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Real News For Real New Mexicans.
The Chile Wire with Abe Baldonado. Hey, guys. Welcome to the Chile Wire. We are on episode four coming to you live today from the studio. As you can see, I'm solo today, and there's a reason for that.
Abe Baldonado:There's been a lot of things that have happened post session that I really want to talk about today, and I want to share with you some facts. And I think there's a lot of things happening right now that we need to look at. Legislative session's over, a lot of craziness, many things not addressed, and we'll talk a little bit more about that here shortly. But I really want to dive into where New Mexico is today and why we're here today. I'm about to share a graphic with you now that shows Democrat party control since 1931.
Abe Baldonado:And since 1931, Democrats have held a trifecta for sixty four years in New Mexico. Sixty four years. And if you look at this graphic, there are zero years of Republicans holding a trifecta. And a trifecta is that you have the governorship, you have the house, and you have the senate led by the majority party, which is the Democrats. And so let's talk about this.
Abe Baldonado:Where are we at today in New Mexico? We're just coming off a sixty day legislative session where crime was supposed to be the big issue, and there were a number of crime bills that were introduced. Many of them didn't make it out. House Bill eight made it out, but even folks that, you know, supported this bill said it still doesn't go far enough. And now I have to question, what did leadership do during the legislative session?
Abe Baldonado:What did the Democrats do for sixty days? You had sixty days to create high quality, very comprehensive legislation and policy to address our most significant issues, and yet it wasn't done. We settled like we always do in New Mexico. And it's frustrating. I'm a born and raised New Mexican.
Abe Baldonado:I love this state, but I do not love what's happening to this state. And when we look at this graphic, we have to call out the facts that Democrats are to blame. And I'm not saying that, you know, Republicans aren't responsible for this either because over sixty four years, yeah, you know, I think there's been a lot of toleration. And I think we've tolerated a lot. And I think New Mexicans have been indoctrinated to believe that government is the solution in our state.
Abe Baldonado:When we look at poverty, when we look at crime, when we look at education, we really turn on government. Government is our solution. And I think it's about time that we realize, no, it's not. We need government to actually stay out of our business. Stop making things worse because they're not helping.
Abe Baldonado:We had sixty days, sixty days. Why are we not holding our legislative leadership responsible and accountable? I think we need to. And I don't mean for this podcast to be dark and, you know, thinking about it, you know, just it's not supposed to be dark, but we need to be enlightened. We need to wake up and say, hey, we need to vote better.
Abe Baldonado:We get what we get. I had a great interview with representative Rod Montoya, who has talked about the change in the Democratic party over the years, and it has gotten worse. And it's really hard to say Republicans are to blame because Republicans really haven't led the state in sixty four years. Yeah. There's a number on that graph that shows some governorships and, you know, maybe a small stint of house leadership.
Abe Baldonado:But outside of that, Republicans have not been in control. And so when we think about where New Mexico is today, who do we blame? That is the biggest question. And I wanna thank the Rio Grande Foundation for providing this graphic because I don't think a lot of people have seen this. And I think a lot of younger generations, younger voters have not seen this or understand that, hey, Democrats have been leading this state, not just at the state level, but in our local levels.
Abe Baldonado:And I think a lot of it goes to, you know, hey, my grandma, my dad, my mom, you know, they've all been Democrats, lifetime Democrats. I'm a Democrat. But what does a Democrat mean? I challenge that question. What does it
Abe Baldonado:mean to be a Democrat?
Abe Baldonado:And you really have to ask yourself, am I getting return on investment? And when I think about party control, I think about what's happened lately with the latest two announcements for governor Deb Haaland and now Sam Bregman, who's announcing today at my hometown of Las Vegas, New Mexico. Deb Haaland and Sam Brigman are taking this moderate approach, but the fact is they're not moderate. They're not. It's all smoke and mirrors.
Abe Baldonado:And I don't want folks to be blinded to these folks who are saying, hey, no, we're we're in the middle. You know, we understand. No, they don't. Go look at Deb Haaland's track record. Look at Sam Brahman's track record.
Abe Baldonado:I mean, you can't put a cowboy hat on and expect that you're John Dutton and you're gonna win votes. That's not how it works. And I may be a little too old to say this, but it's kinda cringe, you know, as younger generations would say. And the problem is, I think a lot of people don't understand is that Sam Braigman led the Democratic party. He was chairman of the party.
Abe Baldonado:So he has supported the direction that New Mexico has taken under Michelle Lujan Grisham, the Deb Hollins, the Melanie Stanberys. You know, this is not normal. We really need to start having this conversation and have folks do their research. You know, Sam Bregman's announcement today, you know, he talks about, you know, he's fought in courtrooms, but what they don't tell you is he has about a year or so as district attorney fighting crime. Yes.
