Richardson’s Savvy Moves Keeping Him Out of the Courthouse

By Emily Esterson, 4-16-07

Okay, so Bill Richardson may have convinced the North Koreans to shutter their nuke operations but one of Richardson’s biggest political accomplishment to date could be the off-loading of former state senator Manny Aragon from state government. Aragon, who is under investigation for allegedly getting kickbacks in the building of the Metropolitan Court building in Downtown Albuquerque, lorded over the Legislature for three decades (many of which he served as Senate President Pro Tem) before Richardson placed some friends on the board of regents for New Mexico Highlands University; the regents selected Aragon as president of the beleaguered and broke school in the north, despite the faculty senate’s recommendation of another candidate. Could Richardson know he needed Aragon out of the way to accomplish his ambitious agenda for the state, which he could then tout to the nation as campaign fodder? As president of NMHU, Aragon began a slow political implosion, when the school fired and/or denied tenure to several white faculty members, Aragon was ousted (the school settled the discrimination lawsuit) and now he’s allegedly deep in the Metro Court corruption case.  Writes the Albuquerque Tribune in a recent story about the governor returning campaign contributions from the indictees:

The governor did sign legislation into law in 2003 to allocate $3.9 million to help pay for cost overruns on the [Metro Court] building and he signed a measure in 2004 that extended the time previously appropriated money could be spent on the project.The 2003 bill was sponsored by then-Senate Majority Leader Manny Aragon, who authorities say received $700,000 in payoffs as part of a conspiracy with others to inflate construction contracts on the courthouse. Aragon was charged with 14 counts of conspiracy, mail fraud and money laundering. He has not publicly commented since the indictment was announced Thursday and has yet to make an initial appearance in federal court.

Meanwhile, Richardson’s doing his darndest to position himself as an international statesmen, and legitimately, at that. In addition to his trip to North Korea, Richardson hosted a luncheon in Santa Fe for Chinese Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong, who was visiting the state as part of his tour of the U.S. Richardson invited some business and political leaders to the luncheon.

From a fundraising perspective, In the race for dollars, Richardson still stands in fourth place, after Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards in that order. Richardson has $6.2 million, with $5 million in cash-on-hand for the nomination, nearly equal to the Republican from Arizona, “the other western candidate” John McCain. Although he may not have as much money as the others, Richardson seems to be neck and neck with Edwards on the bloggers’ “most like to hang out with “ candidate contest.  Last week we wrote about the Boston blogger who voted Richardson the candidate he’d most like to have a beer with. This week, we have a blogger saying that if you have to be trapped in an underground (albeit very plush) storm shelter in Virginia with 25 republicans and a presidential candidate, Richardson’s your man.

Criss-crossing the coasts, Richardson’s headed to California, where he’s campaigning later in the month. In fact, Richardson’s appearing in Hollywood, where he’ll participate in a fund-raiser hosted in Lucy’s El Adobe Caf across from Paramount Studios, where the photo of the New Mexico governor joins many of the entertainment industry’s greats. In addition to Hollywood types, In California, which has 55 Electoral College votes, about one in every three residents is Latino - a total of 14 million people, according to the Public Policy Institute, and 60 percent of Hispanics are Democrats.