty day session compressed into four weeks. However, are there ways that you would like to share with our viewers of how they can get engaged, how they can provide input, and how they could hold their elected leaders accountable?
Rod Montoya:Well, first off, if you see a bill and it has this very nice title to it, question it right away. The Affordable Care Act increased everybody's insurance rates by almost 50% about a four year period of time. The Energy Transition Act similarly did this exact same thing to your utility rates. Anybody who is paying double what they were paying just four years ago for their utility rates needs to understand that is not because utility companies are greedy. It's because we have forced them into unaffordable sources of energy.
Rod Montoya:And whenever you hear now Clean Horizons Act or the Immigrant Safety Act, virtually anytime you hear the title, it is to misinform you and maybe make you, people who are not really paying attention to what's going on, just take the title and say, Oh, yes. I want I can get behind that. Yes, can get behind that. Protecting immigrants. We need to protect immigrants.
Rod Montoya:We wanna protect immigrants. Let's secure the border and quit allowing the the
Abe Baldonado:The same folks that they're running away from Yes. To enter The United States.
Rod Montoya:Yes. Those folks are many of them are coming over here into homes and then being sex trafficked. We the millions of children that came over unaccompanied minors that we don't know where many of them are are being sex trafficked. And the idea that we're gonna stop ICE from going out there and putting these sex traffickers in jail and saving those children, which by the way, when ICE then collects them, are they arresting those children? No, they're not.
Rod Montoya:They're protecting those children. If you hear a very favorable explanation just in the title of legislation, question it. Go read the legislation. That's the first thing. Second of all, this is a thirty day session.
Rod Montoya:Myself and others, I know you'll be doing it, the Family Action Movement, Jody Hendrix will be doing this. Americans for Prosperity will be doing this. Other groups will be going out there and trying to educate you quickly in real time about what's going on in the session. Please pay attention. I will be giving a bunch of updates.
Rod Montoya:So Rod Montoya, if you want to go and look up, look me up on Facebook in particular, I'll be trying to give updates, trying to explain what the legislation means, not just what the title says. Pay attention. Every time we turn around right now, in the name of public safety, they're talking about taking away semiautomatic guns. And These are not automatic guns. A gunning rifle is a semiautomatic gun.
Abe Baldonado:And on that note, that bill also goes after gun dealers as the problem for crime rather than the actual criminals themselves. I will tell you, if you're a juvenile and you get your hands on a weapon, the gun dealer isn't selling it to this juvenile most of the time. Right? A lot of the weapons being used on the streets through by criminals are through the black market. They're they're not even registered guns that were authorized by a dealer.
Abe Baldonado:Some maybe, but again, that But if I, a
Rod Montoya:law abiding citizen who values life owns a gun, taking away my rights doesn't make you safer.
Abe Baldonado:Right. Exactly. You're making our streets more unsafe, and you're now restricting folks from the opportunities to protect themselves
Rod Montoya:against the at how undermanned all law enforcement is across the state. Well, there's If all I can do is call 911, really, all you need to do is send a send a mortician to come and collect the body instead of allowing me to be able to defend myself and my family.
Abe Baldonado:Well, on that note, rep, we know that goes back and circles back straight to the trial lawyers who pushed the Civil Rights Act of New Mexico, which really stripped away qualified immunity for police officers. So now police officers really can't even do their jobs without the fear of being sued for their personal assets when they're in the line of duty having to make a life and death situation decision. Our our police officers are they're tired. They're they're they're short staffed. They're working long hours and God bless them.
Rod Montoya:Well, and we have we have looked at those who are in law enforcement as the problem. That's what they're doing now with ICE. ICE is not out there going out and picking up Hispanics on the street. That is just that is ridiculous. I have no fear of an ICE agent Yeah.
Rod Montoya:Coming after me or a member of my family.
Abe Baldonado:Well, like my grandma used to always say, if someone got in trouble, she would say, what did they do?
Rod Montoya:Law enforcement is there to protect law abiding citizens. And in New Mexico, the majority of them are minorities. So allow law enforcement to do their job to protect us. Yeah. But it's criminal.
Rod Montoya:It is downright criminal for a district attorney of Bernalillo County to say no one is above the law.
Abe Baldonado:And to say that you're violating state law. No. No. No. No.
Abe Baldonado:They're the federal government supremacy clause. Come on, Sam Bregman. You studied history. Studied government and economics. You should know about the supremacy clause that federal law reigns supreme the supreme law of the land.
Rod Montoya:That's right. And if we I'm looking to see what happens now February 1. President Trump has said, if you are a sanctuary city or you're a sanctuary state, and you are harboring and protecting those who are breaking the law, which we are doing in New Mexico and we are doing in our major cities across New Mexico, that February 1, federal funding is gonna be cut off. We're playing chicken with somebody who we know very well should not you should not be tempting President Trump when it comes to this. And in reality, we should be cooperating.
Rod Montoya:We want, the law abiding citizens in New Mexico, want our laws to be followed. Period. If I if I, as a law abiding citizen, break the law, I fully expect for for law enforcement to come after me.
Abe Baldonado:There's consequences. Yes. There's consequences.
Rod Montoya:Well, there should be. And then if there are not consequences for breaking the law, what we're going to have is more of this we're going to have more of putting toothpaste behind bars in Target rather than putting criminals behind bars for stealing from Target.
Abe Baldonado:Well, and now you can't even get a deodorant stick without having to ring a bell and have someone open it for you. And that's just the world that we
Rod Montoya:live And it has become our reality that we've become accustomed to.
Abe Baldonado:Which we shouldn't. We shouldn't accept it.
Rod Montoya:Is this a reality we're accepting? Quit being gaslit by progressive Democrats who wanna make you feel bad for just wanting to have safe communities. Absolutely.
Abe Baldonado:Well, representative, thank you so much. As always on the Chile Wire, thank you for the dialogue. Thank you for the conversation and insight to what you're seeing in Santa Fe, what you're advocating for, and just wanna tell you we appreciate your service to the great state of New Mexico, and God bless you for the next three weeks as you all navigate New Mexico's future and policies that impact every every New Mexican every single day. So representative, thank you so much again for coming on Chile Wire. Thank you for being a voice in Santa Fe, and we hope to have you on again.
Abe Baldonado:Thank you. My pleasure. That's it this week for the Chile Wire, y'all. We'll see you next time.