Abe Baldonado:But what they don't tell you are the years before that, he actually defended criminals. Defended folks who were charged with DWI.
Abe Baldonado:So is there a bit of hypocrisy there? I think so.
Abe Baldonado:To go and tout yourself as a crime fighting advocate, not necessarily. You defended criminals once upon a time, and I think we need to call out that record. Deb Holland, you do not support oil and gas, which is New Mexico's most abundant resource in New Mexico that provides public education, public safety dollars, and investing in our communities. If she wins, we have to be worried about what could happen to industry here in New Mexico. We cannot forget her attacks on the Navajo Nation.
Abe Baldonado:The Latisse who really need those royalties that come in from oil and gas development. It's their way of life. And she stripped that away as department of, the secretary of the, interior department. And these are just facts. I'm just shooting out the facts here.
Abe Baldonado:No matter who it is, Sam Brigman or Deb Haaland, they're cut from the same cloth. The talking points are just different. And we really need
Abe Baldonado:to think about that in New Mexico because I love this state, and I don't want to see us miss another opportunity. When I look at Texas, when I look at Arizona, you see the prosperity, the way
Abe Baldonado:of life, and we have those same opportunities here. We just elect the wrong people.
Abe Baldonado:And that's the problem. You know, when we look at crime, I want to highlight what a senator once said in a KOB story. From Las Cruces, he says, It's a problem that Albuquerque has largely created for itself. It's not really about changing state law. So the status quo ultimately is that it works.
Abe Baldonado:Until recently, in that senator's backyard, we saw the crime that happened in Las Cruces with the mass shooting. Juveniles, which the legislature had 60 to address juvenile crime, and they did nothing. And one of the most popular juvenile crime reform bills was let's give them $2,000 a month scholarships. As representative Rod Montoya coined the name homicide scholarships. What do
Abe Baldonado:we give victims and their families? Just today, in
Abe Baldonado:the Santa Fe, New Mexican, an Espanola family is speaking out about their child who was
Abe Baldonado:a victim of crime, and the person who committed this crime got a two year slap on
Abe Baldonado:the wrist to go to a juvenile center. That's not accountability. And when we look at organized crime in New Mexico, they take advantage of juveniles. They use juveniles because they know we don't have severe penalties for our juveniles that commit heinous crimes. So why are we supporting the status quo?
Abe Baldonado:That's what we really have to think about here. Now the governor is mobilizing the National Guard to Albuquerque to address crime. Why not let police officers just do their job?
Abe Baldonado:Let them arrest and hold criminals. You know, the bail reform, you know, allowing people to walk out of jail until trial when they're a danger to society? Why are we allowing that? These are a lot
Abe Baldonado:of questions I have, and I'm sure many of you do too. But is the National Guard the fix in Albuquerque? I don't think so. It's just political grandstanding by the Democrats and the governor to say, we're doing something. But what I saw the other evening when chief Harold Medina and mayor Keller talked about the National Guard's role is they're gonna use them as security guards, but they won't be armed.
Abe Baldonado:So that's problematic for me is that you're putting them in a dangerous situation to help police officers, but you're not going to allow them to be armed.
Abe Baldonado:Let police officers do their job. Let's trust our public safety officers. Let's let them take criminals off our street. Let's stop suing police officers for doing their job.
Abe Baldonado:We've created this victim, publicity mentality for criminals, and criminals know it. They commit the crimes because they know I'm gonna get away with it. I'm gonna get a slap on the wrist. And I go back to that graphic, who has allowed this? The Democrats.
Abe Baldonado:You cannot blame Republicans for sixty four years of Democrat trifectas, where they've had every opportunity to address our crimes, take New Mexico on a beautiful path, to prosperity. Instead, we're stagnant in just about everything. And I get frustrated when I hear that New Mexico's last in everything good and first and everything bad because it doesn't have to be that way. It does not have to be that way. But again, we've been blinded to believe that government is the solution to our problems.
Abe Baldonado:But we give them sixty days in the legislative session to not do a thing. They pass a handful of bills and expect a pat on the back.
Abe Baldonado:That's not okay. We need to hold their feet to
Abe Baldonado:the fire and say, hey, you need to do better. They work for us. Remember, we're the electorate. We vote them in. We have the power.
Abe Baldonado:We need to use it now and we need to stand up and we need to speak out. For many years, early in my career, yeah, you're afraid to speak out because of retribution. You don't want that. But at what point do we get tired and say, hey, I've had enough of this. This isn't good for me.
Abe Baldonado:It's not good for my family. It's not good for my kids. Year after year, we're last in education. And people will tell you, oh, we don't invest enough in education. Actually, do.
