New Mexico’s Rookie Governor Runs Headlong Into Controversy

Since his election a year ago, New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson has hardly stopped running.

So far, he’s competed in two marathons and more than 30 shorter races.

He has also bicycled 500 miles across the state and leaped off a 10,000-foot mountain peak on a hang glider.

But in carrying out his duties as governor, Johnson says, he’s still warming up.

“I am surprised sometimes to find out the power that I do have,” says Johnson, 42, a Republican elected in his first bid for elective office.

That hasn’t stopped Johnson from flexing his executive muscles and drawing howls of protest from Democrats, as well as some Republicans.

Johnson has:

Vetoed a record 200 bills, nearly half of all passed by the Democratic-controlled Legislature during the 1995 session.

Cut nearly $50 million in spending.

Signed gambling compacts with 14 Indian tribes to allow Las Vegas-style casinos on tribal lands, only to have the agreements nullified five months later by the state Supreme Court.

Blamed politics for influencing the court’s gambling ruling and said the justices use a “chicken bone thing” to make decisions: “They put a bunch of chicken bones in the microwave and take them out and … there’s a certain thing they need to do as the result of the way the bones lie.”

Landed in court again by ordering 2.5 percent reductions in the monthly budget allocations to most state agencies. District attorneys sued, contending only the Legislature can cut the budget. A decision by the Supreme Court is pending.

Johnson’s critics not only disagree with his conservative, cut-government philosophy but also criticize the governor’s style.

“This guy is a real penny-ante, nickel-and-dime politician claiming to be completely the opposite. He is the worst I’ve ever seen in terms of cooperation,” said Senate President Pro Tem Manny Aragon, an Albuquerque Democrat.

But most New Mexicans support the governor so far. An opinion poll by the Albuquerque Journal in September found that 53 percent of those surveyed approved of Johnson’s job performance, with 30 percent saying they disapproved.

“What’s carried him so far is the same factor that got him elected. He stands for anti-politics, anti-government and anti-politicians,” says F. Chris Garcia, a political science professor.

Johnson, an Albuquerque construction company owner, brought no political or governmental experience to the job he took over Jan. 1. A member of Ross Perot’s United We Stand America, he was little known in GOP circles.

He says the label “political outsider” still defines his approach.

“You don’t elect somebody who’s never been involved in politics and expect business as usual,” Johnson said.