Abe Baldonado:And in large part, to oil and gas. We have increased investments in our
Abe Baldonado:public education and have gotten less out of it. And a lot of it is we don't let the teachers do their job. We
Abe Baldonado:need to let teachers teach. We need to invest in more social work and more, you know, school psychologists. There are areas to where there are needs of students not being met and teachers can't meet all those needs. And I
Abe Baldonado:speak as a former teacher and as a school board member. I've seen it. I've also seen the poverty and the circumstances that a lot of these children are living in. And
Abe Baldonado:teachers can't address that on their own. They need help. But how do we get more folks into that field when we talk about how bad education is? We need to do better. We need to institute programs that work.
Abe Baldonado:Everyone talks about the Mississippi Miracle. What they don't tell you is the buy in that it got. The secretary of education who led. There wasn't large pendulum swings in education policy. They stuck to it.
Abe Baldonado:Third grade retention, which Governor Susana Martinez implemented during her time as governor, is one of the main points that Mississippi highlights as to why they turned around. But guess what? We don't have that anymore because the current governor removed that. She supports social promotion. That's problematic.
Abe Baldonado:And we have missed opportunities here. And, you know, you hear this fear mongering even in Sam Braigman's announcement that Trump is cutting social security and Medicaid and Medicare. That's fear mongering. That is not happening. Nowhere has the national administration said, we're cutting these programs.
Abe Baldonado:They've not said that. Have they talked about reform? Absolutely. Because since its inception, Social Security has always been known to have a big problem eventually. And we're there now.
Abe Baldonado:They've always talked about that when the boomer generation retires, Social Security is going to be a problem and we're there now. And they understand that. And for younger folks who are paying into that system like myself who has paid into it, I don't know if it's going to be there when I get of retirement age. I don't know. But should we reform it to ensure that those investments are there for us?
Abe Baldonado:Absolutely. But should we say that when people want to reform things that it's necessarily bad? No. But because in New Mexico, we've been taught we've always done it this way. We're scared of change.
Abe Baldonado:And I just want to express we need to stop being afraid of change. We need to embrace it. Because change hasn't gotten us anywhere because we haven't changed. Sixty four years of Democrat trifectas. That shows you that, hey, we're comfortable here because we're not sure.
Abe Baldonado:But maybe it's worth a conversation worth having.
Abe Baldonado:We need to talk about it. We
Abe Baldonado:need to address crime. You know, recently, another poll came out that New Mexico is the most stressed state. Makes sense. Education is poor right now. We have folks living in poverty.
Abe Baldonado:We have folks afraid to walk the streets. We have very high drug problems, fentanyl use. But again, I think this all goes back to the we believe government is the fix. And clearly we can't rely on that because each year they come back for a legislative session and they do the bare minimum. And they want you to applaud them for it.
Abe Baldonado:And that's not okay. That's not okay to you as a taxpayer, as a community member in New Mexico. That's not okay. And I can assure you you're not alone in feeling that way.
Abe Baldonado:But when eighty percent of our kids can't read and our literacy rates are down, it's easy to take advantage of a population. You know, they've always said you keep people poor, you keep them uneducated, you control them. And that's not okay. That's not who we are. We believe in the American dream.
Abe Baldonado:We believe in prosperity. We believe in merit. Let's get back to that because we haven't had that in New Mexico in a long time. And let's not be afraid to share our values. I'm here today sharing my values with you and my thoughts on these particular issues.
Abe Baldonado:But I have faith. I have the faith in our future. I believe we can institute accountability. And I believe you, as New Mexicans, can shape that change. And I know a lot of times you're maybe weary of speaking your thoughts and your beliefs, but it's okay.
Abe Baldonado:And I encourage you as we go into this next election cycle,
Abe Baldonado:do your research. Do a lot of fact checking.
Abe Baldonado:Because I could assure you that a Deb Haaland or a Sam Brigman, you're going to get the same old same. Talking points are a little bit different. You throw on a cowboy hat or, you know, you're Deb Haaland and you say you're a
Abe Baldonado:moderate now all of a sudden. No. Stop lying to New Mexicans.
Abe Baldonado:Find out where they stand on the issues because you'll find out once they're elected. And guess what? There's no turning back at that point. And we learned that from Michelle Lujan Grisham's election. Right?
Abe Baldonado:We saw during COVID. What happened? You had to stay at home, but it was okay for her to go out shopping. It was okay to give her staff, her executive level staff, a 17% increase. I'm a former state employee.
Abe Baldonado:State employees, no one's looking out for you. You don't have representation in the legislature, but trial lawyers do, teachers do. But state employees, you don't have a voice. You get your 2% raise each year and they expect you to be happy with it. But the governor can give her staff and her executive level employees, her secretaries, deputy secretaries, seventeen percent increases during COVID.
Abe Baldonado:And if you don't believe me, there are stories that you can go check, and I can speak to it because I worked for state government at that time. It's a slap in the face to New Mexicans, the people who are doing the real work, the people trying to take care of their families. But they tell you the retirement's good. Right? State retirement's good.
Abe Baldonado:We'll pay you very low, but you get a good retirement. Yeah. It is a good retirement.
Abe Baldonado:But it's not fair that higher level staff get massive increases, but you don't. And I think
Abe Baldonado:you need to start questioning that. You need to start looking at that. And I know many people have seen it, but when you vote for the same old people, it's what you get.
Abe Baldonado:So now what? Well, now we work together. Now we have conversations.
Abe Baldonado:Now we do our research. Now we make sure that whoever we elect next will lead New Mexico to prosperity that has New Mexico's best interest at hand.
Abe Baldonado:That's what we need to do, and we need to have conversations. And
Abe Baldonado:I can guarantee that many folks will not agree with me right now, and that's okay. I love you all. I love my friends and family that are on a different spectrum than me because those are the most engaging conversations I have. I prefer to talk to someone who thinks differently than me. And I think we need to have those conversations and we need to have those conversations and that dialogue in a healthy way.
Abe Baldonado:Because I don't agree with you doesn't mean I don't like you. I just hope that we can maybe agree to disagree or, you know what, realize that we're more alike than we are different.
Abe Baldonado:And we really are. I can guarantee you education, we want our kids to read, right?
Abe Baldonado:We want them to thrive.
Abe Baldonado:We want them to be successful. We agree on that, right? How do we get there? Well, we might disagree on that, but let's have a conversation. We want to see our state thrive, right?
Abe Baldonado:We don't
Abe Baldonado:want to see people in poverty. We don't want to see homeless people just being thrown at a tent and expecting it to solve all the
Abe Baldonado:issues. Right? Okay. Well, what do
Abe Baldonado:we do about it? We may disagree, but what do we do about it? Let's have those conversations. Let's identify solutions. Unfortunately, today we don't hear solutions.
Abe Baldonado:We hear loyalties or, you know, we've always done it this way or this person, the Pateron system.
Abe Baldonado:We can't do that anymore. We just can't. It hasn't gotten us anywhere.
Abe Baldonado:So I urge you as we go into an election season coming up in 2026, let's do our research, let's have conversations, and let's also fact check and let's call out the folks that are running for these leadership positions. Let's call them on their previous stances. We have to call them out. And we should be frustrated when people change their tune just to accommodate voters.
Abe Baldonado:That to me tells me you don't have a backbone. You don't have a strong belief system. Because what I believe, I believe. And I'm not going
Abe Baldonado:to change my mind just to accommodate people to vote for me or like me. I'd rather be stuck in my convictions than accommodate what's cool or what's the right thing to say to get people to vote for me. And so I urge all of
Abe Baldonado:you to, you know, let's start looking at this. Feel free to reach out to me. Have a conversation. Let's talk. Let's see past the smoke and mirrors.
Abe Baldonado:Let's see past that. Because a lot
Abe Baldonado:of times folks are going
Abe Baldonado:to tell you, hey, this is who I am. This is what I'm running for. Okay. But what did you do before that? What have you said before that?
Abe Baldonado:Accountability, folks. It's all about accountability, and we need it at all levels. Now more than ever. From local elections to statewide elections, even to national elections. And the graphic I showed you earlier just shows statewide trifectas.
Abe Baldonado:That doesn't even show you that right now, it's actually Democrats control even Congress and New Mexico, our congressional seats. And do you feel represented? Do you feel like you see a difference from their policies? Probably not. And so we just have to do better in New Mexico.
Abe Baldonado:We really do. I'm frustrated, but we need to get involved. We need to have conversations. And that's why I'm talking to you today. That's why I'm having a solo podcast just to address all these things that we're seeing, but also share with you all that there's some facts out there that need to be really called out.
Abe Baldonado:And so I urge all of you to get involved, go vote. I know that, you know, when I was teaching, a lot of students told me they didn't believe their vote matters. And I said, actually it does. And I don't care how you vote, just as
Abe Baldonado:long as you go vote. It's all that matters.
Abe Baldonado:It's our civic right. It's our civic duty. Let's do it. And so with that, y'all, I want to thank you. Thank you for hearing me today.
Abe Baldonado:I hope you leave here encouraged. I didn't mean to go in a dark path, but there are severe problems that New Mexico is dealing with. And unfortunately, there's a group of people that are not addressing them and they've had every chance to. And that's just an honest just evaluation of things. And we need to do better.
Abe Baldonado:So thank you all for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and we'll see you next time. And I'm excited about our next guest, and we'll talk a little bit more about the gubernatorial election and where things are. Subscribe to the Chile Wire if you haven't already, and we'll see you next time.